iFixit teardown reveals Amazon Fire Phone not designed for easy DIY repairs

The Amazon's new Fire Phone is not DIY friendly. Or so say the folks at iFixit, who published a teardown on the new smartphone yesterday, giving it a ranking of 3 out of 10 for repairability, with 10 being the easiest to fix.

The gadget repair experts warned that the phone is not modular, with components often sharing cables. Also, the four extra cameras on the front, that track a user's head movements to enable special screen effects, make things much more difficult, as they are difficult to replace individually.

iFixit noted that the construction of the Fire Phone is similar to the iPhone 5 because of its bottom screws. Also, there is no carrier logo, suggesting that more carriers, besides AT&T, will eventually sell the device.

The teardown reveals that the phone contains chips from Qualcomm, NXP, and Samsung Electronics. While the device's radio frequency, power amplifier, audio, and Wi-Fi chips are from Qualcomm, 32GB of NAND memory chips, used for photo, music, and media storage, and 2GB of DRAM memory chips come from Samsung.

NXP contributed a near field communication chip, enabling features such as mobile payments. The smartphone also includes a touch screen controller from Synaptics, and a communications chip from Skyworks.

Priced at $649 contract-free or $199.99 with a contract with AT&T, the 4.7-inch Fire Phone sports a Qualcomm 2.2GHz quad-core Snapdragon 800 CPU, Adreno 330 GPU, 2GB RAM, a 13-megapixel rear-facing camera, and a 2.1-megapixel front-facing camera. The device hit stores this week and has received lukewarm reviews.

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Phone unlocking to become legal in the United States again

Back in 2012, the United States Copyright Office effectively outlawed the unlocking of cellphones, making it very difficult for someone to use their phone on a carrier other than the one it was purchased for.

A new bill that's set to be signed into law by president Barack Obama will change this, making cellphone unlocking legal in the country. Known as the "Unlocking Consumer Choice and Wireless Competition Act", the bill has already passed through both Congress and the Senate.

The passing of the bill follows many months of activism from groups who believe consumers should have the right to unlock devices they've legally purchased. While having an unlocked handset is necessary for switching providers without purchasing a new device, it's especially helpful for travelers, who might want to use a local SIM over often-expensive global roaming options.

Obama said in a statement that "the bill Congress passed today is another step toward giving ordinary Americans more flexibility and choice, so that they can find a cell phone carrier that meets their needs and their budget". 

Next Verizon is preparing to throttle 4G LTE unlimited data usersMore See a summary of the most popular topics in tech right now

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Phone unlocking to become legal in the United States again

Back in 2012, the United States Copyright Office effectively outlawed the unlocking of cellphones, making it very difficult for someone to use their phone on a carrier other than the one it was purchased for.

A new bill that's set to be signed into law by president Barack Obama will change this, making cellphone unlocking legal in the country. Known as the "Unlocking Consumer Choice and Wireless Competition Act", the bill has already passed through both Congress and the Senate.

The passing of the bill follows many months of activism from groups who believe consumers should have the right to unlock devices they've legally purchased. While having an unlocked handset is necessary for switching providers without purchasing a new device, it's especially helpful for travelers, who might want to use a local SIM over often-expensive global roaming options.

Obama said in a statement that "the bill Congress passed today is another step toward giving ordinary Americans more flexibility and choice, so that they can find a cell phone carrier that meets their needs and their budget". 

Next Verizon is preparing to throttle 4G LTE unlimited data usersMore See a summary of the most popular topics in tech right now

View the original article here

iFixit teardown reveals Amazon Fire Phone not designed for easy DIY repairs

The Amazon's new Fire Phone is not DIY friendly. Or so say the folks at iFixit, who published a teardown on the new smartphone yesterday, giving it a ranking of 3 out of 10 for repairability, with 10 being the easiest to fix.

The gadget repair experts warned that the phone is not modular, with components often sharing cables. Also, the four extra cameras on the front, that track a user's head movements to enable special screen effects, make things much more difficult, as they are difficult to replace individually.

iFixit noted that the construction of the Fire Phone is similar to the iPhone 5 because of its bottom screws. Also, there is no carrier logo, suggesting that more carriers, besides AT&T, will eventually sell the device.

The teardown reveals that the phone contains chips from Qualcomm, NXP, and Samsung Electronics. While the device's radio frequency, power amplifier, audio, and Wi-Fi chips are from Qualcomm, 32GB of NAND memory chips, used for photo, music, and media storage, and 2GB of DRAM memory chips come from Samsung.

NXP contributed a near field communication chip, enabling features such as mobile payments. The smartphone also includes a touch screen controller from Synaptics, and a communications chip from Skyworks.

Priced at $649 contract-free or $199.99 with a contract with AT&T, the 4.7-inch Fire Phone sports a Qualcomm 2.2GHz quad-core Snapdragon 800 CPU, Adreno 330 GPU, 2GB RAM, a 13-megapixel rear-facing camera, and a 2.1-megapixel front-facing camera. The device hit stores this week and has received lukewarm reviews.

Next Jimmy Kimmel tells people this $20 Casio watch is Apple's new iWatchPrev Google reportedly seals the deal on Twitch $1 billion acquisition$(function(){$('img', 'img-wrap', 'li', '.related-products .teaser-list').equalHeights();});

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Google may convert New York City phone booths into Wi-Fi hot spots

Back in 2012, former Mayor Michael Bloomberg first tossed an idea to convert the NYC's thousands of largely unused phone booths into something useful. Two years later, Mayor Bill de Blasio has revived interest in the plan, vowing to create a robust, citywide network of Internet hotspots.

Now, Bloomberg is reporting that Google might be looking to get in on the action. According to a request for proposals (RFP) from the city’s Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications, the search giant was among more than 50 attendees to a meeting on May 12 to discuss the project. The meeting was also attended by Cisco, IBM, Verizon, Samsung, and more. Responses to the RFP from vendors were due Yesterday.

The project would allow the selected vendor to charge for phone service (except, of course, 911 and 311 calls) and make money from advertising, though Wi-Fi would have to remain free. The city administration expects the service provider to pay it a minimum annual compensation of $17.5 million or 50 percent of gross revenues, whichever is greater.

For Google, the opportunity to blanket much of New York’s streetscape with Wi-Fi falls in line with the company's efforts to provide fast and efficient connectivity in the US and around the world. The company already provides free wireless access around its West Coast and East Coast main offices in Mountain View, California, and New York's Chelsea neighborhood, and is also working on other Internet ventures like Google Fiber and Project Loon.

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