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.

Leaked BlackBerry Roadmap Details Handsets, Points to Larger PlayBook

RIM’s upgrade to BlackBerry 10 hit a serious snag on Thursday when the company announced that it would be delaying the release of the BlackBerry 10 platform until the first quarter of 2013. The statement called into question whether RIM has any future at all, but now a leaked presentation document details RIM’s roadmap to redemption.

The slide was obtained by BlackBerryOS.com from an unnamed source. While the authenticity of the slide — as with any leaked image — is in question, the content of the slide would seem to jibe with the most recent RIM news. During the BlackBerry World conference in early May, RIM announced BlackBerry 10 devices would be coming in fall 2012. But last week’s announcement pushed the BlackBerry 10 release to next year, and this late (if discouraging) development is reflected in the slide.

Real or not, the roadmap is intriguing.

The single PowerPoint slide shows the release of the PlayBook 4G (codenamed “Winchester”) in the fourth quarter of 2012. This updated tablet would run the current flavor of the BlackBerry OS (version 7), not BlackBerry 10. Does the world really need a PlayBook update? No one was very interested in buying the original. But, surprisingly, the PlayBook 4G isn’t the only tablet on the company’s road to a comeback.

The slide lists a larger tablet codenamed “Blackforest [128]” for the third quarter of 2013. Nothing on the slide explains the 128 designation, but one might guess this refers to 128GB of storage — a bold move considering most tablets max out at 64GB of memory. Massive storage capacities aside, the decision to stick with the PlayBook is a curious one, and this alone calls into question the veracity of the slide. Or the wisdom of RIM’s executives.

A 10-inch tablet would put RIM in direct competition with the iPad. This isn’t a good place to be in the tablet market. What’s more, RIM’s first quarter results for 2012 showed just 260,000 PlayBook units sold. Compare that to Apple selling 11.8 million iPads during its second quarter of 2012, and it would appear that RIM would be biting off more than it can chew.

Gartner analyst Ken Dulaney told Wired that there’s no strong business case for RIM to push forward with PlayBook tablets. “The only reason they will do it is because they have a consistency of high-security users and they believe that to have a proper ecosystem, they need a complete portfolio of devices that includes a tablet,” Dulaney said.

And if security features are RIM’s greatest assets, then this too puts the company in an exposed position: Android and Apple tablets are becoming more secure every day, and may in fact reach PlayBook levels of security before RIM can realize its roadmap. Plus, there are now Microsoft tablets to contend with. “With the Microsoft Surface coming out soon with all of its security features, the demand for a BlackBerry tablet will be pretty minimal,” Dulaney told Wired.

Less controversial is RIM’s handset roadmap. The recently leaked “London” and “Nevada” handsets make an appearance on the slide with a listed drop date in the first quarter of 2013. This directly coincides with RIM’s recent announcement that BlackBerry 10 devices would not be available until that time. The London handset would be RIM’s first device with a virtual keyboard running BlackBerry 10, while the Nevada handset would make hardcore hardware keyboard fans happy.

American fans of the devices, however, will have to wait a bit longer than their European counterparts, according to the slide.

According to BlackBerryOS’s sources, BlackBerry 10 is expected to launch in Europe during the first week of January 2013 with the U.S. launch occurring three to four weeks later, possibly in early February. While BlackBerry’s market in the United States has been in steady decline since 2009, the market share news is a bit rosier in Europe.

Two other devices that show up on the roadmap — “Nashville” and “Naples” — are a mystery. Because they start with the letter “N,” one might speculate that the devices could be new handsets with hardware keyboards, just like the Nevada. Or they could be just about anything.

Whatever the devices turn out to be (if anything at all), it’s important that they make a huge splash. RIM is betting everything on BlackBerry 10. On Tuesday, RIM CEO Thorsten Heins posted a letter outlining the tough road ahead for RIM and the, “painful but necessary steps to focus our resources and build a lean, nimble organization focused intently on bringing BlackBerry 10 to market.”

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.

The Google Android Tablet: Coming Soon?

Watch out, iPad: Google may be getting into the tablet game. In a move reminiscent of its recent step into mobile phone design, Google is reportedly working on its own custom Android-powered tablet.

Most of the specifics are still unknown -- what features a Google tablet would include, for example, or who would manufacture it -- but if there's one thing we can count on, it's with whom a Google-made tablet would compete.

Google Android Tablet: What We Know

The Google Android tablet news comes by way of a story published in The New York Times on Sunday. The story, a piece about upcoming competition to Apple's iPad, states that Google is currently "exploring the idea" of creating its own tablet computing device. The gadget is described as "an e-reader that would function like a computer."

The info, according to The Times, comes straight from the big dog's mouth: Google CEO Eric Schmidt is said to have divulged the Google tablet scoop while chatting with friends at a recent party in L.A. Other insiders supposedly confirmed the concept.

"People with direct knowledge of the project -- who did not want to be named because they said they were unauthorized to speak publicly about the device -- said the company had been experimenting in 'stealth mode' with a few publishers to explore delivery of books, magazines and other content on a tablet," The Times reports.

