hi I'm MJ with iFixit and today we are
going to take an up-close and personal
look at Google's new Nexus 7 in our
Nexus 7 teardown roundup I'm going to be
honest with you when Google first
announced the Nexus 7 I didn't get that
giddy feeling in my stomach the way I
usually do with the thought of tearing
down another gadget I'm kind of over
tablets they always promise to be the
next big thing and inevitably they fail
to deliver so I was both surprised and
delighted when our teardown revealed
that not only does the Nexus 7 live up
to its Kindle Fire killer reputation but
it also satisfies some of our desires on
the repair front as well so let's take a
closer look at what sets the Nexus 7
apart from its competition this is the
Nexus 7 and it is Google's first
entrance into the tablet market with the
help of asus they've created a very
intriguing device the Nexus 7 comes the
quad-core Tegra 3 processor one gig of
ram and your choice of 8 or 16 gigs of
on-board storage the display is a 7 inch
backlit IPS display running at 1280 by
800 and a decent 216 pixels per inch
this is a bit lower than the iPads
Retina display which has 264 pixels per
inch but well above the Kindle Fires 169
pixels per inch but enough about the
specs let's find out what our teardown
revealed can I just tell you how
thrilled our teardown ninjas were that
they didn't have to spend 45 minutes
heat and gunning off the display the way
they did with the iPad 3 let me show you
something
do you see these clips these clips mean
that all we needed were a set of plastic
opening tools and a little bit of
patience and we were in and that right
there scores the Nexus 7 huge points in
terms of repair ability one millimeter
is the difference in thickness between
the glued and nearly impossible to
repair iPad and the Nexus 7 held
together by retaining clips one stinking
millimeter is the difference between
being able to open your device and
service its internals and simply having
to throw the device away once the
battery dies and I challenge anyone to
be able to discern the difference in
millimeter makes when holding the device
in your bare hands we're not all The
Princess and the pea here 1 millimeter
is not noticeable in day-to-day use once
we were in we were met with a familiar
sight the giant
battery if you've opened enough tablets
up you probably saw this coming the
battery takes up most of the internals
and how easy is it to replace well the
Nexus 7 best the iPad yet again in that
this battery is super easy to replace
it's held down with a tiny bit of
adhesive and there aren't even any
screws involved it's as if Google wants
you to be able to continue using your
Nexus 7 long after the battery has died
imagine that a tablet that doesn't come
with a built-in death clock the
sustainability geek inside of me wants
to hug Google for this can you do that
hug Google the Nexus 7 comes with a 16
watt hour battery that can last just
less than 10 hours the Kindle Fire by
comparison comes with a 16 point to 8
watt hour battery that can last just
less than 8 hours go figure
for further comparison the Nexus 7's
battery time falls just between the
batteries for the 2012 iPad models which
lasts just less than 10 hours on HSDPA
and nine and a half hours on LTE except
that the iPads three batteries are
significantly larger coming in at forty
two and a half watt hours one thing that
separates the Nexus 7 from the pack is a
1.2 megapixel user facing camera and
microphone which means that the Nexus 7
can be used for video conferencing such
as Google Hangouts but the lack of rear
facing camera means that you won't be
using this tablet to take pictures other
features include the Broadcom gps chip
for use with navigation and map software
and the NFC chip for near-field
communications which basically means
that it can talk to other phones and
payment terminals when tapped against
them on the downside our biggest
complaint is pretty common in the tablet
market and that's that the LCD is fused
to the glass which makes the cost of
replacing shattered glass much higher
because you actually have to replace the
entire display assembly instead of just
the glass additionally there's no room
to add storage with a memory card the
way there is in the Nook and some other
Android tablets but to be fair the
Kindle Fire lacks that option as well so
finally let's talk repairability
we score every gadget we tear down for
repairability on
scale of one to ten ten being the
easiest to repair and one being the most
difficult to repair the Nexus 7 scored a
very respectable 7 out of 10 for the
following reasons
the rear case is very easy to open and
requires minimal prying effort with a
plastic opening tool to remove all
fasteners inside our phillips double
zero screws no security or proprietary
screws here battery replacement can be
accomplished without soldering or even a
screwdriver many components including
the i/o ports can be replaced
independently of the motherboard on the
con side the LCD does not separate from
the glass increasing repair costs that
about wraps it up if you want to see the
complete teardown including gorgeous
high-resolution images and witty
commentary make sure you check the
teardown out on our site and we will
link to it down in the description to
make that easy
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repairing