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Posts with tag teardown

Sony's XEL-1 OLED TV splayed in high-resolution


Seen enough of Sony's 3-millimeter thin OLED TV? Nah, we reckoned not -- and even if you've grown somewhat accustomed to that sleek 11-inch exterior, opening this pretty boy up gives you a whole new perspective. The camera-toting cats over at bunnie:studios managed to happen upon a live XEL-1 tear down while perusing the floor at the Embedded Systems Conference, and sure enough, they succeeded in capturing the momentous event and were kind enough to host up a smattering of high-resolution images to prove it. Anxious to see what Sony could possibly fit inside of this thing? You're just one click away from finding out.

[Thanks, Andrew]

Dell Latitude XT stripped bare


Yeah, you know the deal with teardowns. So if you've been wondering at all what Dell's semi-rugged capacitive touchscreen convertible tablet looks like disrobed, head on over and check out one pretty naked Latitude XT.

ASUS' 9-inch Eee PC 900 hits the FCC with full teardown, gets multi-finger gesture support


Eee fans, your second-wildest dream has just come to pass. ASUS' next version of the mini-laptop has hit the FCC, and we've got the pictures to prove it. Yes, as we speak (possibly, but maybe not) inspectors from the agency are poring over details of the 9-inch, second generation system -- referred to here as the Eee 900 -- desperately hoping that none of its radio waves do anything funky to anyone else's radio waves. There's no secret-sauce WiMAX or drastic changes we can see, though the manual does make mention of "multi-finger gesture input," which will apparently provide the ability to zoom in, zoom out, and do familiar two-finger scrolling on the newly resized trackpad. Check the pictures in the gallery for loads of looks at the new entry, including a view of its insides that'll make your eyes water.

Eye-Fi SD card cracked, splayed


Damn, that's a lot of technology packed into the tiny wireless Eye-Fi SD card. We're used to seeing cellphones and laptops stripped to the silicon bone but this is something special. Just look at that tiny 2GB Samsung NAND chip and even tinier Atheros ROCm 802.11b/g WiFi module. Hit the read link for all the techie gore.

[Thanks, John R.]

Time Capsule opened despite it not yet being the future


You kind of miss the point if you open your Time Capsule after just a day or two, but at least we now know that future generations can, in fact, expect an active drive cooling system (by way of a blower fan).

Everex Cloudbook teardown bares all


What's more fun than seeing a highly-anticipated device get the full-on dissection treatment? Upgrading it, of course. Cloudbooker forum member Azazel got a Cloudbook to play with and is doing just that: ripping apart the laptop piece by piece for you viewing pleasure, while also upgrading the RAM and documenting the process. He's already spotted a way to add Bluetooth internally, and how to open up the laptop without voiding your warranty, but we've still got a long ways to go before we start to see Eee PC-level hackerdom.

Read - Part 1
Read - Part 2

New MacBook Pros get dissected, look like old MacBook Pros


We'd love to tell you that during AnandTech's dissection of the "new" MacBook Pros they made a shocking discovery about the internals of the systems that brought into light significant changes and / or upgrades to the computers. We'd like nothing more then to say that it appears Apple has completely reworked the architecture of these machines to be harder, better, faster, and stronger. But honestly? They're exactly the same as the old models, save for those little Penryns, and as a result, kind of boring. Don't believe us? Take a look at the photos -- you'll see.

MacBook Air splayed -- multi-touch trackpad controller chip same as iPhone


It's that time of the product cycle again, the teardown. This time, iFixit's applying the Xacto to Apple's MacBook Air. Notable discoveries are an easy to disassemble chassis just big enough for Samsung's 1.8-inch, 80GB disk but not the relatively chubby 160GB variety found in the iPod classic. They also found the new multi-touch trackpad using the same control chip as the iPod touch and iPhone -- the Broadcom BCM5974. That leaves Apple plenty of room to grow the gesture options via software updates. Want to remove the battery? Go ahead, 19 screw removals (in addition to Apple's non-removable feebie) will get the job done. Mmm, silicon and aluminum carnage, smells like... victory. Now hit up that read link IEEE types, where it's high-res all the time.

OLPC XO gets fully dissected -- cover your eyes, kids!


