Saturday 16 April 2011

KA08 Mini iPhone Clone Screen Disassembly

The catchily named KA08 is one of a family of Chinese Apple iPhone style cellphones. I bought this one almost two years ago, after my old Motorola forgot all my contact names, leaving a long list of meaningless phone numbers. I was in the market for something different and took a chance on the this cellphone on eBay; I didn't particularly want an iPhone clone - the KA08's main appeal over its siblings is its diminutive styling, being smaller than a credit or business card, and very thin at 1.2 centimetres.

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If you can live with the cryptically translated manual (tip: the 'spirit of the ancients' camera effect setting means sepia tone) the KA08 is a surprisingly well equipped package, being quad band, with a free 2gb memory card, simultaneous twin SIM slots, a spare battery, charger, USB cable, radio, earphones, and so on. You can even record your conversations, though I'm not sure as to the legality of that feature here in the UK.


Having tried a full size 'SciPhone' I can confirm the touch screen on the KA08 is also far more responsive than similar cellphones.  Over time this tough little phone has been dropped several times and still works as good as new. However, aside from the silver coloured bezel surround chipping, a lot of dust and dirt has gotten trapped under the screen. This is quite hard to photograph because of all the light reflections, the picture below shows the amount of dirt trapped behind the screen as well as I could photograph.

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A google search for a solution shows a lot of questions asking how to open these phones up to replace a cracked or broken screen, and, as far as I could find no answers. One promising youtube video turned out to demonstrate merely opening and closing the battery cover (!). I'm all for the adoption of new media, but as an expedient to access content, never as a substitute for it. At least the replacement screens are inexpensive.

The following posts show how to disassemble the KA08 for cleaning, and should help anyone wanting to replace their cracked touchscreen.

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