Amazon Kindle Fire teardown shows easy fixes
updated 08:05 pm EST, Tue November 15, 2011
Amazon Kindle Fire dissected by iFixit
A new teardown of the Amazon Kindle Fire has shown a relatively easy device to fix. Netting an eight out of ten score from iFixit, the Android tablet had an easy-open back and could use just one Philips screwdriver to get to nearly every fastener. Amazon was also shrewd in keeping the amount of glued-together components to a minimum, making it cheaper to replace the LCD, battery, or mainboard without having to swap multiple parts at once.
Inside, the parts themselves include the anticipated dual-core TI OMAP4430 main processor, 8GB of flash storage handled by Samsung, and 512MB of RAM from Hynix. The processor is borrowed almost directly from the BlackBerry PlayBook. Oddly, Amazon has been mixing and matching, using an older TI Wi-Fi chip than what was intended to run with the processor.
It's not clear if the easy repairs were deliberate choices, and they come as odd given that Amazon has no places to handle direct fixes. It could lead to a device that's cheap both to buy and to own for experienced users, who might not have to consider replacing the whole tablet if they're comfortable installing their own parts.
