Tricked Out
Can "Dummy Phone" keypads be installed on a real phone?
Although i posted the same basic question on the Samsung Alias/SCH-U740 forum to reach those most familiar with this specific phone, i'll also post here hoping to find some hackers who may know about this subject in general:
I often see "dummy phones" - the non-working and thus theft-deterrent samples used as in-store displays - for sale at online auctions for $5 or thereabouts. These use the shell from a real phone to show potential customers how the phone looks and feels, but have fake screen images to show what it would look like if it were a real phone with real service, and don't have a battery or likely any electronics in them. Which gets me wondering whether I can take apart my real Samsung SCH-U740 phone, remove the keycaps, and install the key buttons from a fake SCH-U740 Alias, the newer version of the same phone.
The reason I'd want to do this is because I much prefer recently redesigned keys, which better distinguish the 12 keys used for voice dialing without making the letters hard to read when turned sideways for QWERTY texting. Note the difference in these pictures:
New key design (letters & numbers easy to read in both directions):
http://www.slashphone.com/media/data/796/samsung-ali ... »
Old key design (letters & numbers hard to read in either direction):
http://www.bigberries.com/images/digital/2007/feb/bb ... »
Does this look like a possible easy swap, or at least a possible difficult swap, or are the keyboards on dummy phones completely unusable on a real phone? Anyone here seen either taken apart?
And while on the subject, are all SCH-U740's with the old keypad either black or gold/champagne and all that have the new keypad silver/gray, or did the color change and redesigned keyboard occur at different times?
Thx, Lee
I often see "dummy phones" - the non-working and thus theft-deterrent samples used as in-store displays - for sale at online auctions for $5 or thereabouts. These use the shell from a real phone to show potential customers how the phone looks and feels, but have fake screen images to show what it would look like if it were a real phone with real service, and don't have a battery or likely any electronics in them. Which gets me wondering whether I can take apart my real Samsung SCH-U740 phone, remove the keycaps, and install the key buttons from a fake SCH-U740 Alias, the newer version of the same phone.
The reason I'd want to do this is because I much prefer recently redesigned keys, which better distinguish the 12 keys used for voice dialing without making the letters hard to read when turned sideways for QWERTY texting. Note the difference in these pictures:
New key design (letters & numbers easy to read in both directions):
http://www.slashphone.com/media/data/796/samsung-ali ... »
Old key design (letters & numbers hard to read in either direction):
http://www.bigberries.com/images/digital/2007/feb/bb ... »
Does this look like a possible easy swap, or at least a possible difficult swap, or are the keyboards on dummy phones completely unusable on a real phone? Anyone here seen either taken apart?
And while on the subject, are all SCH-U740's with the old keypad either black or gold/champagne and all that have the new keypad silver/gray, or did the color change and redesigned keyboard occur at different times?
Thx, Lee
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I can't speak specifically to the Alias, but it is doable on other phones. The rubber key pad they use is the same as in the real phones.
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all the silver ones have the new keypad and the black/gold ones, the old keypad
the color change and keypad change went with the name change (u740 to Alias)
the color change and keypad change went with the name change (u740 to Alias)
...
