Most of the people waiting in line to get the iPhone 5 are there because they want to be among the first in the world to get an iPhone 5 to call their own. iFixit, on the other hand, is only ever interested in being the first to take new gadgets apart, and the iPhone 5 is no different. Despite the fact that the phone was only released today, the iFixit team has already acquired one, torn it down and splayed the parts out for us to look at.
We already know that the iPhone 5 features a 4-inch 326 ppi, 1136 x 640 resolution display, the new Apple A6 SoC, an 8MP camera, improved battery life, and 4G LTE, but what did the iFixit crew find when they went inside? The Apple A6 processor, Hynix H2JTDG2MBR 128 Gb (16 GB) NAND flash, Qualcomm MDM9615M LTE modem, Qualcomm PM8018 RF power management IC, Avago AFEM-7813 dual-band LTE B1/B3 PA+FBAR duplexer module, Apple 338S1117 Elpida memory MCP for LTE, Texas Instruments 27C245I touch screen SoC, and a Broadcom BCM5976 touchscreen controller, among other things. Interestingly, iFixit says there's 1GB Elpida LP DDR2 SDRAM inside their iPhone 5, as opposed to the Samsung RAM Apple mentioned last week. It's possible Apple is using RAM from both companies in
As far as repairability goes, iFixit says replacing a cracked front panel is significantly easier on the iPhone 5 than on the iPhone 4/4S. Probably good news, since glass and dropped phones generally don't mix. In fact, despite keeping the pentalobe screws, iFixit found the iPhone 5 scored a respectable 7/10 on the repairability scale.
Check out the full gallery of gory photos and a complementary tear-down guide over at iFixit.