The tech community is fond of the expression 'eat your own dog food' meaning whoever writes a program or designs a product should test if first before they release it.

This must not have been the case with the person who designed the battery slot on HTC Inspire 4 G.

After a family member dropped my tired Blackberry Curve in the soup a couple weeks ago, I've been looking for a replacement.

I had pretty much made up my mind to go with the Samsung Captivate but the starting at 0.01 offer on Amazon Wireless ended up being very attractive only to new customers.

I went back to the drawing board to see what Upgrade Options my wireless carrier (ATT) was offering and noticed the HTC Inspire 4 G...Free with a 2 year contract...

Reviews including One by Bonnie Cha for CNET (February 4) were quite good.

2 drawbacks mentioned in all reviews were the size and weight of the phone (balanced by great real estate, screen wize) and the battery slot door issue...

I received my phone this morning.

They were not kidding regarding the battery door. I tried to opening it by pushing gently with my nail, to no avail.

Rather than break something, I went looking for advice online.

Some suggested a coin, no luck.

I looked further into it and found this Best way to open battery door on HTC Community Android Forum.

Suggestion was to 'pry open door from behind volume control. I had to use a small flat screwdriver for that. It worked. Plastic cover flexes a bit so it helps.

Who knew you needed your toolbox nearby to power your phone?

My humble suggestions to HTC team:

Come up with a user friendly design for the door and if you want to kiss and make up with those like me who had to struggle with this issue, maybe you can make a replacement piece available (at no cost, via ATT) to people who already purchased the HTC Inspire 4 G. Alternative would be to ship phone with a 'special' tool that does the trick.

Looking for more detailed instructions on how to deal with this headache (you won't find them in the user guide) check play by play guide Meet the HTC Inspire 4G Double Back Cover System by Jason Hidalgo (About.com).

At least it comes with Android 2.2 (Froyo) so you don't have to start by upgrading the Operating System.

Is it why they call these Smart Phones?

(* HTC Inspire image from HTC product pages)