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Teardown: Kindle Fire HD
The Kindle Fire HD landed in our hands on Friday, and we immediately got it on our operating table to see what lurks inside. Interestingly enough, the HD version is quite dissimilar internally from the regular Kindle Fire.
It turns out that the new non-HD Kindle Fire is essentially the same thing we took apart a year ago, whereas the Kindle Fire HD contains a completely different layout.
The Kindle Fire HD received a solid 7 out of 10 repairability score. It's fairly easy to access and replace the battery and most other internal components, but the CPU is covered with a copper tape heat sink that's hard to re-seat correctly, and the LCD panel and glass are fused together. This unfortunate binding increases the cost of repair for the most oft-broken component of the tablet — the front glass.
© iFixitThe teardown: Confirmed: the Kindle Fire HD has a TI OMAP 4460 processor with 1 GB of Elpida RAM. Thickness comparison among the major contenders:
- Kindle Fire HD: 10.3 mm
- Kindle Fire (2012): 11.43 mm
- Nexus 7: 10.4 mm
- iPad 3: 9.6 mm
© iFixitThese are the ICs that Amazon threw into the Fire HD to make it burn:
- Samsung KLMAG2GE4A eMMC 16 GB Flash Memory and Flash Memory Controller
- Elpida B8164B3PF-1D-F 8 Gb (1 GB) DDR2 RAM
- Texas Instruments TWL6032 Fully Integrated Power Management IC
- Broadcom BCM2076 GPS, Bluetooth 4.0, and FM Receiver/Transmitter
- Wolfson WM8962E Ultra-Low Power Stereo CODEC
- B50 5222 12507A9A10