Guess who got their hands on a new iPad Air, and immediately took it apart? No, not Marvin the five year old next door, although you do need to watch out for him… iFixit is back at it, taking the newest Apple tablet apart, and analyzing it, piece-by-piece.
The fine folks at iFixIt have done one of their famous, and always entertaining, teardowns on the new iPad Air. Let’s see if there are any surprises.
Inside the little beast, there aren’t any shocking discoveries:
- 9.7-inch, in-plane-switching LCD with 2,048 x 1,536 resolution at 264 ppi
- Dual-core A7 CPU with 64-bit architecture
- M7 motion-tracking coprocessor
- 5-megapixel rear iSight camera capable of recording 1080p video; 1.2-megapixel 720p front-facing camera
- 802.11n dual-antenna MIMO Wi-Fi
- Support for 14 LTE bands, DC-HSPA+, UMTS, GSM/EDGE, CDMA, and EVDO
- The top edge now boasts a dual mic.
- Volume adjustment is now handled by two separate buttons, replacing the rocker switch on the previous full-size iPad.
- Stereo speakers one on each side of the Lightning connector.
So, the little beast shares some of the iPhone 5s’s innards. Sans Touch ID, of course.
The iPad Air did just a tiny bit better than previous Apple devices have on the iFixit repairability score, racking up 2 out of 10.
Points in the Air’s favor:
- The LCD is easy to remove once the front panel is taken off the iPad.
- The battery is not soldered to the logic board. We’ll give it that.
Points against:
- Just like in previous iPads, the front panel is glued to the rest of the device, greatly increasing the chances of cracking the glass during a repair.
- Gobs, gobs, and goblins of adhesive hold everything in place. This is the most difficult battery removal procedure we’ve seen in an iPad.
- The LCD has foam sticky tape adhering it to the front panel, increasing chances of it being shattered during disassembly.
- You can’t access the front panel’s connector until you remove the LCD.
Basically, if it’s broke, don’t try to fix it yourself, just pack it up and take it to the Apple Store.
In just a few short weeks we should be seeing a similar El Destructo article on the iPad mini. Which is something to look forward to, in addition to constant holiday jingles, overeating, and MORE holiday jingles.
