Hasta La Gadget!

Now that OUYA consoles are shipping out to the masses, the folks at iFixit were able to grab a box and immediately undo all of the precious packaging work accomplished at the factory. In its usual style, the site gently dissected the world’s best-known Android game console, commenting on “a very clean and simple layout.” Overall, the splaying seemed to happen with little to no fuss, with the fan being the only modular (and moving) component in the entire thing. All told, the OUYA notched a 9 out of 10 on the all-important Repairability Meter, aided by the fact that only standard-head screws were used, and that no abstract glues or other black magic was used while piecing it all together. You’ll definitely want to give the source link a look if you’re yearning for more eye candy.

Filed under: Gaming

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Source: iFixit

Samsung barely tweaked the exterior design of the Galaxy S4. That plastic casing might not be much to look at, but as iFixit’s teardown reveals, that’s precisely why you can replace much of its guts without any hassle. More »

Chances are if you’ve bought a $250 thermostat you aren’t going to immediately rip it apart to see what makes it tick. Thankfully, there are folks like iFixit that do these sorts of things for us, and they’ve now finally done the honors with Nest’s second-generation unit. As with the original model, there’s an ARM Cortex A8 CPU powering things inside, and iFixit is especially impressed with the ease of access to the replaceable battery and other components; only some adhesive holding the front assembly together proved a tad difficult, which it says could complicate matters if you need to replace the screen or front glass. If you do take it off, though, iFixit notes that the curved glass can also double as a handy magnifying glass. Hit the source link below for the full step-by-step account.

Filed under: Household

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Source: iFixit

3D gaming headset and Kickstarter success the Oculus Rift has only just been put together and begun shipping out to backers, but that hasn’t stopped iFixit from tearing it down as soon as it arrived. The headset exceeded its crowd-funding goal within a matter of hours but takes less than ten minutes to break down into its constituent parts, the teardown site discovered, rating it – in beta form, at least – a healthy nine out of ten for repairability.

Contributing to that score is the use of standard Philips screws (rather than weird, tamper-proof variants) and, where things aren’t screwed-together, standard clips instead. The LCD mounting, which is courtesy of some sticky foam pads, also gets praised for its ease of reassembly.

In fact, the only downside that’s observed is the Kapton tape – which is thermally resilient – and which Oculus uses in the development kit to hold some of the wires together. That “should probably be replaced with new tape” if you dismantle your kit, iFixit suggests.

Of course, things could change between the developer kit and the final retail product, and only time will tell whether Oculus makes the consumer Rift version as straightforward to tinker with. That’s not expected for a while yet – the company hasn’t said exactly when – though Oculus has indicated that physical design will evolve between the two, for at least the sake of “comfort.”

Oculus Rift dev kit teardown earns tinkering praise is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
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Readers can be a fickle bunch – around here we know this from experience. It seems like we’re always getting comments or e-mails accusing us of taking money from this company or that because we cover so many of their products. At the same time, we’re always getting e-mails wanting to know why exactly you haven’t talked about the latest whatnot from this company or that. I can certainly imagine that the geeks over at iFixit have caught more than little grief over the fact that they tend to rip apart every Apple device ever made.

To celebrate April Fool’s Day, iFixit has opted for tearing down something other than an Apple gadget.

This time, they have torn down an orange. As in the citrus fruit, which has prevented scurvy for thousands of years. As is typical for teardowns from iFixit, there are plenty of shots of the tools needed and images of the (quite literally) juicy insides.

If you have a penchant for the Orange, be warned that it has a repair ability score of zero. Yep, once you open this thing up there is no fixing it. This is a one use device, unless you are into organic gardening anyway.

View the full Orange teardown over at iFixit.