The Nexus 7′s components sprawled out. Photo: iFixit
The expert hardware hackers at iFixit are at it again, this time with Google’s and Asus’ new Nexus 7 tablet in hand. Less than a week after Google announced its flagship 7-inch tablet at Google I/O, the iFixit team disassembled the device. And what they found is a tablet that’s a breeze to open up and repair, but not quite as easy as Amazon’s Kindle Fire.
With the help of retaining clips along the edge of the tablet, the Nexus 7 pops open with ease. It is much more repair-friendly than Apple’s iPad, which is a glued-together device. And according to the iFixit folk, it only took the Nexus 7 one extra millimeter of thickness to make it significantly easier to repair.
“That’s the negligible difference between extending the life of your device through repair, as opposed to tossing it in a landfill,” iFixit wrote in its teardown. “And most of all, nobody will complain about that one millimeter difference in day-to-day use, but the user-serviceability it brings will make all the difference when the device breaks.”
Inside, the tablet features a large 4,326 mAh, 16 Wh battery held in place by a small amount of adhesive. And again, unlike the iPad, the battery is easy to take out and replace, when needed. You won’t need to solder or screw anything in when your battery gets fried and you need put in new one.
After taking off the rear case, you can see the Nexus 7′s large battery. Photo: iFixit
The Nexus 7 also features an L-shaped motherboard with standard Phillips #00 screws for its interior fasteners. It doesn’t require any special tools to take the tablet apart — just a Philips #00 screwdriver and a spudger does the trick.
The iFixit team found 1 GB of Hynix H5TC2G83CFR DDR3 RAM, the same model found in the MacBook Pro with Retina Display, on the motherboard. Other components include the tablet’s Nvidia Tegra 3 processor, an AzureWave AW-NH665 wireless module, Kingston KE44B-26BN/8GB 8GB flash, and more.
Overall, the Nexus 7 is an easy-to-repair device. You’ll be able to replace components, like the I/O cable, without having to replace the motherboard. And as mentioned it’s “like butter” to pop open the rear case, and battery replacement is simple.
Up to this point, the Kindle Fire and Nexus 7 are on equal playing field. The real kicker between the two is the display. The Kindle Fire’s glass and display materials are not fused together, making the cost of repairing a shattered display much lower. The Nexus 7, on the other hand, features an LCD that is fused to the tablet’s Corning glass. If you drop your tablet and break the glass, you’ll have to replace both the glass and the LCD in order to fix it.
Unfortunately, the LCD is fused with the tablet’s Corning glass. Photo: iFixit
Beyond that, the only drawback is that the thin copper alloy sheets that shield the Nexus 7′s display could tear. The iFixit team gave the Nexus 7 a 7 out of 10 repairability rating, compared to the 8 out of 10 for the Kindle fire and the 2 out of 10 for the iPad.
For more on why it’s important for company’s to make repairable gadgets, make sure to read iFixit co-founder Kyle Wiens’s opinion pieces.
Nexus 7 Teardown [iFixit]
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