EEVblog #514 - $5 Mobile Phone Teardown - LG800G

What's inside a modern bare bones $5 mobile phone?
The LG800G available from Tracphone for $5:

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[satadorus]

What you call a FULL SIZE SIM card is already a MINI SIM CARD.
Early 1994 I had a phone with a full size card.
It is as big as a credit card!

Nice videos! 

[kev]

beautiful precision from centimeters scale case to mm scale board to micron rf chip to nm soc

[int]

I have an updated version of this phone, the LG 848G. The thing went through the washer machine and came out sparkling! And after a few days of drying out it powered up and worked! Now that is one tough phone!

[holgerhartenstein]

Thanks for adding the Data-Scheets at Mobile Phone Teardown.

[AlexOjideagu]

Ironically in 1990 this technology would be worth about £50, 000. The ARM CPU alone was light years ahead of commercial processors at that time Let alone the memory.

[burtburtist]

a 5 dollar phone has an sd card slot
my 200 dollar phone doesn't.

Why have you forsaken me technology gods?

[JakeEnns]

You can put a micro sim in a full size sim slot, I have done it often, you just have to slide it over the contacts correctly, that lets you examine the operating system.

[EEVblog]

Cool, thanks. international shipping gets real expensive real quick based on weight.

[EEVblog]

This is the very last time I will respond to your comments. You have made your feedback very clear on many videos. You are now NOT helping with the same negative feedback on every video you happen not to like. You've had your say many times now, I've heard you, now it's just getting really annoying for me and everyone. Imagine if EVERYONE left negative feedback on EVERY video they don't like, I'd have to shut down the comments, or just quit this business. So give it a break, ok?

[deeperlayer]

7:30 that's not for the backlight, that's for the touchscreen digitizer

[nullwii]

the reason these are so cheap:
they sell them at a loss with the intention of selling you service

[jbaumgarte]

Love listening to you go on -- cracks me up sometimes. Put's me to sleep sometimes too.

[LightTheUnicorn]

I recently brought a Samsung E1270 flip phone - No camera, no bluetooth, not even an SD slot, browser or music player. Does have a colour display though, and extremely satisfying to end a call with.

Cost me just £2.99 delivered, with £4 mobile credit no less! I can remember when even that spec would have been many, many times that price. Crazy how cheap basic phones are.

[Quietprofessional]

Did you see the 208mHz rating for the cpu? Lightning fast;)

[morelenmir]

Absolutely fascinating as ever!!!

After not checking in with the channel for a while I just thought I would catch up. I have been glued to the screen with this and the air bag tear-down ever since!!!

Repairs and tear-downs are my favourite and I am trying to learn as much as I can from each video.

PLEASE keep them coming - your hard work is hugely appreciated and enjoyed.

[diete]

I actually tore down a cheap phone recently that was near the same specs as this one so I found this very interesting. Thank you for sharing your input and knowledge, I love all your videos, they've inspired me to start teaching myself electronics, also to take apart all my stuff and see how it was designed and how it works! Keep up the great work, can't wait for your next video!!!

[DJignyte]

Whoa give the guy a break, he spend's his free time to film, explain, edit, upload and respond all the time every week, and this is the thanks you give him?
How ungrateful! I'd imagine it wouldn't be easy to find heaps of stuff to film all the time and I'm not the type of person to expect it either.
When you don't expect it, it makes those really good video's seem extra special when they do come out, but you've got to be patient.
Besides, this vid was still good

[EEVblog]

I got my mum a Telstra EasyCall. It's just a phone (+FM radio). Has big huge usable buttons, and long battery life. It does one job, make calls, and does it well.

[LiquidPortalDigital]

When they refurbish these things its usually replacing the plastic housing, hard buttons and the rubber buttons and port covers. Sometimes they replace the battery as well but thats usually for the higher end models.

[tra]

I tore down an ATT picocell the other day and posted pictures in the forum on the "other equip" category. Interesting device and I was thinking I would send it in to Dave for his usual thorough board description. I will try to put it back together and ship it over. I think it would be interesting to see tear downs for things like automobile computers, an Apple TV, one of those new Mac Pro's, an old Marantz amp, disk drives, medical equipment, avionics and the like. Love the tear down!!