The Droid Razr Packs New Hardware

February 8, 2012 Hardware, Site News, Teardowns — Miro

Our original Droid Razr teardown from last November revealed how the device packs all that fun hardware into such a thin form factor. But recently we’ve heard the good word from the bird that Motorola may be using different components inside Droid Razr units manufactured after our teardown. So of course we just couldn’t resist de-EMI-shielding another Droid Razr unit for the sake of science. That’s just how we roll.

To those who might think we’re just wasting phones without abandon, you needn’t worry – the second unit is also going to be used for our repair guides, so you won’t have to suffer if you’re trying to repair your Droid Razr yourself.

Behold the updates! We removed a ton of EMI shields with our dental pick and exposed all the new hardware that powers this Droid Razr (click on any image to load the ginormous version):

So what’s new? First thing to note is the new SanDisk SDIN5C1-16G flash memory chip. It’s the largest change in the new Droid Razr – literally. The large-and-in-charge SanDisk package resides exactly where the earlier Droid Razr’s 16GB Toshiba flash used to be. To those keeping score, we also uncovered the same SanDisk flash memory chip inside the Nook Tablet.

 Second comes the ELPIDA B8164B3PF-8D-F RAM. This package replaces the Samsung K3PE7E700M-XGC1 4Gb LPDDR2 RAM we found in the original Droid Razr.

And finally, the Hynix H90H1GH51JMP chip that sits atop the  TI OMAP 4430 processor is replaced by a Toshiba Y9AOA111418L8 memory chip.

The rest of the components are largely the same, aside from the Bosch accelerometer being a slightly updated unit. To be extra thorough, we also updated the Droid Razr teardown to reflect this new-found knowledge.

Well there you have it, folks. We certainly hope you’re not particular about which components your Droid Razr sports, because you never know what stuff lies inside unless you open it up and remove the EMI shields – which will certainly guarantee a dead Droid on your hands.

But even if you accidentally break your Droid Razr, don’t worry. Give us a week or two and we’ll have guides for your repairing convenience. Just keep your peepers glued the Droid Razr device page, and we’ll help you out.

Going to Macworld? We Are

January 23, 2012 Events, Site News — Elizabeth

This weekend, we’ll be in San Francisco at Macworld | iWorld, the annual Apple fan convention held from January 26-28 at the Moscone Center. We’ll be presenting at three events on Thursday and will have an informal meet-up in Oakland on Friday evening. If you’ll be attending, come say hi!

Thursday, Jan. 26, 10-10:45 a.m.
TechTalk: The Doctor is In!
Room 2011

Have a broken iPod lying around? Bring in your broken Apple hardware. Kyle, Luke, and the iFixit team will be joined by folks from the Fixit Clinic to diagnose, troubleshoot, and repair Apple devices. We’ll help diagnose your issues and figure out what needs fixing. We’ll provide a workspace, troubleshooting tools and equipment, expert advice, and even parts for some common repairs. Come pick the brains of our Apple experts, or share your repair victories with like-minded DIYers. We’ll bring a selection of parts to fix many common iPod and iPhone problems on the spot, including failing batteries and cracked screens.

Thursday, Jan. 26, 11-11:45 a.m.
Hardware Repair Showcase
MacWorld.com Stage (in the expo area)

Come learn how to do some cool and easy upgrades on Apple devices! We’ll show you how to replace the back of your iPhone with a transparent rear panel to show off its beautiful insides, how to put a second hard drive in your Mac Mini, and how to replace your laptop’s optical drive with a hard drive.

Thursday, Jan. 26, 5-7:30 p.m.
RapidFire: A Crash Course on Apple Repair—iFixit Shares the Basics of Repairing Your Apple Hardware
Room 2006

RapidFire is a series of five-minute talks, each of which will teach one thing quickly and effectively. In our five-minute RapidFire talk, we’ll show you the best tricks and tips to troubleshoot, get inside, and repair your Apple products. We’ll demonstrate how to handle water damage, bad reception on an iPhone, and ways to get inside devices with the right tools and tricks. Come join us for a quick, visual demonstration to better inform you with the basics of Apple repair knowledge.

If that’s not enough iFixit for your weekend, we also invite you to join us Friday, January 27 at 7 p.m. for shop talk, food, and drinks at the awesome Oakland technology salon Tech Liminal (268 14th St., Oakland, CA 94612). Fixit Clinic people will be there, too. No worries if you don’t have a car—Tech Liminal is pretty close to the 12th St. Oakland City Center BART stop.

