iFixit cracks open the $2,295 Magic Leap One to inspect its guts

The folks at iFixit have finally got their hands on Magic Leap's long-awaited augmented reality headset. And as usual they’re taking it apart to check out what powers this device, except this time they’re saving you a hefty $2,295 in the process.

Magic Leap was founded in 2010 and has raised more than a billion dollars from some heavy-hitters in the tech industry like Google, Qualcomm, and Alibaba. But it wasn’t until just this month that the company started shipping its first product, the Magic Leap One Creator Edition.

“The Magic Leap One’s mixed-reality tech has been so much pie in the sky for so long, we can hardly believe we have it on our teardown table” points out iFixit in their breakdown. “Based on the amount of money raised for this project, we’re hoping it’s powered by pixie dust—but only a teardown will tell.”

iFixit’s breakdown of the headset finds 8 GB of RAM, 128 GB of storage, as well as the Nvidia Tegra X2 SoC, which they point out is most often found in self-driving cars. Infrared sensors to track eye movement as well as lenses with 6 layers -- one for each color channel on two separate focal planes.

The Magic Leap One’s “Lightpack,” which is a small wearable computer that powers the headset, is also dissected unveiling its battery, cooling power, and a number of chips by companies such as NVIDIA and Samsung. iFixit also breaks down how the headset tracks the location of the device’s handheld controller via magnetic copper coils.

The experts at iFixit ended up settling on a fairly low grade for the device citing things such as “intense glue barriers,” battery location, and lack of upgradability. With all this in mind, iFixit saddled the Magic Leap One with a 3 out of 10 repairability score. But, as we’ve previously pointed out, at this price level, the device is clearly aimed at developers interested in building on the Magic Leap platform.