Gadgetory

from smartphones and tablets to a seven thousand dollar desktop we've cracked open a lot of tech this year and as we do at the end of each year it's time to take a look at a few of our favorites a humble Detweiler and during this special episode of cracking open I'm counting down my top five tear downs of 2012 first on our list in the fifth spot is the nokia lumia 900 now released in the spring this Windows Phone device was Nokia's attempt to recapture some of the American smartphone market unfortunately as we discovered during our tear down the phone's hardware just wasn't up to par with the competition I went so far as to call it mediocre now so why did I include our 900 tear down on this list because it's probably this year's best example of why knowing what's inside a device is an important factor in whether you buy one or not just two months after releasing the Lumia 900 we learned that it wouldn't be upgradeable to Windows Phone 8 and despite huge marketing pushes from Nokia Microsoft and AT&T including a 50-percent price cut just three months after launch the phone never took off like the phone's hardware sales were just mediocre in the fourth spot is one of the most expensive items I've ever cracked open a seven thousand dollar plus HP z1 workstation the z1 was unlike any other all-in-one on the market it was packed with high-end hardware and designed to be both upgrade and repair friendly it's unique stand let the Machine lie flat for easy hardware access and the case opened more like the hood of a car than a computer you can remove most of the internal components without using tools and despite having six cooling fans it was remarkably quiet this machine was definitely one of the most unique and enjoyable cracking opens of 2012 third on our list is the highly anticipated google nexus 7 assembled by a sous the first Google design tablet had solid hardware a good design and a great price 199 dollars us as I discovered it was also a snap to crack open and had easily replaceable hardware now even with the release of the kindle fire HD ipad mini and nook HD CNET's eric franklin still believes that overall the Nexus 7 is the best small tablet you can buy and I agree the second spot on our list is held by another highly anticipated tablet Microsoft's surface with Windows RT Microsoft's first Windows 8 tablet came with a quad-core Tegra 3 processor 2 gigs of RAM and several nice features like a micro SD card slot full-size USB port and a handy kickstand unfortunately it was also a pain to crack open and disassemble as I wrote in my original review hopefully the surface with windows pro which is aimed at businesses will be more repair friendly well we've reached the end of my top tear downs list and sitting in the top spot is Apple's 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display now unfortunately like the Lumia 900 this machine is on my list for all the wrong reasons now like all macbook pros the retina version is well-built has solid hardware and its display really is gorgeous but as I discovered during my tear down it's almost impossible to upgrade thanks to ram that's soldered to the motherboard and it's a pain to work on thanks to tamper resistant pentalobe screws and a battery that's glued to the upper half of the case now this was another example of why knowing how a device is put together and what's inside it is critical when buying one the last thing you want to do is find out a year after you bought your retina MacBook Pro that you can't upgrade the memory well that does it for my countdown of the top 5 cracking open teardown of 2012 to find links to each tear down on the list go to techrepublic com forward slash cracking open keep watching in 2013 is I'll be cracking open even more of the latest tech Hine bill detwiler thanks for watching