hi I'm MJ with iFixit and we sent our
co-founder 18 hours into the future to
Melbourne Australia to be the very first
person to get his hands on an iPhone 4s
but surprise surprise while he was
waiting in line FedEx delivered an early
iPhone 4s to lucky iFixit user Marcus
we're in Germany so Marcus has helped we
were able to get an even earlier look
inside the iPhone for us if you like
many of us are an Apple fan you'll know
that this isn't the first time apple has
slapped the letter S on the end of a
device name and expected us to get all
hot and bothered about it
and while many folks on the Internet are
feeling very about the lack of an
exterior redesign in the iPhone 4s we
hear it I fix it aren't just looking for
a pretty face lift historically being
that one time Apple released the 3GS
after the 3G we've seen major hardware
upgrades and Apple s devices and on
those grounds the iPhone 4s does not
disappoint
and on Mac siding note let's jump in to
our iPhone 4s teardown review none of
the rumored exterior changes were made
in fact the iPhone 4s is nearly
identical to the iPhone 4 all the way
down to the pentalobe screws that we
mentioned several months ago and because
this is not our first rodeo we had just
the right driver to do the job
once the rear panel is removed we got
our first glimpse inside the device and
as expected the lack of major design
changes is reflected on the inside as
well the first thing we noticed was the
upgraded battery though it might not
sound like much the four SS battery has
an additional 0.05 watt hours which
according to Apple gives an additional
hour of tock time but curiously 100 less
hours of standby time which given the
updates and hardware it still seems like
an efficient use of power with the logic
board removed we noticed that it bears
close resemblance to the stateside CDMA
iPhone 4 but the real differences are
under those EMI shields major upgrade in
the iPhone 4s is the new a 5 dual-core
processor boasting 512 megabytes of RAM
our friends over at chip works provided
us with a die photo that shows just how
complicated that little chip is and if
details about dual-core processors
aren't your thing
let's talk camera
the iPhone 4s finally competes with the
smartphone brothers with an upgraded 8
megapixel camera better yet
Apple boasts 73% more light with
next-generation backside illumination
for better low-light performance and I
desperately want to make a backside
illumination joke but I'll leave that up
to you folks at home if shooting video
is more your thing the iPhone 4s shoots
an HD at 1080p and 30 frames per second
so it sounds like you can downsize your
man purse and leave your video camera at
home Apple has supposedly fixed the
antenna issue that emerged immediately
following the release of the iPhone 4
but as our teardown iPhone is in Germany
we'll have to leave it all to you guys
to tell us for sure hardware wise were
at the end of our journey but I would be
remiss if I didn't at least attempt to
answer the question that's on the minds
of everybody that owns an iOS device why
can't my device run Siri well here's
what we do know Siri started as an iOS
app but now that Apple owns it it has
deep integration into the entire system
but is only available on the iPhone 4s
so it could be that Apple's holding out
on us in order to drive sales of the
iPhone 4s or maybe previous generations
of iOS devices simply don't have the
hardware to run such an intense
application the verdict is still out on
that one but one thing is certain
those of us with plain old iPhone 4s
definitely have Siri Envy whenever we
wrap up a teardown review we aim to
answer one specific question just how
repairable is the device on a scale of 1
to 10 10 being the easiest to repair and
1 being the most difficult the iPhone 4s
scores a 6 just like the iPhone 4 which
makes sense when you consider that not
much has changed between the two devices
in terms of repair ability the rear
panel and battery are still a breeze to
replace assuming you have a pentalobe
driver but the LCD and glass are still
fused together making a cracked glass
repair far more costly in a nutshell if
you're primarily interested in a boost
in performance the iPhone 4s is a safe
bet
preliminary benchmarks posted on the web
have been performing 58% faster than the
original iPhone 4 and bouncing all other
smartphones by a large margin if you're
more interested in a pretty facelift
you'd be better off waiting for the
iPhone 5 for the complete teardown
and high resolution images head on over
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thanks