The cool cats at iFixit just tore into the newly-released iPad mini 4 and found that it’s essentially the iPad Air 2 components squeezed into a smaller form factor.
The new tablet uses the iPad Air 2’s fully laminated screen technology, which lends itself to a thinner design. The glass and display are adhered together, giving it a more rigid design and making screen repairs more difficult. iFixit also notes that the iPad mini has retained a battery design that makes it easy to disconnect, unlike the battery found in the larger iPads. Another small similarity between the iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 4 is that the Touch ID cable is now integrated directly into the display cable.
As far as the battery goes, the iPad mini 4’s power supply is both smaller and thinner than the iPad mini 3’s and is a a single cell, instead of two. The antenna design has also been changed. Half of the antennas are now located on the top of the device – like in an iPad Air – and half are located on the bottom, like a previous generation mini.
The iFixit teardown also revealed the iPad mini 4’s new 8 megapixel rear camera and 1.2 megapixel FaceTime/front camera. The device also features an A8 processor and 2GB of RAM.
The teardown also revealed the following points:
– The Lightning connector is soldered to the logic board, so don’t bend its pins.
– Gobs of adhesive hold everything in place making all repairs more difficult.
– Removing the home button is a tough but required job for display replacement if you want to keep Touch ID functionality.
Check out the full teardown if you get a chance and if you’ve picked up an iPad mini 4, please let us know what you make of it in the comments.
Via 9to5Mac and iFixit