phoneWreck

I know what you’re thinking… “Dr.Wreck? Why take apart a Kindle? Your specialty is mobile phones!”

Virginia Woolf

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.

Ahem.

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!

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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 then your favorite hardcover and it can store roughly 1500 of them! Unfortunately, textbook publisher’s 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 its 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 it’s 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 where 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 x12mm 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.

Top of "Network Card"

Another part worth mentioning here is the TQS 7M5012 Power Amp. We’ve seen this device before in a few of our teardowns (including the Sony Xperia X1). It’s apparent that TriQuint is branching out into other applications – not just focusing it’s products on the smartphone market. The bottom of the card features two more of the infamous Avago power amps.

Bottom of "Network Card"

So, the “network card” is a self contained unit that handles Amazon’s patented WhisperNet technology. It can be easily swapped in and out, depending on the market of sale.

The Main PCB houses the SIM card, USB PHY (SMSC USB3311), PMIC (FreeScale MC13783VK5) E-Ink Controller (Epson D135211B3), Samsung NAND (2GB) and 32 MB Samsung SDRAM.

The FreeScale MC13783VK5 is the same processor we saw on the original US Kindle 2. It features a 532MHz Arm11, processor core – packed into a 14mm x 14mm package. The associated FreeScale PMIC (MC13783VK5) contains both Audio Codec and USB Transceiver. The USB PHY is once again brought to you by SMSC with the USB3311.

E-Ink is making waves in the industry. We’re starting to see some solid Kindle competitors and even watches breach into various technology blogs. One thing for sure, this technology is perfect for the Kindle. Battery life is astounding and text/image clarity is phenomenal. Dr.Wreck is sure we’ll see a touch screen kindle in the near future – perhaps even colour E-Ink? What about a Kindle that plays movies? Haha.

That’s all for the Amazon Kindle 2 – Global Wireless Edition folks. Stay tuned for more wrecking action!

-Dr.Wreck

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