iFixit got their hands on a Motorola Xoom and tore the tablet down to its rails. During the process, the parts and repair company known for its teardown of seemingly every device released, discovered a few surprises including an easy to open, two-piece rear casing. This split aluminum and plastic casing is presumably designed to accommodate the 4G LTE upgrade, an upgrade that may require you to send the unit to Motorola for 6 days.
Once you get past the casing and the EMI shields, the prominent internal components on the logic board include the following:
- Broadcom BCM4329 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1, and FM Tuner. There’s also a Broadcom BCM4750 Single-Chip AGPS.
- Hynix H8BCSOQG0MMR 2-chip memory MCP
- AKM 8975 Electronic Compass
- Qualcomm MDM6600 supporting HSPA+ speeds of up to 14.4 Mbps
- Nvidia Tegra T2 dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 CPU and ultra-low power GeForce GPU.
- Texas Instruments 54331 Step Down SWIFT DC/DC Converter with Eco-Mode
- Samsung K4P4G154EC DRAM
- Qualcomm PM8028 RF Power Management IC
- Atmel TINY45 8-bit RISC-based Microcontroller with 4KB in-system programmable flash
- Toshiba THGBM2G8D8FBA1B NAND Flash
- ST Ericsson CPCAP 2.2TC22 DC Power Management
According to iFixit, the XOOM has a repairability score of 8 out of 10. Many individual components like the camera modules are not soldered onto the board or bundled into groups, a design decision that makes these parts easy to remove and replace. Unlike Apple which switched to proprietary pentalobe screws for its iPhone 4, the Xoom uses standard screws and connectors. Lastly, the LCD panel and its outer glass are not fused so you can replace one or the other easily. The only knock against the Xoom is its 57 screws which make it time-consuming to disassemble.
[Via iFixit]