Hope to see you there.

Announcing iFixit.org: The People Who Are Fixing the World

January 19, 2012 Activism, Repair Stories, Site News — Kyle

iFixit has been helping people fix their stuff since 2003, with free, easy-to-use, step-by-step repair guides for all sorts of hardware—from electronics to automobiles. We believe in taking control of the devices you own by opening them up and tinkering with their insides. Our vision? A world where everyone has free access to repair manuals for everything. We make it easy, with our guide-creation software, for people to share their repair knowledge with the world.

On this new site, we, the iFixit team, will share the philosophy behind our work, some of the repair stories that we’ve historically been posting on iFixit.com, as well as posts from guests on similar sustainability issues.

(more…)

STOP SOPA+PIPA

January 18, 2012 Activism, Site News — Bob

Many of you are already aware that many of your favorite websites have gone dark or posted censorship warnings today. Google, Wikipedia, Reddit, Imgur, and Craigslist, among a slew of others, are protesting U.S. legislation that would significantly impact the freedom of the internet.

iFixit stands with them.

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) are pieces of legislation currently under consideration by the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate, respectively. Both bills lack the correct technical language to do what they intend (you know, actually stop piracy), and instead are vulnerable to overly broad interpretation that could seriously impact the innovation, freedom, and secure operation of the internet.

There are plenty of places where you can get an in-depth analysis of what’s wrong with the bills, so we’ll keep it simple. These are the ways in which SOPA and PIPA would directly impact our operations here at iFixit:

  • Blocking our free, open-source content.
    For censorship purposes, SOPA/PIPA define sites as “domestic” or “foreign” based on their domain name, not their actual base of operations. While iFixit.com is a U.S. domestic domain name and company, we use a Content Distribution Network (CDN) to serve you images and other page content when you view a guide. The CDN finds the geographically-closest server to you so the page loads fast. Based on the loose definition in the bill, some of your guide may be “domestic” and some of it may be “foreign.” Guide images and other content could be inadvertently blocked by blanket domain blacklisting.
  • Teaching repair could be rendered illegal.
    According to the language in the bill, facilitation of criminal violations are enough to get you in trouble. This means that helping users with troublesome DVD region restrictions or tearing down an FBI tracking device could get us in legal hot water. Worse yet, we’ve opened up our site for users to submit and edit their own guides, and we’ve built a community of people who love to help others fix things. All of the work, content, and contributions would be put in jeopardy if the two bills are enacted. Since teaching the world how to do stuff is kind of our bag, this would significantly stifle our mission of teaching the world how to fix everything.

In fact, it’s questionable that iFixit could have even succeeded in a post-SOPA world. We started in a dorm room in 2003 by writing repair manuals for electronics made by a certain big Silicon Valley company because they weren’t publicly available. If we’d chosen a hip “Web 2.0″ domain like iFix.it (FYI, not us!), our site would be considered foreign even though it hails from the U.S. If a certain big Silicon Valley company didn’t like what we were up to, they could have filed a complaint and had our website blocked in the U.S. Game over.

Please take the time to call or write your representatives and let them know how you feel about SOPA and PIPA. It’s difficult for them to make the best decisions for us if they don’t know how we feel, so take a step back from the keyboard (Reddit’s down anyway), pick up your phone, and SPEAK UP!

Correlated Magnets

January 16, 2012 Hardware, Site News — Phillip

You probably didn’t know that we here at iFixit have a knack for magic. Today, you’ll bear witness to that fact. We’re going to share one of our greatest feats of magical genius with you. Drum roll, please… Behold! Levitating magnets! (ooh, ahh.)

Hovering magnets!

What, not impressed? What’s not impressive about magnets repelling each other? Well, if that doesn’t impress you, check this out.

Hovering magnet, upside down?

Ta-Da! That’s right: those magnets are hovering, yet not completely separating; now that’s impressive! But how’s this possible, you may ask? Shouldn’t the magnets either stick together or completely repel each other?

This isn’t an optical illusion (or Photoshop magic), but science! The pictured magnets are not the ordinary kind you’d get at the local hardware store, but correlated magnets developed by Correlated Magnetics Research, or CMR. But before we delve into the details surrounding correlated magnets, let’s revisit how good old-fashioned magnets work.

