Motorola Xoom Gets the Teardown Treatment
No rest for the wicked.
The iFixit team has yet to down tools after what’s turned out to be a monster week in terms of disassemblies. Following hot on the heels of the Motorola Atrix, the Samsung Galaxy S 4G, and the 15-inch MacBook Pro is the Motorola Xoom.
Officially launched earlier this week, the Xoom is the nearly-4G tablet that made such a splash at CES. Packing Nvidia’s Tegra 2 chipset and 32GB of storage, the device is a bit of a beast, and will be even more so once Motorola gets around to upgrading it with 4G support.
If you were keeping an eye out yesterday you’ll know that updating the device for 4G involves sending your tablet in to Motorola for approximately one week. The team at iFixit reports that looking inside the device, it seems as though the tablet was designed with this future upgrade in mind.
Upgrading the 4G will involve a T5 Torx screwdriver to gain access to the circuit board, and then disconnecting of two antenna connectors, unscrewing the two Torx screws holding the board in place, and swapping it out with an 4G LTE board. It’s not a very involved process and iFixit reckons it’s something that could easily be done by a technician in a Verizon store in under ten minutes. So why you have to send it away for a week is anybody’s guess.
4G fun aside, the tablet scored a fairly decent eight out of 10 on the repairability scale, losing points for the massive amounts of screws (57!). This $800 (if you’re going for the 4G version) tablet boasts that dual-core Tegra 2 we mentioned before, Toshiba THGBM2G8D8FBA1B NAND Flash, Samsung K4P4G154EC DRAM, Qualcomm MDM6600 supporting HSPA+ speeds of up to 14.4 Mbps, Broadcom BCM4329 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1, and FM Tuner, Hynix H8BCSOQG0MMR 2-chip memory MCP, AKM 8975 Electronic Compass and Texas Instruments 54331 Step Down SWIFT DC/DC Converter with Eco-Mode.
Check iFixit’s full report for more on the teardown.
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Jane McEntegart is a writer, editor, and marketing communications professional with 17 years of experience in the technology industry. She has written about a wide range of technology topics, including smartphones, tablets, and game consoles. Her articles have been published in Tom's Guide, Tom's Hardware, MobileSyrup, and Edge Up.
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amk09 I really want the $600 dollar wi-fi only version. Anandtech did a great job reviewing it. When comparing it to the Ipad, it definitely is a lot faster and more functional for web browsing...and its not Apple ;)Reply
I can see this being perfect for when I'm relaxing on the couch watching TV and I don't want my hot and heavy notebook on my lap. Not so sure about carrying it around in public but I would definitely get a ton of use out of it in my home.
At first I thought this whole tablet thing was a gimmick but if the prices can go down a bit I can really see these taking off. -
Wish I Was Wealthy Oh well,at least they have made sort of future proof for the new 4G components to be installed...Reply -
Wish I Was Wealthy Also the reason why they may keep it for so long,is to test the new 4G components to make sure that their is not fault...Reply -
Simple11 I have a tegra2 device, atrix 4G, and I gotta say, its flyin!! I can't beleve how fast it is.Reply -
iamtheking123 What idiot docks them points for using too many screws? Would you rather it be put together with tape and glue?Reply