iFixit

Next to the display in the front case we find, well, some speaker-looking thing.

Inside the case of our mystery component we found a voice coil, so we're pretty sure it's some sort of microphone or secondary speaker, or possibly a linear vibration motor.

Update: It looks like a Precision Microdrives Precision Haptic Linear Resonant Vibrator, responsible for haptic feedback.

The headphone jack and volume buttons aren't holding on to their real estate too tightly, and they easily come out next.

We still count this as a modular component, even though it's two things on the same ribbon cable. We have certainly seen worse lately as far as modularity goes.

We disconnect the display and digitizer cable from the motherboard with the help of a plastic opening tool.

Let's get the motherboard out and see what goodies are attached to it.

Oh no! We can't Skype with our grandmothers now that the front-facing camera is gone!

• We had to wait until the motherboard was out to remove this camera, as a plastic bezel pins it down from beneath.

Off comes another 720p camera from the motherboard. It feels like we've done this before…

The exclusion of a 1080p rear-facing camera either means cost was a big concern, or that Microsoft's designers don't expect you to use the Surface as your main camera.

• Perhaps they too realized how goofy you might look when taking pictures with a tablet.

Prominent ICs on the bottom of the motherboard:

• NVIDIA 1.4 GHz Tegra 3 Processor
• Samsung KLMBG4GE4A 32 GB NAND Flash (left) and Atmel UC3L microprocessor (top right).
• Micron 2RE22 D9QBJ 2 GB DDR3 SDRAM
• Texas Instruments TPS659110 power management IC
• Marvell 88W8797-BMP2 wireless MIMO SoC
• Wolfson 8962E low power audio codec
• Cypress Semiconductor CY8C20466A CapSense® Controller with SmartSenseTM Auto-tuning

The backside of the motherboard doesn't have any chips, but it does have two Wi-Fi antennas, the ambient light sensor, a couple microphones, and a precarious wire running most of its length.

• Ambient light sensor
• Wolfson WM7220 Microphones
• Precarious wire

The Wi-Fi antennas are labeled:

• Antenova A10416-WIFI-A2
• Antenova A10416-WIFI-A1

Following the mother(board) is the daughter(board) featuring three Atmel MXT154E touchscreen controllers.

This board only deals with matters pertaining to the 10.6" touchscreen. Everything else is either located on the motherboard or on its own ribbon cable.