Microsoft Kin Two Teardown

Teardown

Teardown

Teardowns provide a look inside a device and should not be used as disassembly instructions.

Featured Guide

Featured Guide

This guide has been found to be exceptionally cool by the iFixit staff.

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We partnered with Chipworks to bring you a teardown of the all-new Microsoft Kin Two!

The Microsoft Kin Two is the Kin One's taller brother, and is manufactured by Sharp Electronics.

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Add Note Edit Step 1 — Microsoft Kin Two Teardown  ¶ 

  • Photos courtesy of Chipworks.

  • The Kins are Microsoft's first foray into cellphones. As noted on the back of the Kin Two, they're very sharp Verizon phones, ones that have windows on them.

  • We call shenanigans. They weren't sharp at all, nor were any windows to be found. Silly Microsoft.

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Add Note Edit Step 2  ¶ 

  • The top of the phone features a headphone jack, while a Micro USB port can be found on the bottom.

  • The Kin Two is 19.05 mm thick. That makes for a bigger bulge in the pants, given that the thickness of the iPhone and Motorola Droid are 12.3 mm and 13.7 mm, respectively.

  • Enter "Is that a Kin Two, or are you happy to see me?" jokes here.

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Add Note Edit Step 3  ¶ 

  • Sliding the screen upwards reveals a relatively simple keyboard. No fancy D-pad, just one "alternate" text button. Judging from the look of the keyboard, Microsoft's marketing this phone to the 12-year-old txting crowd.

  • The back side reveals the lovely 8MP camera and LED flash...

  • ...And the back cover comes off to reveal several screws underneath!

  • It looks like it's pretty easy to exchange the battery in the Kin Two. Hint, hint, Apple!

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Add Note Edit Step 4  ¶ 

  • With the two sliding halves of the phone separated, you can easily see the odd-shaped springs that keep the phone either fully open or fully closed.

  • The connector highlighted in yellow is responsible for sending data between main board and the display, microphone, speaker, and touchscreen.

  • Several rows of pressure contacts help exchange data between the main board and the external buttons, microphone, speaker, and antennas embedded in the outer case.

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Add Note Edit Step 5  ¶ 

  • The camera is the Sony IMX046, which is fabricated using a 90 nm CMOS process. The camera's resolution is 8.11 effective megapixel (8 active megapixel), 1.4 μm sized pixel, 1/3.2" optical format. Samsung was the first to use this camera in the M8800.

  • An LED flash placed next to the camera lens on the rear case sheds some light on night shots.

  • For all its pixels, the camera only eats up about .5 cm3 of space inside the Kin.

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Add Note Edit Step 6  ¶ 

  • Separating the two halves of the display assembly reveals a bunch of cables connecting the microphone, speaker, display, and digitizer to the main board.

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Add Note Edit Step 7  ¶ 

  • The digitizer is a Synaptics unit, and the main controller chip is labeled T1021A 1 0939 ACOM755.

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Add Note Edit Step 8  ¶ 

  • The front and back of the main board.

  • The camera is nestled quite nicely in a little cutout near the top of the board.

  • When buttons are pressed on the QWERTY keyboard, they simply bridge the connection between the gold ring and its center dot.

  • If only the steel shield supports were gone so we could view the board unobstructed...

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Add Note Edit Step 9  ¶ 

  • If you ever want to use your phone again, don't remove those shield supports that were soldered to the logic board.

  • Texas Instruments' TPS-6586 Advanced Power Management Unit controls power onboard the Kin and takes care of charging its lithium battery.

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Add Note Edit Step 10  ¶ 

  • The Wolfson Micro WM8903 is a low power stereo codec with all sorts of fancy features like programmable audio path control sequences, both pseudo-differential and fully-differential analog inputs, a dynamic range controller, and all sorts of other technical jibber jabber.

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Add Note Edit Step 11  ¶ 

  • Was ist das? It's actually an Nvidia Tegra processor, buried beneath an Numonyx package seen on the surface.

  • Samsung's moviNAND chip supplies the 8GB of storage space for the Kin.

    • The moviNAND package can transfer data at speeds up to 52 MB/s.

  • The Qualcomm QSC6085 package delivers up to 1.8 Mbps reverse and 3.8 Mbps forward speed on CDMA-2000 networks.

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Add Note Edit Step 12  ¶ 

  • The small silicon chip pictured appears to be a Texas Instruments WL1271 for WLAN and possibly Bluetooth connectivity.

  • Avago's ACFM-7103 PCS/Cellular/S-GPS Quintplexer simplifies mobile applications designed for simultaneous voice service and GPS positioning.

  • Another Avago chip, the ACPM-7353, provides dual band power amplification for cellular and PCS connectivity.

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Add Note Edit Step 13  ¶ 

  • STMicroelectronics LIS331-DL inertial sensor (3-axis digital MEMS accelerometer).

  • Another chips near the camera connector were not readily identifiable, but they most likely help with transferring data between the camera and the main board.

  • AKM's AK8973 3-axis Electronic Compass. The same like in most mobile devices today. Placed out of the shield to feel geomagnetic field freely.

  • We'll update the teardown as we find out more. Follow @ifixit to stay up-to-date with the hardware world.

  • Thanks again to our friends at Chipworks for the photos!

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