iFixit’s iPad Air Teardown Reveals Tightly Packed Innards Dominated By A Big Battery
Apple’s iPad Air goes on sale today – it’s easily the best iPad Apple’s put out so far, but we’re waiting with bated breath for the iPad mini with Retina display. Until then, however, the Air is also the most remarkable feat of engineering in any tablet device in terms of what goes on under the hood, or at least that’s what it looks like based on iFixit’s traditional day one teardown of the brand new device.
As it does with every new Apple product release, iFixit has managed to get its hands on one of the first shipping units available anywhere in the world, and they’ve immediately broken it open to see what makes it tick. In short, what makes it tick is a battery. It’s a huge one, and it takes up most of the space within the case – but it’s also actually still smaller than the battery of the iPad 4th generation, despite the fact that it’s a much more powerful machine.
Other highlights from the teardown include a look at the A7 chip (which is actually a slightly different version to the one in the iPhone 5s), confirmation that it does have 1GB of RAM, and the RF components that include a Qualcomm LTE processor with 1GB of dedicated RAM itself, which helps account for the iPad Air’s magical range of LTE band connectivity.