A quick lesson in magnet basics: there are two sides to a typical magnet, a “North” pole and a “South” pole. Putting opposite poles together will cause an attraction force (akin to Paula Abdul and a tomcat). Putting same poles together will cause a repulsive force. And proximity affects the strength of these forces—the general rule is that the closer the magnets are, the stronger the forces. These forces can sometimes be so strong that it is impossible for the average person to cause contact between same poles, or separate opposite poles. And the vast majority of magnets out there have one North and one South pole.

A correlated magnet has the unique characteristic of having alternating North and South poles on one side, resulting in simultaneous attract and repel forces. The poles can be built such that we achieve our “magic” above, where there is enough repulsive force to prevent contact—but still enough attractive force to keep the magnets close. Check out how different they can appear from standard magnets when viewed on magnetic viewing film:

Standard (left) and correlated (right) magnets. The light green lines are pole boundaries.

Levitation isn’t the only thing these magnets are good for, however. CMR provided us with several different kinds of correlated magnets, each with unique pole designs that gives them varying attractive and repulsive properties. For example, some magnets were designed so that when two red dots on the handles were aligned, a great amount of force was required to separate them. But when we twisted the magnets and misaligned the red dots, the magnets were much easier to separate.

The attraction force between the two magnets is several magnitudes higher when the red dots are lined up.

The attraction force between the two magnets is several magnitudes higher when the red dots are lined up.

Different pole designs result in different magnet interactions.

So these magnets can make a fun “magic” trick for the kids and would probably make a decent conversation piece in the living room of physicists and engineers, but what are their application in the real world?

Take a home deadbolt lock as an example. When you turn the lock with your fingers, it pushes a rod into the door frame to prevent the door from opening. But you wouldn’t need a deadbolt lock with correlated magnets. They could be used so that two disks would hold the door in the “open” position with a 5 lb force. But when the magnet on the door was turned 90 degrees, it would align more attractive poles and fewer repulsive poles, resulting in a 500 lb force “locked” door.

Too humdrum for you? Instead, how about using them in levitating vehicles? A properly programmed correlated magnet can provide enough repulsive force to keep the heaviest vehicles afloat, but simultaneously provide an attractive force that could mitigate undesired takeoffs. This magnet technology is also under research for use with NASA telescopes, and even the medical world is looking into using correlated magnets in joint replacements.

While not in mass production yet, this cool technology has the power to significantly affect how we construct mechanical systems. We’re excited to see how correlated magnets will be implemented in future products!

New Pro Tech Base Toolkit

December 13, 2011 Hardware, Site News, Tools — Kyle

Our Pro Tech Base Toolkit has been a hot item ever since we released it last year — repair techs, DIYers, single-parent moms, and even secretive 3-letter agencies have used them to open their devices.

Not content to rest on our laurels, we’ve spent a year asking our teardown specialists, customers, repair shops, and tool geeks worldwide how to make it better. We paid close attention to their advice, and we’re excited to announce our new 54 Bit Driver Kit and Pro Tech Base Toolkit!

So what’s new? First, we’ve substantially improved our 54 Bit Driver Kit. Some highlights include:

  • Pentalobe bits to open and repair popular Apple devices such as the iPhone 4, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro.
  • T7 through T20 security bits to fit Torx security screws with a pin in the center.
  • A full line of metric nut drivers.
  • JIS bits to fit the screws found in digital cameras, R/C helicopters, and other high-end electronics.
  • A custom 1/4″ to 4 mm adapter to allow our 4 mm precision bits to be used in standard 1/4″ screwdrivers with larger handles, ratcheting handles, or torque drivers.
  • A 60 mm extension that doubles as a T-handle, making it easy to get extra torque and remove stubborn screws.

We’ve kept all the great features of our driver kit including the precision machined, magnetized driver and a full complement of flathead, tri-wing, Phillips, Torx, and hex bits.

MJ provides a nice overview of the new 54 Bit Driver Kit here:

While our 54 Bit Driver Kit is the most capable electronics repair screwdriver set on the planet, getting inside many devices requires more than just a screwdriver. That’s where our Pro Tech Base Toolkit comes in. We’ve carefully selected the components to include the most useful tools for releasing tabs, disconnecting connectors, getting into tight spaces, and picking up small parts. To keep everything portable and well-organized, we designed an all-new tool roll to house everything.

Kit contents:

Want to see more? Watch MJ show off the new Pro Tech Base Toolkit:

We’re offering the Pro Tech Base Toolkit at a very affordable $59.95, and we’re also selling the upgraded 54 Bit Driver Kit set for just $24.95. Give the gift of sweet repair success to your loved ones this Christmas.

