Tag Archives: iFixit

Oct 30 2012

iFixit Posts Teardown of the Microsoft Surface

iFixit has posted a teardown of the new Microsoft Surface.

Notable tech specs:
● 10.6″ ClearType HD Display (resolution of 1366×768 pixels)
● Quad-core NVIDIA Tegra 3 processor
● 2 GB RAM
● 32 or 64 GB flash storage
● Wi-Fi (802.11a/b/g/n) + Bluetooth 4.0
● 720p HD Front and Rear facing LifeCams

Microsoft Surface Repairability: 4 out of 10 (10 is easiest to repair).
● Several components are modular and replaceable without requiring desoldering.
● You can remove the battery pretty easily—once you’ve suffered through the opening procedure.
● It’s pretty difficult to remove the rear panel and gain access to the device.
● It is impossible to remove the keyboard connector without first removing the display from the frame.
● LCD and glass are fused together and strongly adhered to the case, increasing cost of replacement.
● You’ll have to use a heat gun and lots of patience to gain access to the glass and LCD.

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Oct 27 2012

iFixit Posts Teardown of the New Mac Mini

iFixit has posted its teardown of the new Mac mini.

Along with the announcement of the iPad Mini on October 23rd (teardown coming soon; we promise) came the new and improved Mac Mini, the 2012 iteration of the optical-drive-less Mini from last year. With the current trend, we look forward to maybe one day tearing down a smaller version of the Mac Mini: the Mac Mini Mini. But until then, we content ourselves with tearing into the Mac Mini Late 2012.

Highlights:
● Same model number
● Tucked away neatly near the rear of the Mini is the hard drive
● The power supply provides 85 watts to the Mac Mini—that’s the same kind of electric juice as the AC adapter for a 15″ or 17″ MacBook Pro.

Mac Mini Mid 2012 Repairability: 8 out of 10 (10 is easiest to repair).
● No proprietary screws are found within the device.
● You can easily upgrade your RAM and hard drive, as well as add a secondary drive.
● There’s no glue anywhere inside that needs to be removed while disassembling the Mini.
● The CPU is soldered to the logic board and not user-upgradeable.
● While not difficult to do, you still have to remove almost all the internals in order to replace the power supply.

Oct 16 2012

iFixit Posts iPod Nano 7th Generation Teardown

iFixit has posted its teardown of the new 7th generation iPad nano.

Highlights:
● 2.5-inch (diagonal) widescreen Multi-Touch display, Built-in accelerometer, Bluetooth 4.0
● Model number: A1446.
● Size: 3.01 x 1.56 x 0.21 inches, Weight: 1.1 ounces
● The battery is both adhered to the back of the display assembly and soldered to the logic board.
● 3.7 V, 0.8 Wh, 220 mAh battery

iPod Nano 7th Generation Repairability: 5 out of 10 (10 is easiest to repair).
● An easy-to-open case only requires unscrewing two screws and a plastic opening tool.
● Only standard Phillips #00 screws are used-no security or pentalobe.
● The LCD and digitizer glass are not fused together, allowing replacement of either component separately.
● “External” screws hidden behind the antenna mean less adhesive holding down the display assembly.
● The battery, Lightning connector, button cable, and headphone jack are all soldered to the logic board.
● The battery is adhered to the back of the display assembly.

Oct 11 2012

iFixit Tears Down the 5th Generation iPod Touch

iFixit has posted its teardown of the new fifth generation iPod touch.

Highlights:
● The Touch has an identifying model number A1421 printed on the back.
● Apple kindly included a retractable post for “the loop” that comes with your iPod Touch.
● The 5 MP rear-facing camera in the iPod Touch 5th Generation uses a five-element lens with a hybrid IR filter and an ƒ/2.4 aperture.
● This Plain Jane battery provides 3.8 Wh at 3.7 V for a rating of 1030 mAh, a little more than the previous model’s 930 mAh.
● Apple 338S1077 Cirrus audio codec. This is the same audio codec found in the iPhone 5.
● Apple A5 dual-core processor, with 4 Gb (512 MB) of Mobile DDR2 RAM, denoted by the H9TKNNN4KDBRCR silkscreen label on the A5

Repairability: 3 out of 10 (10 is easiest to repair)
● While very difficult, opening the case and replacing components is not impossible.
● The battery is flanked by notches that make prying it out of the rear case fairly easy.
● Many components are soldered together, requiring either a very difficult or very expensive repair if any one part breaks.
● The Touch has no external screws. Instead, a combo of clips and adhesive makes it difficult to open the case.
● Cables connected to the logic board run over the top and connect on the bottom, making it difficult to remove the board or disconnect the cables.

Sep 25 2012

iFixit Teardown of the New Apple A6 Chip

iFixit and Chipworks have partnered to post a teardown of the new Apple A6 chip used in the iPhone 5.

Geeks rejoice! We have partnered with Chipworks for a double-the-geeks, double-the-fun teardown of Apple’s new A6 Processor. The A6 is rumored to make use of two custom 1 GHz CPUs running the ARMv7s instruction set. Along our journey into the A6, we’ll also give you a sneak peak at some of the fun toys instruments at Chipworks.

Highlights:
● The A6′s 1GB LP DDR2 SDRAM is provided by Elpida
● The Apple A6-labeled APL0598 on the package marks and APL0589B01 on the inside-is fabricated by Samsung on their 32 nm CMOS process and measures 9.70 mm x 9.97 mm.
● It looks like the ARM core blocks were laid out manually–as in, by hand. A manual layout will usually result in faster processing speeds, but it is much more expensive and time consuming.