It's natural to think that a modern device like a smartwatch would be built using cutting-edge parts, but a teardown of Motorola's new flagship Moto 360 smartwatch reveals a four-year-old processor.
The teardown, carried out by iFixit, revealed that the processor that Motorola chose for the Moto 360 was the Texas Instruments OMAP3630, the same silicon that powered the Motorola Droid 2, released in 2010, and Motorola's first smartwatch, the MOTOACTV, which saw light in 2011.
In terms of price, picking a processor from four years ago might be a good move, but in terms of performance and power efficiency, this might not be such a good idea.
Another revelation is that the battery which Motorola advertised as a 320 mAh part, while the battery itself is labeled as 300 mAh. However, crunching the numbers shows that it is actually only 289 mAh, a full 10 percent less than what Motorola is claiming. It's unclear as to what is at the root of this confusion.
The inside of the Moto 360 is a huge win for Texas Instruments:
- Texas Instruments X3630ACBP (OMAP3630) Applications Processor
- Texas Instruments TMS320C5545 Fixed-Point Digital Signal Processor
- Micron Technology MT46H128M32L2KQ-5 IT 512 MB Mobile LPDDR RAM
- Toshiba THGBMAG5A1JBAIT 4 GB e-MMC NAND Flash
- Texas Instruments 1211A1 USB 2.0 PHY Transceiver
- Atmel MXT112S Capacitive Touchscreen Controller
- Texas Instruments AFE4490 Integrated Analog Front-End for Pulse Oximeters
- Wolfson Microelectronics WM7121 Top Port Analogue Silicon Microphone
- Wolfson Microelectronics WM7132 MEMS Microphone
- Texas Instruments TPS659120 PMU for Processor Power
- Texas Instruments BQ51051B Integrated Wireless Power Li-ion Charger Receiver
- Solomon Systech SSD2848K1 MIPI Display Interface Controller
As is the charging dock:
- Texas Instruments BQ500212A Qi Compliant 5 V Wireless Power Transmitter Manager
- Texas Instruments 97376M Synchronous Buck NexFET Power Stage
As for taking apart the Moto 360 for any repairs, I think you can forget it. iFixit – who are experts at taking stuff apart with an eye to putting it back together again – broke the back of the smartwatch, and had to get past lots of adhesive too.
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