Teardowns

Project Tango Tablet Teardown

Google’s ATAP group brings us yet another window into the virtual world, this time in the form of a super-powerful tablet. Much of the same sweet tech from the Tango phone is here, along with additional connectivity and loads more power in a slimmer tin.

Project Tango Tablet Teardown

Unfortunately, these evolutions dropped Tango’s repairability score from a praiseworthy 9-out-of-10 phone to a lackluster 4-out-of-10 tablet. Project Tango has grown quite a bit from baby peanut to toddling youngster; with a consumer version slated for release next year, hopefully its awkward youth will give way to modularity and masterful cable management.

For this teardown, we did our fact checking with Google-the-man himself, so keep an eye out for some primary source, horse’s mouth reveals.

Teardown highlights:

  • The Tango’s model number, NX-74751, is the registry number of the USS Yellowstone from Star Trek: Voyager. “Yellowstone” also happens to be the codename of the Tango tablet. We should’ve known Google was a Star Trek fan.
  • The Project Tango tablet is far more polished than the Project Tango phone. The thicker portion of the tablet allows room for the additional cameras, but slims down to a more typical tablet thickness.
  • From Google: “We also use the unique design to guide the fingers away from the camera. Given that we use the cameras for unique user experiences, it may not be obvious to the user that they are blocking them like you would when using a picture taking app.”
  • Riddle us this: How many screws or special fasteners does it take to secure the rear case to the front panel assembly? Zero. No adhesive either.
  • With more and more power available on mobile platforms, it seems the only limit is dissipating heat. The Tango is loaded with a Tegra K1 quad-core, so removing more heat means squeezing out more power. Google didn’t want anything to limit Tango devs and built in a hefty heat pipe.
  • The custom dual-cell 7.6 V Li-ion Polymer battery is rated at around 18 Wh of energy—well over the Tango Phone’s already-hefty 11.1 Wh, and juicy enough to provide plenty of power for the Tegra K1.
  • We took out the IR projector, custom designed by Mantis Vision, which provides infrared light that Tango uses to see the world in 3D. Curious how this works? We’ve got you covered. Science with iFixit is ready to satisfy all of your IR curiosities.
  • Chips (but no fish):
    • Nvidia TD580D-A1 quad-core Tegra K1 processor
    • SanDisk 4133DF4PG02X 128 GB flash memory
    • Elpida FA232A2MA 2 GB LPDDR3 RAM (two ICs for 4 GB total)
    • Broadcom BCM4752IUB2G integrated multi-constellation GNSS receiver
    • Broadcom BCM43341XKUBG single-chip dual-band combo device supporting 802.11n, Bluetooth 4.0+HS & FM receiver
    • Realtek ACL5642 Hi-Fi audio single chip with voice/sound DSP and CODEC
    • STMicroelectronics STM32L151QD ultra-low-power ARM Cortex-M3 MCU
    • NXP Semiconductors 546A 0108 TXD403
    • ON Semiconductor NCP45560 controlled load switch
    • Nvidia ICE9245B-C2 low-power, multimode RF transceiver
    • Nvidia Icera ICE9045T-A2 LTE modem
    • Texas Instruments TPS659121A PMU
    • Skyworks 77621-11 multimode multiband power amplifier module