Samsung's Galaxy Note 10.1 may have just debuted last Friday, but eager iFixit tinkerers have already managed to post a full disassembly guide, replete with high-resolution photos and detailed notes. In a nutshell, the teardown reveals an impressively thin device but at the cost of opting for a lower-capacity battery.
One thing iFixit found particularly interesting about the Galaxy Note 10.1 is its excellent reparability. Despite being thinner than third-generation iPads, this latest Galaxy Note proves to be unusually serviceable. Samsung used a minimal amount of glue, just five differently sized screws and didn't fuse the inexpensive digitizer (i.e. the sheet of glass-composite which covers the display) to the relatively expensive display panel. Nice move, Samsung.
Of course, I'm reminded of the Retina MacBook Pro, a product which iFixit found to be an antonym to this type of easily serviceable design.
Inside the plastic slab, iFixit discovered a 1.4GHz quad-core Samsung Exynos CPU + GPU, Wolfson WM12811AE audio chip and 2GB worth of Samsung-branded system memory. This tablet also happens to be the first one they've taken apart to feature EMI shields held down with screws, as opposed to being anchored by more permanent methods like soldering.
The dozuki-wielding iFixers found Samsung's tablet features a 25.9 watt-hour battery. The lithium-polymer pack is expected to deliver around 8 hours of up-time for the Galaxy Note 10.1. By comparison, the latest iPad has a 42.5 watt-hour battery which promises 10 hours of juice. The iPad's bigger battery is also attributed to its increased overall thickness.