The ifixit team has taken its screwdrivers to the new Nook Tablet and have done what they do best: Tearing gadgets apart. The Nook Tablet is one nice piece of kit that may not be selling as well as the Kindle Fire but both tablets have quite a bit in common.
The Nook Tablet was given a 6 as far as “repairability” goes ,where the Kindle Fire landed itself an 8 out of 10.
Here are a few notes from the teardown:
- Nook Tablet Repairability Score: 6 out of 10 (10 is easiest to repair).
- The LCD is not fused to the front panel assembly, making replacement easy, if necessary.
- Hidden screws prevent removal of rear panel.
- Excessive amount of adhesive and adhesive strips make disassembly a painfully tedious process.
- Replacing the battery requires removing the motherboard as well as some serious prying.
- Components such as the headphone jack, microSD slot, etc. are soldered to the motherboard.
If you’re one to take apart gadgets just for the hell of it, you may have fun with the Nook Tablet but those looking to do a quick repair may not want to dig into the device as soon as something goes wrong. The LG-made LCD should be easy enough to swap out but replacing things like the battery may prove to be a bit tedious and cumbersome.
The Nook Tablet may eclipse the Kindle Fire’s specs in a couple of different areas but Amazon has proven that hard specs aren’t everything, and while the Nook Tablet is certainly nothing to scoff at, there certainly wasn’t any sort of hype for the device.
If you’ve picked up a Nook Tablet recently, do you have any plans of tearing the device apart, just for kicks?