[michaelalanjones]

I dropped my BlackBerry Bold onto the concrete, and scratched up the bezel. It was fine, but I kept seeing the scuffs and did not like it. I am going to have this phone for two years, so I hate to look at those scuffs for two years. Plus, I want to get one of those brown crocodile back covers, and why get that, if all you can see is the darn scuffs?

I bought a new bezel from the CNN website that has BlackBerry parts, here:
BlackBerry Bold 9000 OEM bezel w/o side button- BenQ-Siemens, 3G, Accessories Store, Microsoft, Mobiado, Dopod/O2, Acer, Panason

I planned to take pictures of all the steps, but I am at work, and I just wanted to get it done, so I just did it. Sorry, no pictures

Preface: If you are not good with small items or tools and/or have limited eyesight, don’t attempt to do this procedure. There are a bunch of tiny little parts in there, and you don’t want to mess up your BlackBerry. Be careful and don’t try to this procedure in a hurry. For legal reasons, I am just saying that I am simply providing these instructions for amusement, and I will not be held responsible for any damage you do to any BlackBerry phones, while reading these instructions. Also, since I don’t use a charging stand, I don’t know, but I might have messed up the ability to use my phone in a charging stand, with this procedure.

1.Remove back cover.
2.Remove battery.
3.Use a Torx T6 screwdriver, to remove the six Torx screws. I know, it looks like there are only five screws, but there are six (one is hidden with white paint). Don’t use a Phillips screwdriver or a kitchen knife, or anything but the right screwdriver. These screws are little, and you can mess them up.
4.Gently wiggle the phone out of the bezel setting. On websites, it recommends using a flat plastic tool to do this, but I was very careful and wiggled the phone out.
5.When you get the phone separated, you will notice that there are eight items:
a.The main computer board
b.The keyboard
c.The bezel
d.The six Torx screws
e.The button set
f.The Micro SD card door
g.The back cover release latch
h.Two oval covers
6.Be careful and try not to lose the buttons. Basically, these are just little pieces of metalized plastic that fit into the slots on the bezel. They have little grey rubber pieces attached to them with little holes that match little posts on the inside of the bezel.
7.Take your new bezel, and insert the little buttons into the slots in the bezel. There are four of these. They might fall out after you put them in. That’s okay; you just need them to be in their correct places when you put the computer back into the case.
8.The Micro SD card door is a little difficult to remove – do not force it. It has two little legs with knees that fit in two little slots. I wiggled it gently, until it came out and then wiggled it into the new bezel.
9.Like the Micro SD card door, the back cover release latch is tricky, Wiggle it out gently, and don’t break off the legs. Just so you know, the place that sells new bezels also sells the bezel+buttons+covers in a different package, in case you break these tiny parts. Wiggle it back into the new bezel slots.
10.In the bottom of your Bold, there are two small oval holes, on either side. In these holes go two metal oval pieces. I think these are used to charge your Bold, in a charging stand. They are glued in place, and have little metal tabs on them. I think they are supposed to contact the phone and provide power to charge. Just so you know - I don’t use a charging stand. I am not sure if I could use a charging stand now, since I don’t know where those metal tabs were hooked into the BlackBerry. There might be a landing pad that contacts them, but who knows? Plus, now that I have the phone re-assembled, I am not going to disassemble it to find out. I pushed the oval pieces out of the old bezel and stuck them in the new bezel.
11.After you have the buttons and doors in the new bezel, gently put the keyboard into the new bezel. You will notice at this time that the bottom part (that says “AT&T”) is missing. Yeah, it is glued to the old bezel on the bottom. Just take a small flat screwdriver and gently pry the AT&T faceplate away from the old bezel, and pop it into the new bezel. It will click into place.
12.Now, put the rest of the computer board into place. Start with the headphone jack and USB connector, since they stick out the most. Once you get them in, the rest of the phone should wiggle snugly into the new bezel.
13.Notice the position of the screw holes. See, at the top, the screw holes need to be in front of the bezel’s matching screw holes, so that the screws can be screwed in from the back, through the bezel holes, into the computer board holes. Don’t tighten the screw holes really tight, just finger tight. This isn’t your spare tire! The screws don’t need to be so tight that you can never get them off again.
14.After you get the screws back on, put your battery back in.
15.Put the cover back on.
16.The phone should be restarting at this point. Try to use all of your buttons. If one of them doesn’t work, you might have not seated it correctly, which is possible, but not likely. Mine was just fine. If a button doesn’t work, then start at step 1 above, and repeat all steps.

Hope this helps you.

[Ritsuke]

Thanks for the guide. Always nice to see someone taking the effort of typing their experience up and helping others.

[AJCURVE]

thanks great guide

[mikadad]

what about the screens, especially the one on the bottom behind the rubber piece for the bottom latch, without that you will get horrible feedback when in speakerphone mode. I have swapped my bezel a couple of times now...i found all the gottchas

[michaelalanjones]

Well, there you go! See, the bezel did not come with any instructions, or really anything. Just a bezel in a bubble-bag. So there are some screens in there, I guess.

[jweinraub]

I should mention for you guys that you should wait a few minutes before opening it up after removing the battery. This way the capacitors have a chance to discharge fully since they can still be energized.

It is highly recommended you are grounded by wearing a wrist strap and/or discharging yourself before handling electronics. It doesn't take much to ruin it, and you need not see the static discharge for you to shock an electronic component.

In fact, your "invisible" static discharge may not affect your device immediately, but with more stress to the device by using it, can cause all sorts of problems.

And yes, I do work in the electronics industry.