INTRO

Here we have a simple guide to changing the housing for your w350, and there are plenty of pictures I guarantee it. After searching for a while I came across only one guide on the net that tells you how to remove your w350 housing, and it wasn't too in depth, so I made sure to document the process when I got my housing.

The thing about the w350 is it's really simple, but it has a lot of little tricky parts, particularly the mid section - the line - which is made up of 4 very thin pieces of plastic.

I'll show you step by step what to do and how to do it without breaking your old housing, destroying your new housing, or breaking your phone.

BUYING

You can get housing from a lot of different places, but the biggest problem with it is quality. There are a lot of websites out there you can buy it from if you just search google but most of these aren't authentic SE housing. Most of these are cheap knock-offs. Now this isn't a huge problem but the knock-offs aren't designed as well as SE does. So your best bet is to get authentic SE housing off of an SE phone - but that's somewhat easier said than done.

There are two great sources for authentic SE housing. The first is from people like me - who've bought new housing, and now have old housing they don't want sitting around - there's a decent chance you can find a few of them. But the much BETTER alternative is to buy a dummy phone - the display models they use in stores.

The best place for this is ebay. If you just search for your housing and the colour you'll get tons of matches. If you're looking to avoid knock-offs, don't buy them from the big sellers from Hong Kong. Even search "w350 dummy" and you'll probably get a few. This will also reduce your chances of having your order screwed up, which happens quite often with so many little parts for tons of models of phones.

This bit of info is from personal experience. I've had problems every time I've tried knock offs. My old W580i first didn't come with the little plastic piece that covers the mic at the bottom, and the plastic snaps that held the face on... snapped. I then received that mic cover 3 weeks later, and turned out it was for the s500i, and didn't line up right with the face. That phone's in the trash now anyways, but for my w350 (you'll see this in the pictures) I received ORANGE trim instead of black, and the playback keys are black and orange.

So just avoid the hassle.

TOOLS

What you're going to need:

TORX 5 SCREWDRIVER
PHILLIPS 0 SCREWDRIVER
Some sort of a plastic wedge - a guitar pick will do
Paper clip
precise xacto knife

TAKING IT APART

1) First thing's first - take off the back cover. Take out your battery. Take out your SIM card. Take out your memory stick. There are two screws here. One at the top right corner of the SIM insert, one at the top left corner of the M2 instert. Use your PHILLIPS 0 screwdriver to remove them.


2) Open the flip. Take your wedge and stick it in between the bottom rounded bit of the phone, and the right side of the flip. Push the flip outwards and the right side will come off. The left side will follow.


3) Using your xacto knife pull off the black sticker that says "Sony Ericsson" above your screen. Behind that sticker in both corner are two TORX 5 screws. Use your TORX 5 screwdriver to remove them.


4) We're ready to remove the back piece now. Using your plastic wedge, pry the back piece off. I started from the top because as soon as I took out the screws there was a noticeable gap there. The best technique I find is to put the wedge UNDERNEATH the piece you're removing, and lift it off the phone. This will clear any snaps holding it in place, and won't break them. Work your way from one end to the other.


5) We have now uncovered two more screws on the back - these are the last two screws - one is at the bottom right of the SIM insert, one is at the bottom left of the M2 insert. Use your TORX 5 to remove these screws.


6) Now remove the mid-section. The Walkman button and the volume buttons just come right out. The Keylock stays in for now. Everything else comes out with your plastic wedge. Place the wedge in between the middle piece and the front piece, wedge your plastic wedge UNDER the middle piece, and once again lift from the phone. Don't apply too much pressure, there are a lot of little snaps here, applying more pressure at one point will just break the piece. Go along the whole edge to remove each piece - especially on the sides where the pieces are longer. The corners should come out easily.

CONTINUED IN NEXT POST