So, you have your eyes on Amazon's shiny new streaming box, which may just be the fastest smart TV you've ever met. But what lurks beneath its sleek exterior? iFixit had a look inside.
The guys have got a hold of the new Fire TV streaming box and torn it right apart. Here are some of the highlights of what they found:
--This thing gets hot. Amazon included a heat sink that fills most of the bottom case and it is packed with thermal paste, too.
--Inside, though, it's remarkably simple: the whole shooting match sits on a single integrated board.
--The controller is remarkably simple (read, boring?). Amazon isn't trying to set the gaming world alight here, just adding some extra features to its new device.
--Fortunately, the batteries in the remote are simply normal replaceable ones.
--Many of the chips used across the board here have been used to great effect elsewhere, according to iFixit—the Moto X and Kindle Fire HDX 7, for instance. In other words, Amazon has chosen some of the best hardware it can at the price to power the device.
--One last, weird, point: many of the components are tagged with RFID stickers. Presumably for inventory tracking, but still a little weird.
Overall, it scored a repairability rating of 6 out of 10—easy to take apart, but practically nothing you can do once you'd managed that. You can read the whole thing over on iFixit. [iFixit]
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