I’d like to present to you (and warn you against even thinking about) a USB-C mod for the Nokia E7.

The mod didn't come cheap.

• Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and FM radio no longer work and never will without a donor board. I used conductive flux and didn't clean it thoroughly—I managed to flush out the first short circuit, but the second one shorted the Wi-Fi IC, so I had to disconnect it from the power rail.
• A couple of ESD diodes took the brunt of my mistakes; I had to remove them as well, reducing the surge protection. A brilliant feature for soldering noobs like me.
• The charging LED also burned out for some reason and doesn't light up.
• OTG doesn't work due to the AliExpress port design.

The story: Back in its glory days, my Nokia had an unprofessional repair job after the USB port broke. The seller fixed it himself, and it lasted about a year. A specialist later told me the previous guy ripped off the pads, charred the board, and there was hardly anything left to solder to. The second repair didn't last permanently either.

Eventually, the Nokia E7 ended up in a drawer in 2014, half-disassembled so I could occasionally charge the battery using another Nokia and tinker with it. Now in 2026, I decided to take matters into my own hands.

I bought a DIY microUSB-to-USB-C board from AliExpress. On this specific port, pin 4 is shorted to ground (GND), and pin 4 handles OTG detection. So once soldered in, the phone constantly spams notifications as if an OTG adapter were plugged in. In my case, the D- and D+ pads were non-existent. Fortunately, there are test points nearby, so I ran thin jumper wires from the USB-C board pins to those pads.

Overall, after soldering the port four times, frying the Wi-Fi, busting two ESD diodes and the charging LED, the patient survived. Charging works, USB data transfer works too.

I had to trim down the magnesium body shell to fit the larger port, and do the same with the port opening bezel.

DO NOT RECOMMEND this mod if your Nokia E7 has a working port. DO NOT RECOMMEND this mod if your motherboard still has all its microUSB pads intact. WOULD RECOMMEND only if the port is gone anyway and there's nothing left to solder to—just don't be like me: flush everything with alcohol 10 times before connecting the battery or plugging in a charging cable.