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iPad 2 problems with teardown

Daniel Chubb — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 07:34:59 +0000

What’s really inside the gadgets we buy? This is a question that ifixit love to answer by taking apart the latest technology, and this includes the 2nd generation Apple iPad.

Some problems were experienced with the iPad 2 teardown, when ifixit tried to remove the glass front panel they found no screws, and instead were met with a lot of adhesive that keeps the front glass in place. While the website points out that you shouldn’t use their guide as disassembly instructions, if anyone does then they might want to wait until a solution is found for the iPad 2’s front glass problem.

Apple’s tablet received a repairability score of 4 out of 10, which was due to the difficulty of gaining access to the internals. You can view the full iPad 2 teardown in their article here, which shows the original iPad’s glass and LCD thinness at 3.2 mm, compared to the iPad 2 at 2.4 mm.

Other components inside the iPad 2 include: ST Micro LIS331DLH accelerometer, ST Micro AGD8 2103 gyroscope, S6T2MLC N33C50V Power Management IC, Broadcom BCM43291HKUBC Wi-Fi/Bluetooth/FM tuner combo chip, Texas Instruments CD3240B0 11AZ4JT touchscreen line driver, Broadcom BCM5974 CKFBGH capacitative touchscreen controller, Broadcom BCM5973KFBGH Microcontroller, and Toshiba TH58NVG7D2FLA89 16GB NAND Flash.

Ifixit point out that the thinner glass in iPad 2 could “reduce the durability of the device”, although this is yet to be confirmed. Read the full report and let us know your thoughts about this iPad 2 teardown, and if you’ve got your hands on one, what do you think so far?

You can see a video of the teardown below.

View all photos and full iPad 2 teardown on ifixit.com

Teardown Could Destroy Your Nintendo 3DS

Peter Chubb — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 11:05:24 +0000

The Nintendo 3DS was made available in Japan at the end of last month, and we reported that sales looked very healthy. But will not be available to those in Europe and the U.S. until the end of the month. However, that has not stopped the guys from iFixit getting their hands on one and then doing what they do best – a teardown.

The results of them taking apart the 3DS were not good for two reason, it only has a 5 out of 10 repairability and if you do proceed to take the entire device apart, then chances are you will destroy it. It seems that the top part of the portable games console was very hard to access, as the moment they went to take the top display apart things took a turn for the worse.

The reason for this is because of the cables that are all twisted and makes it hard for you to gain access; as they went on a few ribbon cables got snapped in the process. iFixit say that this is due to them being assembled by robots. So unless you have a robot handy, then we would suggest that you do not try this teardown for yourself – doing so will lead to your new Nintendo 3DS sitting in the corner collecting dust.

The team was a little concerned with the 3D effect itself when one employee had an issue with seeing the 3D effect. We have to wonder if anyone else believes that the screen does not do what it is meant to do? There certainly seems a lot to this device than we all assumed, and it is only when you read the full teardown from iFixit that you get an understanding of this.

Do you think that the Nintendo 3DS will be as what the company says it is?

Parrot AR.Drone Quadricopter Teardown: iPhone Not Included

Peter Chubb — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 22:18:38 +0000

New gadgets come out at an alarming rate, and although it is nice to see how they look design wise, nothing beats looking at the inner workings of a device. So you can imagine how excited we all get when we hear that iFixit has a new teardown; the gadget in question is the Parrot AR.Drone Quadricopter, which requires the use of an iPhone, iPod Touch or an iPad to fly.

The team over at iFixit has had the gadget with them for some time now, as they was finding hard to make the decision to take the thing apart. Well that day finally came, which you can clearly see from the images below. The Quadricopter must be something special, as they have called it “earth-shattering.”

iFixit informs us that the Parrot AR.Drone is not no ordinary toy, it has managed to use some clever software to make it a “phenomenal piece of engineering”, its as if it has a fly-by-wire system. We have provided complete teardown photos for you below to see just how much sophisticated electronics hides inside the casing.

Because there is a huge amount of replacement parts, iFixit has given the AR.Drone Quadricopter a repairability score of 9 out of 10. For the complete teardown guide visit iFixit. One word of warning, do not try to get to flash while trying to control this gadget, as you will be doing a teardown all of your own – and it will not be a pretty sight. Other iFixit teardowns include the Boxee Box, the Samsung Galaxy Tab, and the Kinect.