iPad Air Gets iFixit's Teardown Treatment
The iFixit team takes a look at what's powering the newest edition of the iPad.
With this new generation of iPad, Apple has ushered in new branding for its full-size tablet. The 2013 iPad was announced last year along with the name iPad Air. This iPad features a thinner profile, a smaller bezel and the same aesthetic as the iPad mini. It's also significantly lighter, hence the new name. But what's going on underneath that shiny new exterior?
The iPad Air went on sale this morning and (of course) the iFixit team has already acquired one and taken it apart. Like many of Apple's products, the iPad Air is not easy to repair should you feel confident enough to attempt an in-home repair job.
The iPad Air maintains the same 2/10 repairability score we saw with the last generation of Apple tablet, though iFixit seriously considered dropping it down to a measly 1/10. Ouch.
So what's new? The battery is a two-cell unit (compared to the old three-cell affair in the last iPad), and iFixit says there are copious amounts of glue holding that thing in place.
Once they did manage to break through the sticky mess, the teardown team found a slightly different A7 chip than the one that's in the iPhone 5S, the company's M7 motion controller, Elpida F8164A1MD 1 GB LPDDR3 SDRAM, 16 GB of Toshiba THGBX2G7B2JLA01 NAND flash, two Broadcom BCM5976C1KUB6G touch screen controllers, a Qualcomm M9616M LTE Processor with 1 Gb (128 MB) of DRAM, and a host of other ICs.
For the full gallery, you can click on through to iFixit's step-by-step teardown.
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Jane McEntegart is a writer, editor, and marketing communications professional with 17 years of experience in the technology industry. She has written about a wide range of technology topics, including smartphones, tablets, and game consoles. Her articles have been published in Tom's Guide, Tom's Hardware, MobileSyrup, and Edge Up.
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nukemaster One way or another it is still impressive to see how far technology has come(integration wise).Reply -
sean1357 It is another ARM....Want to see they put FPGA inside it. Something like Stratix V with 1000 cores.Reply -
house70 That thing is glued together... LOL. Apple's "quality" at it's finest.Reply
All we need to know is if it has the same borked accelerometer as iP5S.
Otherwise, good job in catching up with last year's Nexus 7. -
lostgamer_03 Seems as if glue is the most used thing in all of Apple's products. Even the Macbooks are 75% glue.. I swear.Reply -
razor512 When apple catches wind of this, they will begin to use thermal tape which doesn't lose it's stickiness until well above boiling temperature.Reply