Having recently purchased a Motorola T193 cellular phone, I quickly identified one major problem with the phone's design. Removing the faceplate is a bitch!

First off, I'm not one for novelty faceplates. I dont want cow spots or flames on my phone. The reason I was trying to remove the faceplate is because there is a tendancy for pocket lint to get under the faceplate and stick to the back of the window over the display panel. This makes the phone look dirty and renders it nearly unreadable in bright sunlight. I wanted to take off the faceplate to clean it.

I tried several times to get the faceplate off. Everytime I pulled on it until it was at the point of breaking. So following my father's eternal advice "If you have to force it, you're probably doing it wrong" which has been forever burned into my mind after years of forcing and breaking things, I would stop and try to find how to "do it right". Web-searches yielded several comments from people saying that the phone was notoriously difficult to remove the faceplate from, But nobody seemed to have any instructions or advice.

The other day I sat down with the phone and a six pack of Rolling Rock and swore I would not sleep until the faceplate had been removed. Eventually I solved the puzzle, and here are my instructions for the benefit of the world. Or at least those owning a Motorola T193. Or, at least those who own a Motorola T193 and use e2.

First off there is a major red herring in the design. The little groove on the bottom edge of the phone that looks like it is obviously there for you to stick your thumbnail into and gently lift to remove the faceplate. Do not let this groove fool you.

You do start out with the groove though. Put you fingernail in the groove and gently lift up to unlatch the faceplate from the phone at the bottom. This will still leave a good 90% of the faceplate attached. Dont try to pull the faceplate off of the phone from the bottom. It will not work. At least it wouldnt work for me.

Once you have the bottom of the faceplate away from the phone, this should open a small space between the phone and the faceplate, of course, at the bottom of the phone.

Put the edge of a credit card, Kroger card, atm card, library card or some other hard plastic card in this groove and slide it toward the top of the phone. As the card slides up, it should wedge the rest of the faceplate away from the phone. Slide the card around the entire edge of the phone and loosen the entire faceplate in this manner.

Once the faceplate is standing a millimeter or so away from the phone, grasp the faceplate at the top of the phone and pull away in a direction perpendicular to the display screen. It will still take a good firm pull, but I have not been able to get the faceplate off by pulling at the bottom.

Once you get the faceplate off, you can see the weird-looking little tabs that hold the faceplate in place and it is a bit more obvious why it is so hard or impossible to remove the faceplate by pulling from the groove at the bottom.

Replacing the faceplate is simple, just line it up on the front of the phone and press it into place.

So there you are. Hope this helps someone out there.

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