Tim Cook famously said that Apple would
never produce a 7-inch tablet because
and I quote they're not good devices
meanwhile Steve Jobs said that 7-inch
tablets are dead on arrival and though
it might seem as if they're splitting
hairs Apple kept true to its word and
released a 7.9 inch I've had mini
evidently that point nine inches makes
all the difference
Apple promises that the iPad Mini isn't
just a scaled-down version of the
10-inch iPad but in fact is an entirely
re-engineered device but there's only
one way to find out about that and
that's to give the iPad Mini di fix-it
treatment and tear it down hi I'm MJ
with iFixit and we are very excited to
be coming to you from our brand new
studio to bring you our iPad Mini
teardown review we managed to be among
the very first people on earth to get
our hands on the new iPad Mini which
means that you are among the very first
people on earth to see what's inside it
small enough to hold in one hand and a
good deal lighter than the original iPad
the iPad Mini comes in at seven point
eight seven inches tall and 5.3 inches
wide shaving off almost two inches of
the height and width of the original
iPad with a 23 percent decrease in
thickness and a whopping 53 percent
decrease in weight this latest iPad is
only a few ounces heavier than Amazon's
new Kindle paperwhite which is pretty
amazing the screen itself is a 7.9 inch
diagonal LED backlit screen with the
same resolution as the iPad 2 1024 by
768 obviously not a Retina display along
with the resolution the iPad Mini also
shares the same class of processor as
the iPad 2 both shipping with a
dual-core a5 but specs are only part of
what we're interested in here at iFixit
we also want to know how easy it's going
to be to fix one of these minis when the
battery inevitably dies or it lands
jelly side down on the pavement with
that in mind we got our disassembly
tools in order and dug it to the
teardown right off the bat we had to
bust out our eye opener because surprise
surprise the iPad Mini is held together
with lots of adhesive while design
changes to the iPhone 5 allowed us to
easily remove the display after removing
just a couple of screws the iPad Mini
like its Big Brother's requires you to
pry through copious amounts of adhesive
which is never a good
sign in terms of repairability on the
upside Apple chose not to fuse the front
glass to the display which is a movement
made with most of their recent iOS
devices this is really great news
because if you break the glass on the
iPad Mini you only have to swap out the
glass rather than the entire displayed
assembly making the repair much less
expensive once we found the hidden
screws holding the display in place we
were able to get our first look at the
internals of the iPad Mini but our first
look was thwarted by the same type of
metal plate that we've seen in recent
tear downs like the fifth generation
iPod Touch with the giant obtrusive
metal plate removed we were finally able
to get a look at the internals of the
iPad Mini and it's surprisingly similar
to previous generation iPads a really
big battery and a slim logic board but
the battery is interesting and a little
bit confusing the iPad Mini has a 3.72
volt 16.5 watt-hour
4400 milliamp hour battery until you
look on the back where it is a three
point seven eight volt sixteen point
nine watt hour battery hmm whichever it
is the capacity is lower than any
previous generation iPad so it'll be
interesting to see if it lives up to the
10 hour battery life promised by Apple
along with the iPad 4 of the iPad Mini
is the first in the line to get the
Lightning connector and we were very
curious to get it out and have a look at
it unfortunately once we remove the
screws holding it in place we discovered
that it was soldered to the logic board
which is super disappointing dock
connector replacement is one of the most
common repairs we see in iOS devices so
let's hope this new connector is
significantly sturdier than the original
30 pin version because replacing it in
the iPad Mini requires an entire logic
board replacement speaking of the logic
board removing it was another source of
disappointment as its glued in place
getting this board out requires a good
deal of heat and a lot of careful prying
with the board out we got our first look
at the chips that make up the brain of
the iPad Mini most obvious was the a5
processor which has 512 megabytes of RAM
the same amount as the iPod touch
once we completely disassembled the iPad
Mini we were able to assess it in terms
of repair ability here at iFixit we're
interested in knowing how repairable
devices are not just because we want to
help the growing DIY repair community
but all
so because repair is essential and
ensuring we're making the best use of
raw materials possible and that we're
following a path of responsible
consumption so to that end we score
every device we tear down for repair
ability 1 being the least repairable and
10 being the easiest to repair the iPad
Mini scored a 2 out of 10 and here's why
copious amounts of adhesive hold many
components in place including the front
glass logic board battery front camera
back camera and ribbon cables making
repair extremely difficult the Lightning
connector is soldered to the logic board
so don't bend its pins hidden screws
mean you'll need to be very diligent
when trying to remove internal
components that about wraps up our
teardown review if you want to see the
complete teardown including gorgeous
high-resolution images make sure you
head on over to ifixit.com and if you
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watching and happy repairing