University Technical Writing Project

December 6, 2011 Site News — Miro

Several thousand user-contributed repair guides have been published on our site since we released our repair guide creator to the world. And that’s no coincidence. We’ve been working with the English department at Cal Poly since September 2009 to develop a technical writing curriculum centered around a device repair manual. In fact, students from across the nation are responsible for the majority of user-created content on our site; a total of eight universities now peruse the iFixit project.

The curriculum requires a group of technical writing students to document how to repair a device — either one provided by iFixit, or one of their own choosing. In return, iFixit provides the tools, materials, and instructions for the students to successfully take apart and photograph a device. The entire curriculum (including tips on photography, writing style, and deliverables that need to be turned in) is hosted on iFixit, so students have access to it anytime, anywhere.

After two years of development, we’ve seen tremendous benefits for everyone involved:

  • Students make a noble contribution by writing guides for real electronic devices, all the while learning modern communication techniques by using pictures and text to relay what they learn.
  • Students have a clear set of deliverables that they can show off to family and friends, and even put on their resume at the end of the term.
  • Professors gain access to an easily-startable, easily-maintainable project. Our collaboration with Cal Poly helped us develop several tools for professors that make it easy to keep track of students’ contributions during the school term.
  • The world has yet another open-source repair manual that can be used to fix the device.

 

Student group shows how to adjust the derailleur on a bike.

Student group shows how to adjust the derailleur on a bike.

The vast majority of student contributions result in fully usable, well-written guides. And given our flexibility with project devices, we’ve published everything from a stellar PSP 2000 repair manual to a great set of repair guides for a Volvo 740.

With the help of Cal Poly, Ohio State University, CSU Los Angeles, University of Maryland, Cuesta College, James Madison University, University of Wisconsin Stout, and University of Maine, we’ve been able to publish over 350 student-authored service manuals (comprising over 2,000 guides). That’s a great start, but there are still thousands of devices that require repair manuals.

We would love to include other universities across the United States. Our online-based program easily scales to accommodate several more schools that might be interested in our program. So if you know of a professor or other faculty member at your local university and think they might benefit from collaborating with iFixit, please send them our way!

Samsung Galaxy Nexus Teardown

November 29, 2011 Hardware, Site News, Teardowns — Miro

Thanks to some wonderful folks in the UK, we got our hands on the elusive Samsung Galaxy Nexus even before its release date has been announced on our side of the pond.

And we’re glad that it’s here, as it contains some features we’ve never before seen in a smartphone.

Sadly, it’s not all fun and games. The phone is a bit difficult to get into, and glass replacement is costly due to the glass being fused to both AMOLED display as well as a display frame. So, either get good with a heat gun or just don’t drop the phone. Consequently, the Galaxy Nexus received a mid-pack 6 out of 10 repairability score.

Teardown highlights:

  • Not only does the 3.7 V, 1750 mAh battery power the phone, but the user manual states that it also doubles as the NFC antenna. Of course, we had to see this one for ourselves, so we peeled apart the battery. Lo and behold, there’s a sweet antenna hiding underneath the battery’s shiny wrapper.
  • If you ever want to buy a replacement battery (and keep NFC functional), ensure that the battery has the antenna. Our battery says “Near Field Communication” on it, so that might be a good indicator if it will function as an NFC antenna.
  • The 5 megapixel rear-facing camera is optimized for low light conditions and has a handy continuous auto-focus feature that’ll surely help keep those quick moments clear. If you prefer moving pictures, this camera can capture full HD 1080p “talkies.” We weren’t that impressed with the camera during our five-minute pre-teardown test, but that’s just our impression.
  • The front-facing camera allows for video chat and will take pictures at 1.3 MP or videos at 720p. Pretty standard stuff nowadays. But, the cool part is that is also has a Winbond 8 Mb Serial Flash Memory unit in line to help it buffer all the data it collects.
  • The rear speaker pops off the motherboard without much effort. The ability to replace individual components inside the Galaxy Nexus is always great, since this will make some repairs less costly.
  • The primary internals of the Galaxy Nexus are contained on two L-shaped boards that are held together by soldered wires from the vibrator motor. We found the following chips:
  • Texas Instruments TWL6040 8-Channel High Quality Low-Power Audio Codec
  • Texas Instruments TWL6030 Fully Integrated Power Management with Switch Mode Charger
  • Invensense MPU-3050 Motion Processing Unit
  • Intel XG626 Baseband Modem
  • RFMD RF6260 Quad-band Multimode Power Amplifier Module
  • Samsung K3PE7E700M 512 MB DDR2 SDRAM
  • Samsung KMVYL000LM Multichip Memory Package, which we believe to house an additional 512 MB of RAM in addition to the main processor.
  • Samsung SWB-B42 BT 4.0 Dual Band Wlan FM Tx/Rx. Chipworks says the module is actually manufactured by Murata, and houses a Broadcom BCM4330 die inside.
  • NXP 65N00 Smart Card IC. According to Chipworks, this two-die package houses an MCU and a PN544 NFC controller.
  • The chip labeled as 274 U141 031 hides the Bosch BMP180 MEMS Pressure Sensor, which should be responsible for the “barometer” feature inside the Nexus. The Bosch BMP180 is identified by its markings CMD 173 as noted by our friends at Chipworks.
Checking out the wire bonds in the Bosch BMP180 MEMS Pressure Sensor

