Ifixit Archive

  • iFixit tears apart the iPhone 4 in graphic detail

    iFixit tears apart the iPhone 4 in graphic detail

    Posted on June 23, 2010 | No Comments
    iFixit is legendary for taking things apart. They are famous for going to great lengths to get the latest in technology, and then tear it apart. The iPhone 4 is no exception, as their person took a 16 hour plane ride as well as packed a tent prepared to sit and wait for the phone. Ironically, FedEx delivered the phones two days earlier then expected, and they didn't have to send anyone to Japan.

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  • iPhone 4 teardown: 512MB RAM confirmed (updated)

    iPhone 4 teardown: 512MB RAM confirmed (updated)

    Posted on June 22, 2010 | No Comments
    With nary hours since the reviews went live, the gang at iFixit -- no doubt blessed by the hands of early deliveries -- have procured an iPhone 4. And as is their modus operandi, they wasted no time tearing that sucker apart screw by screw. The teardown is still ongoing, but here's what we got so far: 512MB RAM (confirming earlier rumors), a 1GHz ARM Cortex A8 processor (same as the Samsung Wave S8500, they say), and chemically-strengthened Gorilla Glass for a more torture-friendly front panel. Those two screws on the bottom of the phone can be removed to excise the real panel, but the site says the front glass "will likely be rather challenging [to remove]." The battery, looking rather large even in the pictures, is a whopping 1420mAh Li-Polymer -- comparatively, the Nexus One is 1400mAh and the HTC Droid Incredible is 1300mAh. There's no SIM eject tool with this phone, but a paper clip should work just fine. As for the much-ballyhooed side panel antennas, the phone apparently now "[utilizes] whichever network band is less congested or has the least interference for the best signal quality, regardless of actual signal strength" -- in other words, better call reliability (hopefully). Also helping with overall voice quality is a dual microphone setup for suppressing background noise. Peruse on over if you're interested in seeing a bare Apple device at its most beautiful.

    Update: The teardown is complete with a few more interesting bits of information. First, the battery is very easy to remove (and thus, replace) after removing the two screws. The LCD panel is not, however, as it's tighly glued to the glass and digitizer. So if you do manage to break the Gorilla Glass, you'll have to replace it, the digitizer, and the LCD as a single unit. The new AGD1 3-axis gyroscope is thought to be made by ST Micro and Broadcomm provides both the BCM4750IUB8 single-chip GPS receiver and BCM4329FKUBG receiver giving the iPhone 4 802.11n WiFi, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, and an FM radio.

    iPhone 4 teardown: 512MB RAM confirmed (updated) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 22 Jun 2010 23:38:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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  • Sony Ericsson X10 Mini teardown reveals densely packed, tiny hardware

    Sony Ericsson X10 Mini teardown reveals densely packed, tiny hardware

    Posted on June 22, 2010 | No Comments
    The crew at iFixit were jonesing for something to disassemble recently, and Sony Ericsson's X10 Mini seems to have been the nearest thing they could lay hand and screwdriver upon. We'll admit HTC has us kind of spoiled with the colorful interiors of its phones, so we were a little underwhelmed by the demureness of the X10 Mini. Everything is packed into the utilitarian logic board, and although you get to decouple the screen and antenna assembly, it's still mostly a thick slab of highly integrated technology. Still, if you want to see a Qualcomm MSM7227 all naked and exposed to the elements, this is your chance. The source link contains all the intimate photography you could wish for.

    Sony Ericsson X10 Mini teardown reveals densely packed, tiny hardware originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 22 Jun 2010 06:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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  • iFixit Breaks Down the Mac Mini

    iFixit Breaks Down the Mac Mini

    Posted on June 16, 2010 | No Comments
    Our friends at iFixit have taken the new Mac Mini apart to show us it's insides. From the looks of it, it was a pretty easy break down, with not too many parts inside. And, it looks just as good inside as i does out - in true Apple fashion. Here are the highlights:

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  • HTC EVO 4G splayed, found to contain wires, chips

    HTC EVO 4G splayed, found to contain wires, chips

    Posted on June 1, 2010 | No Comments
    Often, iFixit needs to wait for a product to be released before it can spend a few hundred bucks buying one and tearing it asunder -- but in the case of the EVO 4G, Google's pre-release of units to attendees at IO appears to have been just the kind of event these guys needed to get in the door early. Taking the phone apart is described as a "wonderfully easy" process, and changing the screen's glass is said to be pretty easy as well -- good news considering how easy it'll probably be to crack those 4.3 inches of pure WVGA glory. There aren't any surprises in terms of silicon, but we've got one tip for you, HTC: if you're going to take this color-the-inside-of-the-phone business seriously, would you do us a favor and match the color of the circuit board, too? Seriously guys, go big or go home. Follow the break for iFixit's full rundown of the process.

