Lifting the electronics out of their casing.
Google announced a media streaming dongle on Wednesday, and surprised us all by charging only $35 for the device. Chipsets and components are becoming drastically cheaper for the large corporations, but the Chromecast still appears to be great value. Luckily, we"ve now had our first glimpse inside the ~2" dongle, and seen what this money really gets us.
iFixit, in their usual fashion, have completed a teardown to reveal what goes on inside. After using a plastic tool, the motherboard was removed, and revealed to contain 2GB of flash storage, 512MB of RAM, and a Marvell DE3005-A1 system on a chip. To compare, the Apple TV has 8GB of storage and Apple"s own A5 chip running it.
Also notable, is the seemingly oversized heatsink which fills the full length of the device - still, product information reveals that the "Chromecast may get hot to the touch". iFixit pointed out a humours model number too: H2G2-42, an abbreviation for The Hitchhiker"s Guide to the Galaxy, and 42 being the answer to life, the universe, and everything, revealed in the same book.
The Chromecast originally came with an offer of 3 months of free Netflix, although due to overwhelming demand, this deal was closed. Nevertheless, $35 is enticing without the free Netflix, even if now we know the tech inside isn"t revolutionary.
Source and Image: iFixit