Checking out the wire bonds in the Bosch BMP180 MEMS Pressure Sensor

Final layout

Final layout

iPhone 4S Transparent Rear Panels

November 28, 2011 Site News — luke

iPhone 4S Transparent Rear Panel

Update (12/6): We’re now selling the 4S and 4 GSM transparent panels individually. We’re putting more in stock as fast as we can. If we’re sold out, click “Notify me” on the product page and we’ll email you as soon as they’re back in stock.

Apple designs amazing products—inside and out. The internals of the iPhone are absolutely gorgeous, but Apple keeps them covered up! We’re proud to announce our iPhone 4S transparent back panel. Now you can have the coolest iPhone on the block!

The glass panel looks absolutely gorgeous, and we can’t wait to see them on iPhones everywhere. To kick the new product off in style, we’ve put together a special introductory package:

These items normally sell for over $50, but today (11/28) we’re offering the entire package for only $29.95. Supplies are limited. Once we run out of packages, we’ll continue selling the back panel for $29.95.

If you haven’t upgraded to a 4S yet, we’ve also got a package with iPhone 4 GSM panels.

Installing the panel takes seconds—just remove two screws with the included screwdriver, slide the back panel off, and slide the new one on. We’ve even made step-by-step instructions to show you the way.

This is an incredible Christmas gift for your geeky friends.

Thirsty Bags

November 23, 2011 Hardware, Site News, Tools — Miro

If you have ever dropped a phone in a pool or spilled water on your Game Boy, then you know the helplessness of water damaged electronics.

When water comes into contact with an electronic device, it tries to seep into any nook and cranny it can possibly get into. If one of those crannies happens to be near the motherboard, the water may cause a short, rendering parts of the device, or the entire device, useless.

The first step for fixing a wet device is always to immediately turn it off and remove the battery, if possible. As long as no power is flowing through the motherboard, there is no way that the water can cause a short. But how do you get all the water out? That’s where this bag of thirst comes in.

Introducing the Thirsty Bag – the bag that is guaranteed to absorb 100% of the water out of your device and help get it running again. Using the Thirsty Bag directly after an accident can dramatically reduce the chances of a short.

Broken iPhone not included. That's for you to provide.

Broken iPhone not included. That's for you to provide.

We use molecular sieves, the best in desiccant technology, inside the bags to absorb the maximum amount of water from the environment. Molecular sieves work by allowing small molecules (such as water) through their pores while concurrently blocking out larger molecules (the rest of your device). What does that mean for you? Ridding yourself of every drop of liquid in your device.

The Thirsty Bag is big enough to work for PSPs, watches, cameras, calculators, PDAs, and more. It can even dry your larger electronics, like iPads and DSLR cameras, if you use a larger sealable bag. And unlike other home remedies — such as uncooked rice or direct sunlight — these pouches are guaranteed to absorb all of the water out of the device without any risk of damage.

Fair warning: using the Thirsty Bag will ensure that there will be no liquid left inside to cause a short, but it will not guarantee that your device will work afterwards. Think of it as an electronic bandage. You’ll use a bandage if you get shot (and it’ll even extract the bullet for you in this example), but it won’t guarantee that you’ll live. So just as it’s handy to have some bandages around in case you get into a gunfight, it’s handy to have the Thirsty Bag around just in case you drop your iPhone into the toilet while reading this blog post.