Nikkei Elec teardown-comparison of Kindle 1 and 2

Nikkei Electronics Teardown Squad takes apart the Kindle 1 and Kindle 2 and examines and compares them.

  The article is written in five parts.  Some choice observations:

' "The old model adopted the reference design, without making any changes, that drives E Ink's electronic paper," he said.  "They probably thought, 'we have to drive the device by all means.'  As a result, the number of parts increased, and the design became complicated. On the other hand, looking at, for example, the microprocessor, the circuit architecture of the new model was designed from scratch.  It's like they adopted a design concept used for a mobile phone."

' In other words, the engineer pointed out that the new model grew out of the reference design and was designed to make the main board simpler.
. . .
' It seemed that the number of tones and the response speed were improved by replacing the controller IC.
. . .
' "I think the power consumption of the Kindle was reduced by improving the driving method like changing the controller IC of the electronic paper," the engineer said.
. . .
' "the design of the new Kindle's main board was sophisticated as if it employed a design concept used for a mobile phone. So, it is likely that design engineers were more involved in the design of the Kindle 2 than in the design of the Kindle. '

This article, posted May 18, after the introduction of the Kindle DX, ends with this:

' "The next version, Kindle 3, is now under development behind the scenes." How will the Kindle 3 look like? We will continue to keep an eye on it. '