Nexus 7 Teardown: Harder to Repair Than Kindle Fire, Easier Than iPad

The Nexus 7′s components sprawled out. Photo: iFixit

The expert hardware hackers at iFixit are at it again, this time with Google’s and Asus’ new Nexus 7 tablet in hand. Less than a week after Google announced its flagship 7-inch tablet at Google I/O, the iFixit team disassembled the device. And what they found is a tablet that’s a breeze to open up and repair, but not quite as easy as Amazon’s Kindle Fire.

With the help of retaining clips along the edge of the tablet, the Nexus 7 pops open with ease. It is much more repair-friendly than Apple’s iPad, which is a glued-together device. And according to the iFixit folk, it only took the Nexus 7 one extra millimeter of thickness to make it significantly easier to repair.

“That’s the negligible difference between extending the life of your device through repair, as opposed to tossing it in a landfill,” iFixit wrote in its teardown. “And most of all, nobody will complain about that one millimeter difference in day-to-day use, but the user-serviceability it brings will make all the difference when the device breaks.”

Inside, the tablet features a large 4,326 mAh, 16 Wh battery held in place by a small amount of adhesive. And again, unlike the iPad, the battery is easy to take out and replace, when needed. You won’t need to solder or screw anything in when your battery gets fried and you need put in new one.

After taking off the rear case, you can see the Nexus 7′s large battery. Photo: iFixit

The Nexus 7 also features an L-shaped motherboard with standard Phillips #00 screws for its interior fasteners. It doesn’t require any special tools to take the tablet apart — just a Philips #00 screwdriver and a spudger does the trick.

The iFixit team found 1 GB of Hynix H5TC2G83CFR DDR3 RAM, the same model found in the MacBook Pro with Retina Display, on the motherboard. Other components include the tablet’s Nvidia Tegra 3 processor, an AzureWave AW-NH665 wireless module, Kingston KE44B-26BN/8GB 8GB flash, and more.

Overall, the Nexus 7 is an easy-to-repair device. You’ll be able to replace components, like the I/O cable, without having to replace the motherboard. And as mentioned it’s “like butter” to pop open the rear case, and battery replacement is simple.

Up to this point, the Kindle Fire and Nexus 7 are on equal playing field. The real kicker between the two is the display. The Kindle Fire’s glass and display materials are not fused together, making the cost of repairing a shattered display much lower. The Nexus 7, on the other hand, features an LCD that is fused to the tablet’s Corning glass. If you drop your tablet and break the glass, you’ll have to replace both the glass and the LCD in order to fix it.

Unfortunately, the LCD is fused with the tablet’s Corning glass. Photo: iFixit

Beyond that, the only drawback is that the thin copper alloy sheets that shield the Nexus 7′s display could tear. The iFixit team gave the Nexus 7 a 7 out of 10 repairability rating, compared to the 8 out of 10 for the Kindle fire and the 2 out of 10 for the iPad.

For more on why it’s important for company’s to make repairable gadgets, make sure to read iFixit co-founder Kyle Wiens’s opinion pieces.

Google unveils Nexus 7 tablet, available mid-July for $199

Google has officially announced the Nexus 7 tablet during its opening keynote at Google I/O 2012. As rumored, the device is manufactured in partnership with Asus, featuring a 7-inch 1280 x 800 display and a Tegra 3 SoC which itself comprises a quad-core CPU and twelve-core GPU. The device weighs in a mere 340 grams so it’s easy to carry around and will reportedly last for 9 hours of HD video playback.

Connectivity-wise you’ll get the mandatory Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, but there was no mention of 3G/4G. You also get a front-facing camera for video conferencing and all the sensors you'd expect from a modern tablet.

The device will ship with the recently-announced Android 4.1 Jelly Bean operating system and is being pitched as the ideal tablet for music, movies, books, magazines, apps, and games. Google highlighted a few of these things on stage, including the new Google Play magazine app featuring tablet-optimized articles with interactive elements, as well as playing a short clip from TV series Parks and Recreation.

There’s a new home screen that puts your content front and center — much like the Kindle Fire does — and new widgets to help you find books, apps, games, songs and more in the Google Play store.

Also highlighted were Google’s Chrome browser for Android, a completely redesigned YouTube app for tablets, the latest version of Google Maps with new overlays showing relevant information about places, a “Compass Mode” that lets you see inside-the-business photos, and support for offline maps.

Lastly, Google gave a glimpse at the tablet’s gaming capabilities with a couple of titles before announcing the all-important price and availability: the Nexus 7 will begin shipping in mid-July and will sell for $199.

At that price Amazon is going to have a hard time competing with its Kindle Fire — at least for now, since an update to the Kindle is rumored for the end of July. Google is certainly hoping to steal some sales from the iPad as well but given Android’s track record in the tablet market we’ll have to wait and see how that goes. One positive aspect is that since this is a Nexus device Google shouldn’t drag its feet when it comes to updates.