Touch Kobo Touch Teardown [Pictures]

[FJames]

I don't think Kobo would do their own detailed hardware design. That's normally something that companies contract out. Even much larger companies like Apple don't do a lot of the detailed design in-house. I'm sure they do the high-level design and requirements specification.

[SameerH]

Re: the battery. While it is accessible and you could potentially switch it out if you were able to get the battery out without damaging the unit, it wasn't meant to be replaceable.

The battery should last you a few years until you see noticeable degradation in retentive capacity.

I believe it should be about 3 years (assuming 1 full charge/discharge cycle per WEEK) to get to about 80% capacity (if I recall the numbers correctly). If you don't discharge/charge it every week, the time should presumably extend beyond that.

[cutterjohn42]

Originally Posted by DizzC

Well you guys can rest easy since re-assembly went just fine and everything is fully functional.

Now I just have to decide what colors I want.



Regarding the battery; I wanted to remove that as well when I was doing my teardown but they glued that sucker in there super tight. I manged to get one edge lose but I was afraid that I would break something if I continued on.

Damn! And I was just thinking that it looked like it was going to be an easy job to replace the batt as the board connection didn't look soldered.

@SameerH
There you go! MANY of us are tired of companies who cynically make the rechargeable batts for their devices non-easily user replaceable. Some of my devices get used for years, and it irks me how many newer devices seemed to be designed to force most users into buying a new unit or paying some ridiculous charge to the company to do the batt change.

Originally Posted by cutterjohn42

There you go! MANY of us are tired of companies who cynically make the rechargeable batts for their devices non-easily user replaceable. Some of my devices get used for years, and it irks me how many newer devices seemed to be designed to force most users into buying a new unit or paying some ridiculous charge to the company to do the batt change.

I agree. User-replaceable Li-Ion or Li-Poly battery packs have been around for quite some time (in mobile phones and digital cameras) so having a non-replaceable battery is quite a letdown. I know that making them non-replaceable also makes the device cheaper, but nevertheless...
Are there actually more expensive devices, like the Sonys, which have replaceable batteries?

[FJames]

There are valid reasons for making devices with a non-replaceable battery other than planned obsolescence. It costs a little extra to make the unit with a replaceable battery. It's one more door in the body of the unit that reduces structural integrity and adds extra structural weight. One more user-accessible part to break or go wrong. The replacement batteries are always ridiculously expensive, probably worth more than the depreciated value of the ereader itself by the time the battery is down to 50% capacity 3-5 years from now (I would guess that the battery costs at least $30 and the value of a year-old Kobo now is no more than $50). Most users will never bother, because they'll be ready to retire it by then. And of course you probably can open it up and replace the battery if you're really keen to do so (like the iPod). I'm not saying that it wouldn't be nicer to have a user-accessible battery, all things being equal - but there are trade-offs.

[kiwipippa]

Originally Posted by DizzC

I am getting a little tired of my plain white kobo so I was thinking about maybe giving it a nice custom paint job. In anticipation of that I decided to see how hard disassembly would be. Turns out it was pretty damn easy. Pry off the back cover and remove 11 screws and you are in business.

No one has asked the obvious question here...why on earth did you have to dismantle the kobo before painting it? Or am I missing the point somewhere?

Originally Posted by kiwipippa

No one has asked the obvious question here...why on earth did you have to dismantle the kobo before painting it? Or am I missing the point somewhere?

If it's going to be lacquered by, say, airbrush or some other way that makes very much sense

[EricDP]

Originally Posted by Benjamin Buford

Are there actually more expensive devices, like the Sonys, which have replaceable batteries?

Nook classic has a replaceable battery.

[cutterjohn42]

Every single modern phone that I've seen barring the iPhone has a user replaceable battery... along with every single nb barring hmmm... what a surprise Apple, also have user replaceable batts.

It's just now becoming more prevalent in things like tablets and readers now that mainly don't have user replaceable batts... VERY annoying, and given the option I'd buy one that DID have a user replaceable batt over one that did NOT esp if it's something that I'd plan on keeping for more than a few years, which is the VAST majority of electronics that I purchase. It really sucks to be forced into a new purchase sooner than needed simply because batt replacement is more of a chore than it's worth.

...and batt door cost would be minimal compared to tooling costs for a case to begin with which is typically one of the most expensive portions of actually starting mfg of a new device that doesn't leverage an existing case design... those freaking molds are freaking expensive usually, so much so that you either have to go high price for a niche item or plan on a LARGE volume production run to achieve lower prices...

[akuerz75]

Originally Posted by cutterjohn42

... esp if it's something that I'd plan on keeping for more than a few years, which is the VAST majority of electronics that I purchase.....

You have realized that the lifetime of the used eletronical components has been reduced in the last years as miniturization has getting more and more important?

Every active and passive part in there has an estimated lifetime.
I know for sure that some parts have a maximum lifetime of 5 years.
Most likely some other parts will have an even lower lifetime.

So a 80% battery capacity after 3 years is more than ok for me.

[EricDP]

Originally Posted by akuerz75

I know for sure that some parts have a maximum lifetime of 5 years.

Which parts would those be? Excepting the buttons, there are no moving parts in these devices. The electronics should last forever unless overheated or overvoltaged. The power button isn't pressed very often and should last a very long time. The page turn buttons may wear out, but you can keep using the device without them.

We recently replaced my wife's five year old cell phone, which was working perfectly except it didn't have bluetooth and the new laws require hands free in car use. If it wasn't for that, she'd still be using the old one.

I built a PVR out of old computer parts five years ago, and it still works great. And the parts were old at the time... some are probably close to 10 years old.

[Macflame]

The battery is held in with a triangle of double sided tape, that is 3/4ish the size of the battery. I removed mine by carefully prising the battery away from the tape using a craft blade. Every cm I popped a blade under the battery to stop it from reattaching to the tape. At one point I did hear a crack as the battery came away. Thankfully it was the made by the battery parting from the tape and not the screen!
I was making one good Kobo out of two bad ones.

[Tintin]

So chances are, if you return your device to Kobo because of battery issues, it is more expedient for them to give you a new Touch rather than replace the battery??

[Macflame]

Originally Posted by Tintin

So chances are, if you return your device to Kobo because of battery issues, it is more expedient for them to give you a new Touch rather than replace the battery??

I think a Kobo engineer would have the confidence to just lever the battery out!