In something of a guest post, James Murray tells of perhaps the ugliest hardware hack I've seen for a while - yet one which obviously fulfills a need, one which Nokia should have perhaps considered when designing the Lumia 1020 in the first place?

Over to James:

I moved from a Nokia 808 to a Lumia 1020 a couple of months ago. Partly driven by the denigration of Symbian services, partly due to the O2 refresh + cashback bargain price and partly due to the Developer Preview of Windows Phone 8.1 being available.

One of the missing features from the 1020, in my view, is built-in wireless charging, and I don't like having a case on my phone due to the extra bulk/weight.

So, I got myself the official CC-3066 wireless charging shell, took it apart, removed the wireless charging coil and attached it to the back of my 1020. I used sugru to attach the coil and contacts - as shown here.

Yes, it looks a bit ugly (the photos make it look like I have used black chewing-gum, but it doesn't look that bad in person), but:

1. I don't care what it looks like. I made a conscious decision to keep some of the coil exposed as I liked the effect. It may also help with charging efficiency a little.
     
2. I don't care what other people think it looks like. You don't see it when the phone is on a desk, screen up, or in my hand. It is visible (to others) when I take photos though.
     
3. the sugru stops the phone from rocking about when typing on screen with the phone on a flat surface - something which really annoyed me on the 808 and 1020.
    
4. the sugru/coil actually improves the grip of the phone, so it is less likely to be dropped.

One thing I did find necessary, through my proof of concept testing, was a need to pack under the coil to raise it up a couple of millimetres. If the coil was flat on the back of the phone, it wasn't quite close enough to the charging pad, due to the 1020's camera hump, to deliver a charge.

I'm not sure how cleanly the sugru will come off, which would perhaps discourage other people from doing the same thing, but my phones tend to be handed down to family rather than sold, so it probably doesn't matter long term.

Good hacking fun, anyway!

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Indeed. Thanks, James.

I find that I often use the Lumia 1020 in the CC-3066 shell, for convenience around the office, and resent the extra bulk and awkwardness of the corner clips every single time. Not that this hardware hack is any prettier, mind you! With hindsight, I think Nokia's designers should have opted to make the main body of the 1020 around 2mm thicker, which would have enabled:

• the inclusion of Qi charging out of the box
• (possibly) a slightly thicker battery as well, with increased capacity
• the camera 'hump' would have protruded less from the back, to roughly just the depth of the black metal section.

For the old timers in here, think of the difference from the original Nokia N95 (late 2006) to the N95 8GB (2007) - a filling out of the form factor in order to gain real functionality.

Comments? Anyone else tried anything like this? And what do you think of my 'hindsight' suggestion?