There’s nothing the Apple fan community loves more than a juicy rumor, and that’s
certainly been the case for the iPad 2.
It seems like the rumor mill was buzzing about the iPad 2 a couple of months before it was
even announced, and now the day has finally arrived; our intrepid teardown team traveled
to the East Coast to get their hands on the iPad 2 a couple of timezones ahead of us here
in California, so while I’m waiting to get mine here, here’s what they’ve found.
Let’s start with the exterior: the iPad 2 is 33 % thinner than its predecessor, and
a bit lighter, and we hear that the tapering of the sides makes iPad 2 more comfortable
to hold.
Something that you won’t notice by holding it, is the iPad 2 also got a new model number,
it’s A1395.
Because of how the edges are tapered, Apple had to switch from using clips to secure the
display assembly to using adhesive, meaning that if you need to replace your display assembly
you’re going to need a heat-gun and a lot of careful prying to get it off.
Once the display assembly was removed we noticed that the iPad 2’s battery is just a tiny
bit improved over it’s older brother.
iPad 2’s battery is a 25 watt-hour unit, compared to the original iPad’s 24.8 watt-hour
battery.
With such a small difference, it’s safe to say that any improvement in battery performance
can be attributed to software and other hardware improvements.
After disconnecting a few ribbon cables, our teardown surgeon removed the logic board with
ease.
As expected, Apple used its A5 processor, but what we didn’t know until recently was
that this iteration is a 1GHZ dual core A5 processor with 512 MB of RAM.
It’s the first time Apple has used a dual core processor on an iOs device.
What’s interesting is that the processor in our iPad 2 has manufacture dates of late
January and mid-February 2011, making it appear that production was ramping up through the
last minute.
As far as the front and rear-facing cameras are concerned, there aren’t any big surprises.
The facetime camera is VGA, while the rear-facing camera can shoot 720 p video, but captures
stills at less than one megapixel.
I’m a little disappointed that my digital camera from 1996 captures better stills than
the iPad 2, but then again, I’m not sure that I’d use the iPad much for snapping
candid shots.
One thing that is a little surprising is how teeny tiny the speakers are.
There are two of them, which is great, but they’re so small they almost appear like
an afterthought.
I guess you won’t see me carrying my iPad 2 around on my shoulder, boom-box style.
So, those are the primary changes in the iPad 2.
One possible warning we have for you is that the LCD and glass on the iPad 2 are considerably
thinner than the iPad 1.
While this does make the device a little bit lighter, it’s also going to effect its durability,
and because the iPad is one giant touch-screen, I don’t feel it’s worth the trade-off.
Here at iFixit, we give everything we tear down a repairability score between 1 and 10,
10 being the most repairable and 1 being the least.
We’ve given the iPad 2 a reparability score of 4 our of 10.
Heatgunning the display assembly is a total pain, and makes it very likely that you’ll
break the glass when attempting to remove it.
The LCD is adhered to the front panel with foam sticky tape, increasing the chances of
it being shattered during disassembly, and the battery is buried beneath the logic board,
and is glued very securely to the rear case.
One positive note is that Apple only used standard Phillips screws-- no Pentalobular
or Tri-Wing funny-business, and for that we thank them.
For high resolution photos and all the details check out the full teardown on our site.
For all the latest teardowns and repair videos subscribe to our youtube channel and follow
us on twitter at twitter.com/ifixit Thanks for watching and happy repairing.