Now that Apple’s iPad mini is available for purchase for $329 and up, some folks are using Apple’s cheapest and smallest iPad… and others are busy tearing it apart. The folks at iFixit have posted a teardown guide which shows what the tablet looks like under the hood — and just how difficult it would be to repair a broken model.
The iPad Mini has a 7.9 inch, 1024 x 768 pixel display, 512MB of RAM, an Apple A5 dual core processor, WiFi, Bluetooth, up to 64GB of storage, and a 5MP rear camera and 1.2MP front-facing camera. It’s also the first iPad to have stereo speakers.
The iFixit team is focused on the repairability of the gadgets they dissect, and the good news is that the glass is not fused tot the LCD, which means if you break the glass it should be relatively inexpensive to replace.
On the other hand there are a lot of very tiny screws, and a fair amount of tape and glue holding the device together which makes disassembly rather difficult.
The iFixit teardown shows that the display is manufactured by Samsung, the flash storage comes from Hynix, and the battery is a 4400mAh battery with markings suggesting it’s a 16.5 Whr or 16.9Whr battery… even though Apple’s official specs indicate it’s a 16.3Whr battery.
You can find more details and additional photos at iFixit — which game the iPad mini a repairability score of just 2 out of 10.
My God, it’s full of glue!