    Continue reading HTC EVO 4G splayed, found to contain wires, chips

    HTC EVO 4G splayed, found to contain wires, chips originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 01 Jun 2010 12:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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  • Tearing down the Apple A4 processor

    Tearing down the Apple A4 processor

    Posted on April 6, 2010 | No Comments
    Kyle at iFixit and his buddies at Chipworks straight up tore into the A4 chip that appears in the Apple iPad. The chip is an ARM processor with a small RAM package made by Samsung. The processor itself is made entirely by Apple although it is based mostly on the original Samsung processor made for the iPhone. Other interesting points include the possibility of an onboard GPU, the same one powering the iPhone, namely the PowerVR SGX 535. This means while the screen is bigger the graphics aren't much faster. The iPad also has 256MB ram and, most important, the CPU "sips" power.

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  • iFixit sees London, France: Tears apart iPad limb from limb

    iFixit sees London, France: Tears apart iPad limb from limb

    Posted on April 3, 2010 | No Comments
    Need more iPad news? Who doesn't! It's practically a life-giving force at this point. Anyhow, the fine chaps over at iFixit have taken apart an iPad for all to see. It nicely complements the FCC's own handiwork from a few hours ago.

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  • iFixit tears apart an Apple tablet

    iFixit tears apart an Apple tablet

    Posted on April 1, 2010 | No Comments
    'Dem crazy boys over at iFixit are at it again. This time they've torn apart the only Apple Tablet so far to be owned by consumers and detailed the entire process for the ages. That is of course if someone would actually wanna disassemble a priceless first-gen Apple tablet otherwise known as an Apple Newton. Good times.

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  • iFixit pits the iPhone 3GS against the Nexus One infograph style

    iFixit pits the iPhone 3GS against the Nexus One infograph style

    Posted on March 25, 2010 | No Comments
    iFixit is known for its gadget teardowns and self-help repair services. Now we can add large infographs to the mix as well with this large iPhone 3GS vs Nexus One graph comparing everything from the hardware to the manufacturing cost to sales. Our favorite part, however, is in the middle where the steps required to replace each phone's battery is compared. Well played, iFixit, well played. Click through to embiggen.

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  • iFixIt Tears down the Flip Mino HD

    iFixIt Tears down the Flip Mino HD

    Posted on February 17, 2010 | No Comments
    Ooots ooots ooots. It's Wednesday morning and there's nothing you deserve more than a little soft house music and a Flip Mino HD teardown. The folks at iFixIt know you're feeling the need so they prepared this detailed slideshow and teardown description for you and yours. Click through for video.

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  • iFixIt Announces Answers: Do Not Return Product to Store

    iFixIt Announces Answers: Do Not Return Product to Store

    Posted on November 24, 2009 | No Comments
    Our buddy Kyle at iFixIt.com has just announced a beta version of iFixIt Answers, a collaborative repair community for gadgets. It might be a great resource for friends and family who can’t figure out how to work the TV remote. How does it work? You ask a question on Answers and then can follow as folks [...]

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  • Motorola Droid torn down despite desperate cries of ‘no disassemble’

    Motorola Droid torn down despite desperate cries of ‘no disassemble’

    Posted on November 11, 2009 | No Comments

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    If you were thinking of tearing apart your own Droid, let us direct you first to this quote straight from the folks at phoneWreck: "no easy task." It seems that even finding some of the screws involved in holding the mess together was a problem, but at the end of the day, good old-fashioned human ingenuity prevailed over... well, other human ingenuity, and the phone fell asunder into the 16 pieces you see here. As you might imagine, there's a bit of industrial magic involved in fitting a full QWERTY slide into a package this tight -- but just as Moto was up to the challenge of putting it together, some dude with a little time on his hands was up to the challenge of asploding it. Needless to say, we won't be doing this to ours.

    Motorola Droid torn down despite desperate cries of 'no disassemble' originally appeared on Engadget Mobile on Wed, 11 Nov 2009 17:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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  • iFixit gives a Blendtec blender the once-over

    iFixit gives a Blendtec blender the once-over

    Posted on October 13, 2009 | No Comments
    Ever wonder exactly how the people at Blendtec manage to blend, well, pretty much everything? Curious are ya? Well, the crazy folks at iFixit got hold of the base model (only 1560 watts) and took that bad boy apart. What follows, is internet history.

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