iPad 2 teardown shows slightly better battery [U]
updated 06:30 pm EST, Fri March 11, 2011
iFixit tears down Wi-Fi iPad 2
(Update: done) iFixit on Friday conducted a teardown of the Wi-Fi iPad 2 providing hard details of the tablet. The look revealed that the battery is slightly higher capacity than on the old model, at 25Wh versus 24.8Wh, despite the new frame being much thinner. Its design is dominated almost entirely by the pack where it used to be just the largest part.
Access to the tablet's innards is slightly tougher at first, since the design now needs a heat gun to remove the LCD panel instead of the clips that kept the LCD in place before. Accessing parts on the inside is relatively simple and uses a large number of Phillips screws.
Some of the hardware information is already known, including the presence of 512MB of RAM built into the A5 chip. Some parts are virtually unchanged, such as the Broadcom BCM5973 input controller carrying over from last year.
Update: The teardown is complete and spotted 16GB of Toshiba flash storage and the same Cirrus audio chipset as in the Verizon iPhone. Apple was given a low four out of 10 score for repairability, although accessibility wasn't a concern other than the initial display removal.
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Nov 2008
It's definitely a plus for Apple to have
overlapping components in their various iOS devices. It pushes Apple's economies of scale that much higher.