The OLPC XO may be a kid's machine at heart, but it's been caught doing some mighty grown-up deeds over at NotebookReview. Sure, we caught a teaser of this thing's innards way back when, but there's nothing that satisfies like a full frontal tear down. Click on for lots, lots more -- we promise it's all PG.

Pleo dissected -- oh, the humanity!


We guess it was only matter a time until it happened. Still, we can't help but feel a bit sad and creeped-out at seeing Pleo splayed in a Santilli-esque display of sideshow curio. Inside, the evil doctors over at ifixit reveal a single-piece, rubbery skin covering 14 motors, more than 100 gears, 15 circuit boards, 1 color camera, 2x microphones, 1 IR transmitter, 1 accelerometer, and 8 touch capacitance sensors. Plenty of high-res shots just beyond the read link. Man, aren't there laws against this kind of thing?

Sony Reader PRS-505 gets spine ripped (carefully) off


'Twas inevitable, really. Shortly after Amazon's Kindle hit the hands of eager early adopters, someone with a extra dash of curiosity showed us what the guts looked like, and now it's time for Sony's own Reader to experience the same. One dutiful owner managed to strip the proverbial spine right off, leaving the pages bare and the circuitry exposed, but hey, that's exactly how we like it. Go on, peep the read link for the whole set -- they always said to never judge an (e)-book by its cover.

[Via Igorsk]

Myvu Solo's silicon secrets revealed


Ever wonder what's behind those Myvu Solo goggles besides LeVar Burton? Good, because EE Times took a X-acto and splayed the $199 video headset wide. Of interest are those tiny left and right-eye microdisplays with 320 x 240 pixel transmissive color LCDs from Kopin Corp out of wicked Westboro, Mass. Also notable is the weight -- 118-grams -- of which, a good portion is from the cables. Plenty of lewd, techno-gore just beyond the read link. You know, if you can pull yourself away from your ohmmeter long enough.

Amazon Kindle gutted for your viewing pleasure


What is it with this sick pleasure we derive from watching beloved devices torn to pieces by ruthless uber-nerds? Who knows, but it certainly isn't getting old just yet. Amazon's Kindle got just such treatment at the hands of RapidRepair, and if you're one of those doubters that was never quite sold on the Kindle's quirky 90's aesthetic, maybe this will change your mind. Or not.

[Via The Raw Feed]

iFixit digs deeper into iPod touch Bluetooth mystery -- discovers 802.11a


So you all remember that not-so-conclusive iFixit teardown of the iPod touch right? The one we all hoped would bring an end to those Bluetooth rumors once and for all. Well, they've updated their findings at our request with more information about the WiFi chipset. What they found was a Marvell W8686B22 802.11a/b/g WiFi system-on-chip inside. Yes, 802.11a according to iFixit, which on its own is interesting since Apple only claims b/g support. The iPhone you'll recall, has a similar Marvell W8686B13 for WiFi and separate CSR 41B14 BlueCore4ROM chip providing the Bluetooth. Of course others like Wi2Wi, have integrated the Marvell WiFi die with Bluetooth for their own single-chip solutions. However, in that case we'd expect to see Wi2Wi branding on the chipface. There are also a few unidentified chips sporting Apple logos which iFixit could not identify. So what's the answer? Nobody knows. As unlikely as it may be, iFixit contends that they, "cannot confirm nor deny the presence of Bluetooth in this device."

iSuppli: new iPod nano costs Apple less than $83 in components


The iPod nano is the "most popular music player in history" according to Steve Jobs. So there's nothing like an iSuppli teardown of the new, 3rd gen device to get the ol' analyst juices flowing. So get this: iSuppli claims that for every $149 4GB nano and $199 8GB nano sold, Apple's components costs are just $58.85 and $82.85, respectively. That's an 18.5% lower direct materials cost than the previous nano. In other words, a substantial increase in margins for what should be a tidy boost in Apple profit after covering R&D costs. The teardown also indicates that Apple has once again opened the money trough to a whole new bevy of suppliers including Dialog Semiconductor, Intersil, and Synaptics. Micron is the big winner here as they supply the NAND flash storage whereas Toshiba provides it for the iPod touch. Could be that the effects of Samsung's NAND factory power outage are starting to show. Enjoy it while you can suppliers, chances are you'll be begging for Apple's business once the next round of product refreshes goes down. Bill of materials after the break.



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