An Apple Watch Series 5 teardown performed by repair site iFixit shows the new Watch’s internal components are nearly identical to the previous-generation Apple Watch Series 4.
It’s doubtful that this will come as a huge surprise to anyone, as the two devices are identical in design and appearance, with the major difference being the Series 5’s Always-On display.
While iFixit said it had wanted to get a closer look at what makes the Series 5 always-on display “tick,” the real improvements that are included in the display tech are “invisible to the human eye.”
However, iFixit did find a new .ambient light sensor embedded under the OLED panel, and Apple says the Series 5 uses advanced display drivers, an improved power management chip. Theres also a new built-in compass built-into the unit somewhere.
The 40 mm Series 5 has 10% more battery capacity than the Series 4 40 mm model, while the 44 mm model has a 1.4% larger battery than the 44 mm Series 4. The Series 5 chip has 32GB of storage, up form the previous model’s 16GB of storage. The GPU and CPU are the same in both models.
There are also minor differences in the connectors for the Taptic Engine, display, and battery, which means components are not interchangeable, but otherwise the guts are “very similar.”
iFixit awarded the Apple Watch Series 5 a repairability score of 6 out of 10 (with 10 being the easiest to repair).
