Teardown Provides Close Look Inside Microsoft’s Zune HD
by Michelle Maisto
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Here is the unsuspecting Microsoft Zune HD music player in its box. Zune HD comes in a 16GB black model for $220 and a 32GB platinum silver model for $290. Rapid Repair got to work on the latter.
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The Zune HD features a 3.3-inch OLED touch-screen on which users can watch 8.5 hours of video with a single charge. Rapid Repair calls it an “iPod Touch on steroids.”
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The first step to dismantling the Zune HD is taking out the four tri-wing screws. At this point, warns Rapid Repair, your warranty is as good as gone. Instead of the tri-wings, Apple uses traditional screws and works to make them less noticeable.
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Rapid Repair speculates that a Microsoft team member may have passed away during the development of this Zune. Thus, the unexpected inscription behind the lid: “For our Princess.” Cue the urban legends.
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With the back panel removed, the board and battery are visible. There is one very visible T-4 screw to remove, and then, less obviously, two more plus a T-6. You can see them once you carefully peel the black serial plate from its two clips.
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Once the screws are out, you can remove the three ribbon cables holding the digitizer, the OLED screen and the home button. With a nylon spudger tool—which Rapid Repair sells, should this be Greek to you—you can pull up the battery.
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The media button should easily lift away from the internal frame. Rapid Repair warns against getting fingerprints on the OLED screen, which is apparently a bear to clean.
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The larger chips are Toshiba NAND flash memory and the smaller, silver chip with the EMI shield, according to Rapid Repair, is an Atheros AR6002, which handles mobile Wi-Fi and is said to consume 70 percent less power than similar solutions.
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The video chip, an Nvidia Tegra APX2600-HM-A3 processor with a 600MHz core, is pictured in the center. According to Rapid Repair, the Zune HD has quite a few parts in common with the Apple iPod Touch and Nano, including the battery and headphone jacks.