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I'm curious if I'm on the same page as everyone else, or if I have it all wrong. I'm new at this, so please bear with me.

I would put this board at Low Grade Telcomm as it is.

The two transformers and Mosfet with attached aluminum heatsink (marked in green) I expect are the biggest detractors. Is there anything else that could be done to push this board up to Telcom high? or is the chip density not quite there?

Also, the two marked chips are socketed in some of the boards. How would removing these chips sway the board rating?

No visible gold on this board

Back side is empty as pictured

Are there any other points of interest that I should consider in handling these?

Thanks in advance for your input, even if you feel I have it flat out wrong. I'm hear to learn, one way or another!

I'm leaning high peripheral as is and don't know that removing anything would change it.

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Here to learn more so I can recycle more
My grades are my own opinion and not an official grade from Boardsort

I received final word, boardsort rated the boards at peripheral low. I shot an email off to Chris to find out what it would take to push them to high peripheral, but he hasn't got back to me yet.

I hedged a bit in saying high so thanks for the update on being low.

The switches (dial/slider) might add some value so I wouldn't remove those and removing the heatsink and transformers may or may not be enough to push it up. Feel free to share if Chris gets back with additional info.

_________________
Here to learn more so I can recycle more
My grades are my own opinion and not an official grade from Boardsort

Okay, just got final word back on these.

Chris highlighted a combination of No visible gold and chip density too low, so even cleaned they will never rise above Peripheral Low grade.

Also, in regards to pulling the two socketed chips, the official response is, and always will be "Removal of chips can risk the board being downgraded."

That makes sense.

I honestly still have no idea which ICs are socketed, they all look like they're soldered

_________________
Here to learn more so I can recycle more
My grades are my own opinion and not an official grade from Boardsort

They are in this example. You are correct, the chips in the original photo are soldered. I think in this instance, it's a case of a hardware revision, where a later revision had them soldered and older revisions had them socketed.

*Edit: The extended length of the board isn't relevant to it, it just happens to be a physically larger variant of the same model phone. Extended, with more buttons essentially.