Steps 1–14: Teardown
Popular Repair Guides
Page 1 of 2
Kindle 2 Teardown
Introduction
Our Kindle 2 shipped on Monday, February 23rd, a day early. Thanks to UPS Next Day Air, we have the reader in our hands Tuesday morning.
Tools used in this guide
Teardown
Teardowns provide a look inside a device and should not be used as disassembly instructions.
Paginated Single Page Steps
Step 1
—
Teardown
It's here!
Thanks to the magic of E-Ink, the Kindle comes with setup instructions displayed on the screen itself. No plugging in is required.
We'll post updates on twitter about interesting things that we discover as we go.
Step 2
What comes in the box:
A quick start guide, complete with embossed letters
An AC adapter
The Kindle 2
Conveniently, the AC adapter can be used with either a wall outlet or a USB port.
Step 3
Size comparison: Definitely not as big as a 17" MacBook Pro Unibody.
The Kindle 2 weighs only 10.2 ounces. Per pound, that makes the Kindle 2 even more expensive than the $2,799 MacBook Pro 17" Unibody we took apart last week.
Step 4
The back. Nothing special about it.
Note the speaker holes on the bottom. We briefly tried the Text-to-Speech feature and were very impressed by the Kindle 2's ability to read the text displayed on-screen. But the honeymoon was quickly over and we started tearing into it.
Hopefully the insides will be more exciting... We'll let you know as soon as we can!
Step 5
Prying the back off...
Getting inside is easy once you know how. We used some iPod opening tools and a metal spudger, and finally managed to get in.
The matte-gray top cover comes off first.
There are two Phillips screws to remove before the Aluminum back can be removed entirely.
Step 6
We're in!
It's still not very pretty; just more white plastic.
Twenty Phillips screws hold the white plastic paneling in place.
Interestingly, nothing was attached to the large white and brown connector near the top of the board.
Step 7
Remove two Phillips screws and the battery lifts out easily.
The battery is Model No. S11S01A. It's a 3.7 V, 1530 mAh lithium polymer battery. The battery weighs in at 31 grams, just over 10% of the Kindle's total weight.
The wireless card is also easily removable by removing two Phillips screws.
There are two antenna ports on the wireless card, but there was nothing connected to the AUX port in our Kindle.
Step 8
After removing sixteen more screws, we've made it to the main PCB.
Everything exciting is still beneath silver EMI shields.
The Kindle was designed by Lab126, a secretive Amazon subsidiary based in Cupertino that designs consumer devices. Thus far, they have only released the Kindle 1 and 2.
Page 1 of 2
Hello everybody,
Do anybody know how is the "Text To Speech" implemented?. I've read they finally don't include this functionality, but i'm wondering if they've done by hardware (with a TTS SoC like Sensory) or by Software.
Thank you!
DGS
Please explain exactly what you are prying on with the tools. I can only see what looks like metal tabs extending inward from the cover, like the cover is finally locked down by bending those 4 tabs (2 per hole). Are you releasing a tab or something or just prying the cover off?
That's a standard mini-PCIe WWAN (EVDO) card - perhaps one could scope the AT commands being sent to the card, then insert the card into PC and send the same AT commands for unlimited (free) data...
Also, there's a missing SIM holder below the WWAN card - this means a GSM/UMTS version of the Kindle is planned!
It's a Novotel E725 Mini PCIe card. Despite the "E727NV" - the FCC ID of that card is the Novotel E725. In theory you'd just need the proper drivers and the modem's dialing strings/connection info from the unit itself, which may or may not be hard to find.
Also, the 'white and brown' connector you note is most likely the debugging connector, just as was on the Kindle 1.
that looks more like an SD card outline to me.
The Expedite E725 EVDO PCI-e card also contains a built-in GPS (real + assisted) as far as I can tell from reading the specs.
No, it is a SIM connector, a SD connector wouldn't make sense in that place, and SD connectors have more pins
SIM: http://www.allproducts.com/computer/yiku...-200312915582-l.jpg
SD: http://www.allproducts.com/computer/yiku...-2003129155139-l.jpg
Does the Kindle 2 still function as a reader if you remove the wireless card?