You didn’t really think that a tablet which has received as much hype as the BlackBerry PlayBook would launch without somebody coming along and ripping the thing to bits and posting photos on the internet, did you? Of course not. This time the folks at Chipworks and iFixit are battling for the rights to cry of “First!”

Chipworks is a firm that reverse engineers products to search for patent infringement. Meanwhile iFixit is an online computer repair community. They may come from different places, but they both have reasons to tear computers apart on a regular basis.

Chipworks reports that the tablet uses STMicroelectronics cameras, a Cypress Semiconductor touchscreen controller, and Elpida DRAM. The tablet also has a Texas Instruments processor, but we already knew that.

The iFixit teardown guide also provides a good look at the components, but also the focus is largely on showing what it takes to disassemble the tablet yourself, along with snarky play by play commentary.

Interestingly most of the components are stuck to the back of the screen instead of the back of the case, which means you can’t replace the battery without removing the logic board.

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8 replies on “BlackBerry PlayBook gets the tear-down treatment”

  1. Apple introduced this abomination of a non user replaceable battery. Sure it’s sexy small but not very friendly to the environment or the consumer. There are plenty of idiots that will buy. Planned obsolecence is a great marketing startegy that consumers will fall for. After 2 to 3 years of daily charging when the embedded lithium ion battery fails to charge any more the average “idiot” consumer will gladly throw out theirs for a new shiiny toy to replace their dead tablet.

  2. It’s interesting that RIM chose a Wolfson “audio hub” marketed for smartphones…same one as in the Galaxy & Nexus S. Are calling features somewhere on the horizon?

  3. Who cares about replaceable batteries? iPad battery lasts over 10 hours for me. If you spend longer than that on your tablet in a day…then perhaps you should buy a portable backup charger for $40 to get another 5-6 hours of use out of it.

    1. I guess you’ve never had a battery stop holding charge at month 12.1 of your 12 month warranty. That’s one reason people care about a user replaceable battery. Not all of us want to be forced into buying a new device just because the battery died.

  4. The new Toshiba 10 inch tablet, seen in “coming soon” ads at Best Buy, Amazon.com and Newegg, lists a user-replaceable battery as part of its specifications.

  5. Would be nice if the batteries on these “tablets” were user replaceable!

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