Hasta La Gadget!

 Google’s Project Tango prototype smartphone is armed with four cameras to allow it to take stock of its environment and record and use 3D depth-sensing info, and it’s basically just a bunch of cameras and sensor glommed onto a fairly impressive Android smartphone with a quad-core processor and 2GBs of RAM to crunch all that environment data. iFixit got to tear it down and have a look… Read More

Samsung has launched its Gear 2 smartwatch that looks to be a pretty slick wearable if you happen to own a compatible Samsung smartphone. If you don’t own a compatible device, you are out of luck. The geeks over at iFixit are our go to source for seeing what gadgets look like on the inside, and they’ve just published their teardown of the Gear 2.

The strap comes off the Gear 2 easily, which is to be expected since the straps are meant to be swapped as wanted. Taking off the case requires nothing more than removing four screws. Each of those screws has a gasket around them and the case has a gasket too to keep water out of the electronics.

Once inside, the iFixit guys identified the following major components:

• Samsung KMF5X0005M (likely DRAM package with 1 GHz dual-core CPU layered beneath)
• Maxim Integrated MAX77836 (likely micro-USB interface controller and Li+ battery charger)
• STMicroelectronics 32F401B 32 bit ARM Cortex MCU
• BCD Semiconductor Y831 audio codec
• Samsung MP65M gyroscope

I’m impressed by how much hardware is inside that small case. One nice feature they found is that the battery is easily removable if it needs replaced.

The entire watch is well packaged and easy to fix, leading iFixit to give the device a very respectable repairability score of 8 out of 10.

With HTC officially announced the HTC One M8 yesterday, we’re sure many of you guys are eager to get your hands on the device. After all what’s not to like? The phone packs some great hardware under the hood and even sports a pretty nice metal body which feels pretty premium.

Those are some factors that people take into consideration when thinking about a new phone, but at the same time there are those who worry about things like durability and repairability. After all no one likes spending a lot of money on repairs if they can help it, right? (more…)

iFixit Gives HTC One M8 2/10 For Repairability original content from Ubergizmo.

John Biggs said it best yesterday: “Come For The Styling, Stay For The Warranty”. Perhaps one of the best reasons to buy the new HTC One is the screen warranty, which iFixit just confirmed by awarding the new smartphone with a 2 out of 10 on its repairability scale. Read More

…or at least try to do so. The electronics repair specialists at iFixit put together a set of tools that will help you dust off and possibly even repair a variety of gadgets. It comes with spudgers, tweezers, cleaning swabs, and most importantly a 28-bit driver set that works with a variety of screw heads and sizes.

ThinkGeek says you can use the Refurbisher’s Toolkit to open up and clean practically any console. That includes the Xbox One, the PlayStation 4, as well as Nintendo and Sony handheld systems. The kit should also come in handy with some smartphones, laptops and desktop computers.

You can order the Refurbisher’s Toolkit from ThinkGeek for $100 (USD), $20 off its selling price on the iFixit store.

[via Boing Boing]