The sleek new Google Nexus 7 tablet is just a hair thicker than the iPad—but that's not a disadvantage at all for the tinkerers who like to pry gadgets open and fix them when things go wrong.

According to the new iFixit teardown of the Nexus 7, it's an extra millimeter of thickness that makes all the difference in the world when it comes to repairability. While the iPad teardown gave Apple's tablet a repairability score of two out of 10 on the iFixit scale, the Android-based Nexus 7 received a score of, appropriately, seven, meaning it is much easier to repair.

Opening the Nexus 7, if you have the right tool, is "like cutting through butter, thanks to its retaining clips around the perimeter of the device," iFixit wrote.

"One millimeter. That's the difference in thickness between the 9.4 mm glued iPad and the 10.4 mm retaining-clipped Nexus," the iFixit team wrote. "That's the difference between being able to open a device and service all of its internals, and not. That's the negligible difference between extending the life of your device through repair, as opposed to tossing it in a landfill. And most of all, nobody will complain about that one millimeter difference in day-to-day use, but the user-serviceability it brings will make all the difference when the device breaks."

For comparison's sake, the Kindle Fire is actually even easier to repair than the Nexus 7, with a score of 8. The Nook Tablet got a score of 6.

So what's inside the Nexus 7?

As you probably already know, the Nexus 7 has a 1.3GHz quad-core Tegra 3 processor, a 1280x800 IPS display, a 1.2-megapixel front-facing camera, 1GB of RAM, a 4235mAh battery, Bluetooth, WiFi, NFC, micro USB and 3.5 mm audio ports, and either 8GB or 16GB of storage depending on whether you want to spend $200 or $250.

The battery, of course, takes up a large amount of space, iFixit found. The L-shaped motherboard is "littered with connectors and screws," but iFixit liberated it from the Nexus with its custom-made tools. 1GB of Hynix H5TC2G83CFR DDR3 RAM, the same model used in Apple's MacBook Pro with Retina Display, is on the motherboard as well as the Tegra 3 processor, GPS receiver, gyro and accelerometer, and more:

The back side of the motherboard holds the Kingston brand flash storage and a few more chips and components. After being taken apart, the whole device looks like this:

iFixit ran into a problem when it tried to separate the LCD from the front glass. "As is becoming a trend, the LCD is fused to the Corning glass.," iFixit said. 'Sadly, this fusion makes the cost of repairing shattered glass much higher, as it will require replacing the whole display assembly—LCD included."

This problem knocked the Nexus 7 repairability score down a bit, but iFixit gave the device high marks for having an easily openable rear case, a battery that can be replaced without soldering or using a screwdriver, standard Phillips #00 screws, and various replaceable components including the I/O ports.

While most people aren't likely to pry open a tablet, it is nice to know that the Nexus could potentially be repaired without shipping the whole thing back to Google. The Nexus is available for preorder and is scheduled to ship in two to three weeks. Look for our review soon.