The cool cats at iFixit have torn down the iPad 2 Air and found some interesting stuff inside.
Per iFixit and AppleInsider, the new tablet comes with a 9.7-inch laminated touch panel, A8X SoC, 8MP rear-facing camera, 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Touch ID fingerprint reader. The shell was also redesigned, seeing the deletion of the orientation lock/mute button and minor aesthetic modifications to the speaker grille and volume control buttons.
The teardown finally put a number on battery capacity, with the Air 2 sporting a 27.62 watt hour, 7,340mAh dual-cell unit, down from last year’s 32.9 watt-hour configuration. According to Apple, that will get you about 10 hours of continuous use per charge, or 9 hours on the Wi-Fi + Cellular model.
Also new is the Touch ID home button, which appears to share a design similar to the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. The module itself is manufactured by NXP. Touch ID is a major addition to the iPad lineup as it enables Apple Pay purchases, though without an NFC chip, payments are limited to online payments.
Finally, the Air 2 features redesigned speakers, repositioned Wi-Fi antennas (located at the top-edge of the Wi-Fi model), dual ambient light sensors and dual microphones, all arranged on variety of customized flex cables.