It’s all coming soon. The wireless upgrade comes first followed by the T1 review. I like being thorough and want to make sure I cover all the angles.

Ok, back to work for me!  :D

I read that someone opened up a TR1 and that the case was plastic with metal flakes.

I thought that that sounds like magnesium as magnesium tends to resemble plastic and I don’t see why they would but metal flakes in plastic (what use could there be?)

So I did a little test with an Ohm meter. I scaped a tiny bit of the case in the battery compartment to get a contact. It’s metal (no resistance).

It’s odd as magnesium always stumps me as it’s not cold for some reason (feels just like plastic)

Just thought I’d clear that up. The top must be also be metal and the metal case extends all over the bottom.

I don’t know what the conductive material does to the WiFI but i’d just rather have magnesium that plastic.

Also, the tr1 is very sturdy and doesn’t flex at all when I grab it in any position.

I bought a Dell D800 and it was advertised all over the place as having a ‘trimetal’ case.

The case is plastic with a metal LCD cover. Now I like Dell’s stuff and I imagine this is an oversite, but I KNOW it bugs a whole lot of people.

Triplastic. (oh yes! i fogot, there’s a metal frame somehere in side)

You buy a Dell and it’s likely not to be the smoothest of rides. Fortunatly, they have great support (in spite of what anyone says)  the total warranty is just that-total.

I digress.

P.S. must I be an Embryo? I want to evolve quikely into a fetus if that’s possible.

mac2- the top of the LCD and the bottom of the computer are indeed magnesium alloy, but the LCD bezel and palm rest parts seem to be plastic. The internal Bluetooth and 802.11b range doesn’t seem to be affected by the metal, as there are plastic parts that the signal can travel through. On the PowerBook G4, when they switched to titanium metal for the entire case, 802.11b reception dropped by half, so naturally I was worried that the TR2 would also have bad range. Luckily, that hasn’t been the case.

Yes, it’s finally done (i think) but I have posted my experience with the wireless upgrade. You can find the article at:

http://www.siliconpopculture.com/reviews_comments/37_0_2_0_C/

For those withouth an integrated bluetooth tr1 this card may interest you ( seller homepage ). It’s a bluetooth/wifi combo card - not yet available but looks like it could be a good solution for integrated bluetooth using the minipci replacment instuctions given above…

—
drbob

cellery how is your bluetooth mod going?  Have you actually soldered a USB adapter inside the TR?  Can you post pics and tell us what to solder where on the motherboard?  Which adapter did you use.

I just received my wifi mini PCI card and figured while I was inside the TR I would do the bluetooth mod as well.

Please share.

[quote author=“SpineDOc”]cellery how is your bluetooth mod going?  Have you actually soldered a USB adapter inside the TR?  Can you post pics and tell us what to solder where on the motherboard?  Which adapter did you use.

I just received my wifi mini PCI card and figured while I was inside the TR I would do the bluetooth mod as well.

Please share.

As I posted on the first page of this thread, I did it and got it to work, but didn’t want to have the Bluetooth always on draining the battery and the loss of the right USB port. Basically the pictures of the PowerBook I posted that I based my mod off of look the same as what I did with the TR. It’s not a difficult mod, but the tradeoffs aren’t worth it to me. I’ll wait for the BT daughtercard or a Mini PCI card to become available before I do internal Bluetooth. OTOH, I may just get a 3Com PCMCIA BT card and save some hassle.

Yeah, I agree, it is sort of a hassle right now. And the benefits that it might give one don’t seem worth it right now. I think the bigger problem than actually installing Bluetooth internally (whether it’s the fabled daughtercard or a USB dongle soldered-on) is the Bluetooth products themselves. There’s no consistent standard and everyone here seems to have different Bluetooth needs. By right, Microsoft should have a standard Bluetooth interface (which they sort of do…but it sucks) and all products should work with it. There should be a standard set of icons to represent what services a product provides so we consumers can determine whether a product meets our needs. I like how Bluespace NE’s interface shows little icons about what it supports in common with a given Bluetooth hardware. Of course, Sony themselves need to beef up their support.

Most of the time, I only use my Bluetooth dongle when I’m at home and want a wireless mouse (and soon keyboard) to use. I may also sync my phone when I’m at home too. I rarely do it on the road. I also don’t normally use my phone for dial-up Bluetooth services since I have a wireless modem (Sierra Wireless AirCard 750) installed.

So, while I continue to research possiblities, it isn’t too high on my list of things to do since I basically have everything working.

Thanks guys for getting your hands dirty.  I broke down and ordered the TDK PC card plus, has a nice range and has a full audio gateway support.  I plan on using my TR as a phone thru this.  It also comes with the newest widcomm software, and googling reviews TDK seems to come out as one of the best for software.  I considered the 3com card, due to its retracting antenna, but read a lot of bad reviews about the software.

In the end I will have something sticking out of my TR, but it’s not that bad.  I did see some references to BT daughterboards in my Googling, but did not investigate further.

You know, after reading thru posts again (waiting for the fiancee to get ready for dinner) I remember someone posting a BT card from ebay. 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3076651637&category=44999

Looking at this card the connector on the bottom picture, all the way to the left, sure looks like the empty connector I saw under the HD in the TR.  I am the last person here that would recognize anything electronically so could be, and probably am wrong.  But you never know.

I just examined my photos and see a similar slot. There’s a few problems.

1. They’re both female.
2. The pins don’t match up numerically. If you were to plug in this toshiba card according to the numbers then the card would be sticking outside the TR.
3. It doesn’t look like this card would clear the USB port as it’s not high enough.

So, it should look something like that…but I don’t think this one will work. Again, if our Japanese or UK owners could be kind enough, could you guys take some photos of your TR1MPs or Japanese TR1 or TR2s and show us a photo of the Bluetooth unit? Of course, you guys don’t really have any reason to open your systems…unless you UK folks want to upgrade your wireless. However, if you do…please share with us.

Many thanks. 

[quote author=“gr00vy0ne”]1. They’re both female.
2. The pins don’t match up numerically. If you were to plug in this toshiba card according to the numbers then the card would be sticking outside the TR.
3. It doesn’t look like this card would clear the USB port as it’s not high enough.

Those are the only problems you came up with? I thought this was going to be difficult

Erik