Hasta La Gadget!

Look, we know you know all about LED backlights, light diffusion, subpixels, and the things that turn them on, but not everybody does. The humble LCD you’re most likely reading this on still retains a level of mystery about the nitty gritty details of how it works for the vast majority of its users, so here’s a terrific video breakdown of both its component parts and method of operation. Bill Hammack, a self-appointed Engineer Guy, takes us from the LED arrays that provide the light for most current LCDs, through all the filters and diffusers designed to make that light uniform, and into the ways thin film transistors make it possible for us to show moving color images of cats diving into boxes on such displays. It’s exciting, deeply nerdy stuff, and it awaits your audience after the break.

Continue reading LCD technology torn down and explained in the most lucid and accessible terms yet (video)

LCD technology torn down and explained in the most lucid and accessible terms yet (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 17 Mar 2011 10:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  engineerguyvideo (YouTube)  | Email this | Comments

It only took a few short hours for iFixit to get its hands on an iPad 2 (the WiFi variety), and of course, they immediately started to tear it apart. It’s a necessarily delicate task, but they’re making progress as we speak, and here are the first things that jump out to us: there is much less open space inside the iPad 2 than the original model, and the battery is very large. There aren’t any huge surprises in here internally yet, but it’s got the 1GHz A5 CPU, and 16GB of Toshiba TH58NVG7D2FLA89 NAND Flash. Like we said, they’re still at it with this one, and we’ll update as they do. Until then, hit up the source for all the photos.

iFixit has an iPad 2, and they’re ripping it apart originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 11 Mar 2011 19:10:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  iFixit  | Email this | Comments

Continue reading Nintendo 3DS gets torn apart and hacked a day after Japanese launch

Nintendo 3DS gets torn apart and hacked a day after Japanese launch originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 28 Feb 2011 13:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink GamesIndustry.biz  |  Tech-On!, TG Daily  | Email this | Comments

From the outside, tablets are almost all the same, especially when seen from the front. But like a pretty actor in a reality TV show, once you get under their skin you find out what really makes them tick. So it is with the Motorola Xoom, which has been opened up and photographed by — you guessed it — iFixit.

First off, it’s surprisingly easy to get in, requiring nothing but a Torx screwdriver to get the bulk of the cover off. This makes sense, as Motorola is going to be taking a lot of these apart to swap in 4G chipsets in the summer.

In fact, a lot of the design seems influenced by this crazy plan. To perform the swap, all a technician needs to do is remove those Torx screws, slide the rear cover open, remove a dummy chip-board and swap in the new one, reconnecting the antennas. It sounds a lot like swapping out Wi-Fi cards in a netbook, only with less screws. Here’s what iFixit has to say:

A seasoned technician can perform this swap in less than 10 minutes. Heck, a donkey could probably pull it off in less than two hours. We have no idea why a customer couldn’t just go to a Verizon store and have on-site representatives enable 4G on the spot, just like they’re able to transfer mobile contacts and perform other activation procedures.

Once inside, the first thing that you see is the huge battery, which is just as it should be: A tablet that doesn’t last all day is a tablet that isn’t worth buying. Then it’s onto the cameras (connected by separate cables for easy replacement), the speakers and then the main circuit board. As you already know, this contains the Nvidia Tegra T2 dual-core ARM A9 CPU and GeForce GPU. There’s not a lot of magic inside of any of these tablets — the trick is just to keep enough space spare to fit in a big battery.

IFixit rates the Xoom pretty high for fixability, and everything can be gotten out with “a spudger and a couple of Torx screwdrivers.” You’ll need some patience to tear everything down to the bare metal, though, because “there’s just a lot of labor involved with removing that many screws.”

Motorola Xoom Teardown [iFixit. Thanks, Miroslav!]

See Also:

• Farcical Xoom 4G Upgrade Plan Requires Mail-In, Six-Day Operation …
• Motorola Xoom Launches Without Flash
• XOOM
• Motorola Xoom $600 With Verizon Contract, $800 Without

If our review of the Atrix left you hungering for more, you can now feast your eyes on the guts of Motorola’s new Android powerhouse. Thanks to the folks at iFixit, its teardown reveals a familiar range of parts — 16GB of NAND flash, 960×540 PenTile LCD, 1GB DDR2 RAM and that beast of a NVIDIA Tegra 2 CPU. What’s more, is that the teardown brings to light some enticing news — the glass panel is not glued to the LCD. This allows for the clumsy to not have to spend the extra dough if they crack the glass (which is usually affixed to the display). Hit the source link if you’ve got your Atrix and are ready to dismantle the thing yourself.

P.S. — There is a Qualcomm MDM6200 HSPA+ chip inside the phone. The title is meant to be a joke in reference to misconceptions about 4G wireless technology. You can read about them here.

Motorola Atrix 4G gets the teardown treatment, fourth G nowhere to be found originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 22 Feb 2011 22:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  iFixit  | Email this | Comments