Amazon Fire TV not DIY-friendly, teardown reveals
The folks at iFixit have gone inside the new Amazon Fire TV and find it "hard to disassemble" and, really, just "another board-in-a-box."
The Fire TV scored a rating of 6 out of 10 on iFixit's Repair-ometer, hit hard by the exceedingly tough time and "luck" that it took to remove the device's heat sink at the bottom of the small black box.
iFixit provides repair services for electronics, but also tears down different devices to provide insight to DIY-ers into how much trouble they're in for if they try to fix or modify a product. A 6 out of 10 on iFixit's scale is by no means terrible, but does indicate that novices may well have trouble breaking into the device and fixing it.
According to iFixit, the Fire TV is very basic inside. The company called the device "yet another board-in-a-box." Indeed, the device comes with a single logic board that houses all of the components, including its most important pieces, like its quad-core Qualcomm processor and 8GB of NAND flash from Toshiba. Beneath that board is the device's heat sink, which iFixit says, does a fine job of keeping the otherwise hot device cool while running.
Amazon launched the Fire TV earlier this week. The device costs $99, and is designed to compete with the likes of Roku and Apple TV. The set-top box includes several entertainment apps, including Netflix, Hulu Plus, and Amazon Prime Instant Video. It also features a remote with voice control.
Since the Fire TV was a little boring for the iFixit team, the company tore down the device's remote. iFixit discovered that the remote comes with the same microphone found in the Amazon Kindle Fire HD tablet. Interestingly, the remote is also tamper-proof, requiring DIY-ers to use a tri-wing screw just to get it open.
The Fire TV is available now on Amazon.com for $99.
Amazon shares are up 0.31 percent to $334.67 in pre-market trading.
CNET has contacted Amazon for comment on the Fire TV teardown. We will update this story when we have more information.
