iFixt in short order has done a tear-down of the Microsoft Zune HD media player, which hit retail Tuesday.
The core silicon in the Zune HD is an Nvidia Tegra processor (see photo) based on the power-frugal ARM chip design. The system-on-chip uses less than 0.5 watts of power. Tegra's defining feature is the integrated Nvidia GeForce graphics chip, which gives the Zune its graphics processing oomph.
(Credit:
iFixit)
The Zune HD also uses a SiPORT HD radio chip and an SDRAM chip from Hynix, according to iFixit. The accelerometer, for automatically orienting the display between portrait and landscape modes, is from Kionix.
Probably the most conspicuous feature of the Microsoft media player is a 3.3 inch OLED display capacitive touch screen. OLED screens draw significantly less power than a traditional LCD. "This isn't the first product with an OLED, but it's certainly cutting-edge technology, and something we haven't seen in any Apple ... Read More
If there is one unfulfilled dream the MP3 Insiders have, it's the ability to pry open every set of headphones and every MP3 player we ever get our hands on and see what's going on inside. That, and the option to perform "stress tests," aka dropping said devices out of a window at least 10 stories from the ground. Luckily, there are sites out there that indulge in such destructive festivities.
One of them is iFixit, which has posted a well-documented teardown of the third-generation iPod Touch. One of the more interesting details? This Touch includes a chip capable of transmitting an FM signal. (Feel free to speculate as to how much Apple is going to charge for activating this extra in the comments below.) Click the pic to check out the full story.
(Credit:
RapidRepair)
RapidRepair is at it again. Last week it took apart the Palm Pre, and now it's dismantled the Kindle DX.
No word on how much it costs Amazon to build the DX (read full review here), but I'm sure we'll have that soon enough (anybody want to guess?). For those interested, here's a list of chips on the circuit board:
- MCIMX31LDVKN5D, M91E, CTAK0915B
- Samsung 916, K4X1G323PC-8GC3, EMA188A5
- Samsung 907, KMBLG0000M-B998
- MC13783VK5, AM86D, CTRE083B
- Samsung 840, K4M28323PH-HG75, AAH055BE
- Epson D135211B1, F09090125. E-INK
"Simply follow these steps in reverse to put your Amazon Kindle DX back together! The Kindle DX has many replaceable parts inside. In many ways this product is user serviceable."
Good to know.
Check out another picture after the break. ... Read More
We can rebuild it, no problem.
(Credit: RapidRepair)For those of you who enjoy seeing the latest and greatest gear in pieces, RapidRepair has already torn apart the Palm Pre just hours after the first units became available.
Once the thing was completely ripped apart, the folks at RapidRepair tallied up the price for each component and determined that it costs Palm around $170 to build the Pre. How accurate that number truly is, we can't tell you. But what we do know is that the Pre will cost you $199 (with a $100 mail-in rebate and two-year service agreement).
Anybody think these teardowns are silly? Or do they provide useful info?
Source: RapidRepair (see more pics)
Additional reading: CNET's Palm Pre review
If you've been curious to know what it costs to make the Kindle 2, iSuppli has dismantled Amazon's digital reader, taken stock of all its components, and come up with an estimated price tag of $185.49--or roughly half the Kindle 2's retail price of $360.
That figure doesn't include the fee Amazon pays Sprint for the Kindle 2's built-in "free" wireless service or any marketing costs, which can be substantial. So the true "actual" cost is probably significantly higher, though Amazon obviously preserves some of its margin by selling direct to consumers.
If I had to guess, I'd say Amazon was making more like $100 on each unit, give or take $10. That's still quite decent, and when you factor in the high margins on Amazon's $30 optional Kindle 2 cover, things look even better.
So, yes, there's probably a little room for a discount. But if you're looking for a Kindle 2 price cut anytime soon, I wouldn't count on it. If anything, the first Kindle 2 deal you'll probably see is Amazon bundling in a cover as a freebie.
Comments?
CNET tends to review products from the outside looking in (see Donald Bell's full review of the new Shuffle). But the good folks over at iFixit make it habit to start right from the inside. In the case of the third-generation Shuffle teardown, like with all recent iPods, Apple doesn't make it easy to crack the case. And although only one screw had to be removed, iFixit describes how it had to insert a "metal spudger into a crevice between the rear cover and the rest of the Shuffle" to get the device open. As you might expect, things are pretty simple--and tiny--under the Shuffle's hood.
There are a couple more pictures after the jump, but the full dissection (with lots more photos) is available at iFixit, where one unsatisfied reader writes:
"Have you disassembled the headphones with remote yet? Have you figured out, how the buttons work? Do they work by connecting two lines with a resistor? Is it possible to add such a remote to other headphones?"
As always, feel free to comment.
See more pics after the jump. ... Read More
No disassemble!
(Credit: Wikimedia, Matt Hickey)Tuesday, I linked to a Dow Jones story on CNN's Money Web site about a virtual teardown iSuppli did on T-Mobile's fancy G1, the first commercial smartphone to run Google's Android. Some readers had issues with the story, and I'm going to address those here.
First, I quoted the price of the G1 at $399 instead of the $179 new customers typically get. This was due to a communications mixup between me and one of my T-Mobile marketing contacts. He was giving me the unsubsidized price, not the retail price, probably thinking I was inquiring to buy a G1 for myself, not get a quote for a story. Sorry for the confusion.
Second, we'd like to stress that virtual teardowns like the one iSuppli did on the G1 (which showed it's 10 percent cheaper to manufacture than the iPhone) can't be taken at face value. The research firm didn't disassemble an actual device, but rather did a "best guess" as far as the parts involved. In addition, the pricing comes from sources in the Taiwanese parts market, and is an estimate.
Besides the hardware and manufacturing costs, other factors--such as marketing, R&D, shipping, and testing--aren't accounted for in any teardowns, even the real ones. The numbers in Tuesday's post were for manufacturing only, meaning raw parts and assembly. I'm sorry if I wasn't more clear on that point.
In conclusion, the reader feedback was great. Comments are the key to blogs. It's you guys who keep us on our toes. And up late. And stressed. And we thank you for it.
SAN JOSE, Calif.--For the gathering of curious onlookers eager to see what a Sony OLED TV looks like on the inside, officials at the Embedded Systems Conference had some bad news: The airline (no, they didn't say which one) lost their stuff. Unfortunately, their stuff included that TV.
Instead, as a last-minute replacement, we got Gibson's Robot guitar, which was scheduled for the teardown treatment later this week. (See our earlier coverage of the Robot guitar here and video of it in action.)
David Carey, president of Protelligent, a company that specializes in taking apart electronics piece by piece, took the stage with the electric-blue electric guitar and a variety of tools. Starting at the bottom of the instrument and working his way up the strings to the head, Carey explained how there's actually nothing robotic about the guitar at all.
The "robot" part of the name refers to the guitar being self-tuning. "It's not a robot," Carey noted. "Electro-mechanics join with embedded processing to achieve an automatically tuning electric guitar. It's one of the best examples of an embedded system I've seen in a long time."
The technology inside is licensed from German company Tronical, and it's integrated with what is essentially a standard Gibson Les Paul.
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