I know what you’re thinking… “Dr.Wreck? Why take apart a Kindle? Your specialty is mobile phones!”
The Kindle 2 with Global Wireless technology pretty much is a mobile phone. It’s just missing a few features and functions that smartphones have – such as the super high resolution LCD screen, phone capabilities, palm-sized form factor, calendar, push e-mail service and countless time-consuming “productivity” apps.
Well ugh, even if the device doesn’t function as a mobile phone, the important thing is that we had a feeling the hardware was similar – and well, we just wanted one to play with.
Without further ado, we bring you, the Kindle 2 – Global Wireless Teardown!
The Kindle is a great device. Everyone has been raging about the E-ink display and with good reason – the display rocks. The images are sharp, high resolution and everyone of Dr.Wrecks 3 friends (including Ms.Wreck) exclaim with joy when they see it.
That said, the device does feel sluggish especially when you consider it’s pairing with some fairly powerful hardware… we’ll get to that later. Also, what’s with the lack of .pdf zoom? Have a big 100MB .pdf file you’d like to sideload onto this baby? Prepare to wait.
Those minor quips aside, the device is a great book replacement. It’s not much larger than your favorite hardcover and it can store roughly 1500 of them! Unfortunately, textbook publishers have been a little slow on the uptake, but when you find the right content, the Kindle delivers a very rewarding experience.
The Kindle is fairly easy to disassemble. It’s actually built much like a first generation iPhone, and requires you to use a spudger or similar tool to pop off the matte grey piece on the top of the backside of the device to reveal some screws.
We have to commend lab126 on their simple yet elegant hardware design. The screws are all hidden, it requires a little bit of ingenuity to figure out how it’s assembled. Once you remove the gray cap, things are easy. The aluminum cover is held in by two small Philips screws that drive parallel with the length of the device. Once these are removed, apply a little bit of downward pressure to pop off the cover and reveal your Kindle’s guts.
With its rear-end revealed, there isn’t much to see until you remove the some odd 20 Philips screws holding in the plastic chassis. There is a big difference with this Kindle from the countless others we see on the net. This baby includes a SIM card and can connect in over 100 countries over any GSM network (thanks to AT&T). Keep in mind, there are cost overages on international use. In Canada for example, Dr.Wreck is able to download books with an additional $1.99 fee. Moreover, sending data to the device (via the native xxxx@kindle.com e-mail address) costs $0.99, whereas in the US this service is free. Don’t worry though, Canadians can still use the “experimental” web browser for free.
In the above image, we can see the 1530mAh battery, SIM, and “network card”. That card is actually the part that interests Dr.Wreck most. Underneath those oh-so-hard-to-remove ESD shields lie a hardware design not unlike modern mobile phones.
Here’s the device with the plastic cover removed. Here we can clearly see the SIM and network card still connected to the main PCB. Unfortunately, all of the goodies are covered by ESD shields. No matter, Dr.Wreck is used to pulling, prying, cutting and melting.
As you can see, the hardware design of the Kindle 2 – Global Wireless edition is much like that of any modern cell-phone. There’s a fairly fast application core, coupled with a baseband to handle network communication. In this case, baseband is handled by the 12mm x 12mm QSC6270 which handles WCDMA, HSDPA 3.6, GSM, GPRS and Edge networks. The QSC is located on the network card, which must be removed and de-shielded before you can find it. In fact, the K5E1257ACM DRAM + Flash chip can also be found on the network card along with all of the purple items (power amps) show above. For reference, a QSC device (QSC6085) was recently unearthed in the Motorola Droid Hardware Analysis.
You might be asking yourself, “Dr.Wreck? Why the heck would they put these circuits on a separate card when there is so much room on the PCB?” The answer as it seems is probably so that Amazon/LAB126 can swap out these network cards to work locally on CDMA networks, or for this global edition – GSM networks. It makes sense, previous teardowns of the non-global Kindle 2 revealed a missing SIM and different looking network card.
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Here at phoneWreck, we tear open, break apart, and analyze the latest and greatest handsets on the market. Most importantly, we do this for free. Why?
To empower you, the reader, the engineer, the network analyst, the ASIC designer, and even the general curious folks out there, with the access, knowledge, understanding of all that is: the mobile phone.
We have to commend lab126 on their simple yet elegant hardware design. The screws are all hidden, it requires a little bit of ingenuity to figure out how it’s assembled. Once you remove the gray cap, things are easy. The aluminum cover is held in by two small Philips screws that drive parallel with the length of the device. Once these are removed, apply a little bit of downward pressure to pop off the cover and reveal your Kindle’s guts.
With its rear-end revealed, there isn’t much to see until you remove the some odd 20 Philips screws holding in the plastic chassis. There is a big difference with this Kindle from the countless others we see on the net. This baby includes a SIM card and can connect in over 100 countries over any GSM network (thanks to AT&T). Keep in mind, there are cost overages on international use. In Canada for example, Dr.Wreck is able to download books with an additional $1.99 fee. Moreover, sending data to the device (via the native xxxx@kindle.com e-mail address) costs $0.99, whereas in the US this service is free. Don’t worry though, Canadians can still use the “experimental” web browser for free.
In the above image, we can see the 1530mAh battery, SIM, and “network card”. That card is actually the part that interests Dr.Wreck most. Underneath those oh-so-hard-to-remove ESD shields lie a hardware design not unlike modern mobile phones.
Here’s the device with the plastic cover removed. Here we can clearly see the SIM and network card still connected to the main PCB. Unfortunately, all of the goodies are covered by ESD shields. No matter, Dr.Wreck is used to pulling, prying, cutting and melting.
As you can see, the hardware design of the Kindle 2 – Global Wireless edition is much like that of any modern cell-phone. There’s a fairly fast application core, coupled with a baseband to handle network communication. In this case, baseband is handled by the 12mm x 12mm QSC6270 which handles WCDMA, HSDPA 3.6, GSM, GPRS and Edge networks. The QSC is located on the network card, which must be removed and de-shielded before you can find it. In fact, the K5E1257ACM DRAM + Flash chip can also be found on the network card along with all of the purple items (power amps) show above. For reference, a QSC device (QSC6085) was recently unearthed in the Motorola Droid Hardware Analysis.
You might be asking yourself, “Dr.Wreck? Why the heck would they put these circuits on a separate card when there is so much room on the PCB?” The answer as it seems is probably so that Amazon/LAB126 can swap out these network cards to work locally on CDMA networks, or for this global edition – GSM networks. It makes sense, previous teardowns of the non-global Kindle 2 revealed a missing SIM and different looking network card.