Envisioning a Google Android Tablet

Knowing the principles of the Android operating system, one can make a few educated guesses about what a Google Android tablet could be and how it might compare to Apple's iPad. First and foremost, it'd likely be a far more open device in terms of customization: While Apple tends tomaintain a tight grip on its user experience, Android-based devices typically allow users to configure the interface to their likings and replace stock components as they choose.

The same principle applies to applications: Compared to Apple's highly controlled approach to app development and approval, Google's Android Market for apps allows anyone to submit and publish programs without scrutiny. Android-powered devices -- with the exception of those that run on AT&T -- also let users download apps from unofficial third-party sources. One would imagine these qualities would be among the basic tenets of a Google-made Android tablet.

Along those same lines, a Google Android tablet would likely provide support for Flash -- something Apple has long forbidden on its mobile computing devices. The existence of an open app marketplace could also mean immediate support for tethering, as we've seen happen via third-party utilities on Android phones. And, of course, any Android tablet would presumably provide feature-rich apps for Google services such as Gmail and Google Voice, something Apple also does not permit.

As for the device's form, Google has previously published conceptual images of how a Google-centric tablet might look. Those concepts, however, revolved around the idea of a Chrome OS-based tablet, so they may or may not apply to an Android-based design.

Google Android Tablet: A Reality Check

It's fun to imagine what a Google Android tablet could do, but don't let some of the headlines out there fool you: From what we know so far, there's no reason to believe a Google-made Android tablet is an "imminent" or even a certain thing.

Read back over what the info provided byThe New York Times actually states: Google is "exploring the idea" of building a tablet device. It is "experimenting" with possibilities. Despite some bloggers' tendencies to fill in the blanks with big words, there's no indication that this is a done deal, let alone something that's likely to occur at any moment.

We do know, however, that a slew of new tablets is on the way for 2010, and many of them are expected to be powered by Android. So whether or not Google ends up building its own tablet, numerous new options will soon be headed our way. The iPad may have been the first serious contender, but it won't be the only one for long.

10.6-inch Microsoft Surface tablets announced, powered by Windows 8

After days of speculation and rumors, Microsoft's major announcement has just been unveiled at a press event in Los Angeles: a Surface tablet. We suspected the company might be working on its own tablet, and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer revealed the device on stage at Milk Studios in Los Angeles today. Discussing Microsoft's history with Windows, Xbox, and Kinect, Ballmer introduced a video of the company's hardware products over the years before unveiling Windows 8's companion, the Microsoft Surface.

Microsoft's Steven Sinofsky took to the stage to describe the hardware of Microsoft's Surface tablet. There will be two options for Microsoft's Surface PC, one powered by Intel's 22nm Ivy Bridge chips running Windows 8, and another Surface powered by an ARM chipset and Windows RT. The Windows RT version is just 9.3mm thin, weighs 1.5lbs, includes a built-in kickstand, and is the first PC with a vapor-deposited (PVD) magnesium case, according to Microsoft. It will ship in 32GB or 64GB versions, complete with a 10.6-inch ClearType HD display (of unknown resolution).

Microsoft's Intel-based Surface tablet will run Windows 8 Pro, with a thickness of 13.5mm, a weight of 1.9lbs, and USB 3.0 support. This particular version will also include magnesium casing and a built-in kickstand, but will ship with either 64GB or 128GB storage. Additionally, the Intel version will include additional digital ink support through a pen that magnetizes to the body of the tablet, and a 10.6-inch ClearType "Full HD" display. Both of Microsoft's Surface tablets feature optional Touch and Type keyboard covers.

Microsoft says suggested retail pricing will be announced closer to availability and is expected to be competitive with a comparable ARM tablet or Intel Ultrabook-class PC. The Windows RT tablet will ship around the same time that Microsoft releases Windows 8 (expected in October), while the Intel-based Pro tablet will arrive about three months later.

Microsoft is launching its own iPad rivaling tablet nextweek

Microsoft is said to be planning to ratchet up its rivalry with Apple by introducing its own tablet device at a press event scheduled for next week, according to a report from TheWrap.

The event will see a “major Microsoft announcement” and we’ve heard speculation that it could be one of many possible stories unveiled, from the $1 billion plus acquisition of Yammer, to a partnership with RIM and Microsoft’s tablet strategy. TheWrap says that it is the latter, and a Microsoft-built iPad-rival is coming, according to “an individual with knowledge of the company”.

The new device could well be built on Windows RT, one of Microsoft’s new Windows 8 platforms, which is designed to keep ARM-powered PCs and tablets ‘thin and light’.

While details are still emerge about RT-powered devices, reports are already suggesting that cost may be an issue. The company is said to be planning to charge $85 for inbuilt support for Office, and additional fee could bump the cost of devices up and make them more expensive than their equivalents in Apple’s iPad family.

Given that Apple’s tablets dominate the sales in the space, price is an important battle ground for any would-be contender, and failing to at least match the iPad could count against Microsoft’s products.

More details will likely emerge, and we’ll keep you posted with them and their significance for Microsoft and the industry.