Gallery: Sony Gadget Teardown Porn

The winner of “Most Creative Teardown” goes to iFixit author Bac, who disassembled a vintage Sony TR-63 transistor radio. Not only were we shocked at the author’s ballsiness for ripping up this valuable antique; we were wowed by the old-school circuit board, which looks like an array of colorful beetles and worms.

We chose iFixit author Karasumachitose’s teardown of the Sony PlayStation 3 as the winner of “Best Overall Teardown.” We enjoyed this one because it included a clear photos, well-written instructions and a complete list of tools necessary to guide a person through tearing down a PS3. A 37-step process, it was no easy feat. Way to go! (Coincidentally but fittingly, Karasumachitose wins the PS3 Slim — a skinnier and better PS3 — for a prize.)

iFixit author Baq deserves an honorable mention for his bold teardown of the Sony DSC-H2 digital camera. Components include a logic board, a mess of ribbon cables, an imaging processor, a really puny viewfinder screen and several other parts -- not to mention a dangerous capacitor from the flash unit. Overall, a freaky looking teardown, and we doubt Baq will ever put this camera back together — but kudos for bravery.

The PDA is an extinct product category, and the boring innards of the Sony Clie PEG-SJ20 (above) are a testament to why. Ain’t nothing special here: Just a circuit board, an LCD panel, battery and other really basic components, leaving its owner disappointed. “No extra FM radio, Bluetooth module or Easter eggs,” iFixit user Jbizzle wrote in his teardown tutorial. “Overall the innards of this unit are pretty underwhelming.”

This pink, Sony CyberShot DSC-W120 can accomplish pretty complex photographic tasks, but there aren’t many actual parts inside the camera. Teardown author Bmwalter had a pleasant surprise: “When I started this teardown, the lens would not extend or retract properly,” he wrote in his tutorial. “After simply reassembling and realigning the parts and doing a basic cleaning, it seems to work normally again. Go figure!”

An autopsy of another old CD player, the Sony D822-K Car Discman, reveals that an amber light is used to illuminate the puny part of the screen that displays track information. Who uses amber lights anymore?

Video projectors look simple on the outside, but they’re gnarly beasts inside. Disassembling the Sony VPL-ES1 projector took 22 steps. The guts include an LCD assembly, cooling ducts, an automatic lens with a motor attached, a lamp and more.

We’ve all banged an alarm clock really hard at one point in our lives. Here’s what the Sony Dream Machine would look like smashed apart. Pretty simple contraption — circuit board, LED panel, speaker and case — but what would you expect from an alarm clock?

Remember those annoying infrared wireless headphones that preceded the advent of Bluetooth? The Sony MDR-IF33K cordless stereo earphone system didn’t try very hard with looks on the outside: It just looks like a big antenna. But its insides are a lot cooler. An array of 12 infrared LEDs constitute the transmitter mast. They emit no visible light to the human eye, but the IR beams can be seen by most camcorders and digital cameras, as well as the receiver on the headphones. Pretty neat, huh?

A dissection of the first-generation Sony PlayStation Portable reveals it had an 802.11G-capable Wi-Fi chip, making this five-year-old gadget a nippy handheld network device for its time.