[Music]
hi I'm MJ with iFixit and it is that
time of year again like clockwork
Apple has released its latest iteration
of the iPhone the iPhone 5 it seems as
if anybody who's been paying even casual
attention to the tech and Apple blogs
knew all about it well before Apple even
announced it from the larger screen and
body to the updated dock connector we've
been getting sneak peeks at this new
iPhone since as early as May of this
year and the interesting as those leaked
product images are they don't do much
for us here at iFixit we don't think
we've really seen a device until we've
done what we do best and that's tear it
down thanks to the International
Dateline
and some frequent flyer miles our
co-founder Luc soles traveled all the
way to Melbourne Australia to stand in
line all night long to get his hands on
the iPhone 5 a full day before any of us
in the United States have the
opportunity while the iPhone 5 shares
some superficial similarities to its
younger siblings the 4 and 4s it has in
fact been entirely redesigned the first
and most striking difference is the 8.6
millimeter increase in length which
makes room for the larger 4 inch Retina
display the display now has a perfect 16
to 9 aspect ratio and a pixel resolution
of 11 36 by 640 you might say that the
iPhone 5 finally hit adolescence as it's
not only gotten taller but thinner too
it lost some baby fat to measure in at
seven point six millimeters which is 1.7
millimeters thinner than the 4s and saw
about a 20% decrease in its weight
coming in in just three point nine five
ounces versus four point nine ounces for
the 4s but being tall and thin isn't
everything as we all know it's what's on
the inside that counts so on that note
let's take a look at what's making this
latest iPhone tick getting into the
phone was deja vu inducing as Apple
continued using its proprietary
pentalobe screws to hold the phone
together we of course saw that coming
and sent Luke with a pentalobe driver
that was just perfect for the job once
the screws were out we were met with a
pleasant surprise I never thought I
would be so excited to see a suction cup
but there it is
a screwdriver and a tiny suction cup are
all you'll need to replace a broken
display and this is going to score huge
points in terms of repair ability Apple
has
return to a top-down construction with
the iPhone 5 and anyone who's ever
swapped their broken screen on their
iPhone can tell you that this is great
news because rather than digging through
all of the other internals to get to the
display on the iPhone 5 the display is
the first thing that comes off for
context replacing the display on an
iPhone 4s takes 38 steps and the
quickest I've ever done it is 45 minutes
it looks like the iPhone 5 will take
just a few steps and likely 5 to 10
minutes and since the display is the
most common thing that breaks on most
smartphones we consider an easily
replaceable display to be a win for
consumers our next step is any good
repair person can tell you is to
disconnect and remove the battery for
comparison the iPhone 5 has a 3.8 volt
battery whereas the iPhone 4s is battery
is 3.7 volts how they're getting
increased performance from a battery
that's only marginally more powerful is
still a mystery to us
though my money is on a combination of
other hardware and software improvements
we'll probably know more about the
battery performance as soon as we get a
closer look at the chips and speaking of
chips once the battery is out we got our
first look at the logic board and on it
are lots and lots of goodies as we work
toward freeing up the logic board we
noticed that there were all kinds of
metal to metal contacts inside the
iPhone 5 our initial guess is that this
could be some kind of an antenna but
only time will tell with the logic board
free we finally have the opportunity to
inspect the chips that make up the
iPhone 5 behind some shielding we
discovered the elusive a6 chip here's
where the chip geeks should get excited
the a6 is Apple's first custom-designed
processor for the iPhone and it seems
like it's quite the little powerhouse
early Geekbench scores show a 150
percent increase in performance from the
iPhone 4s and we can verify that it does
have one gig of ram this is not a minor
upgrade we'll have a lot more
information about the a6 processor once
our pals over at chip works really have
a chance to dig into it so keep your
eyes peeled for that another trip of
note is the Qualcomm MDM 96 15 and I'm
not sure if you know this but the
Qualcomm MDM 96 15 is kind of a big deal
for those of you that were cheering when
Apple announced that the iPhone 5 would
be LTE enabled that this is the chip you
need to thank so we set the logic board
aside and turned
attention to the rear case the Lightning
connector assembly contains the
headphone jack loudspeaker and of course
the new lightning dock connector this is
the guy you want to blame for making all
of your accessories obsolete
though we have to say that it looks like
Apple didn't make this decision out of
spite so much as out of necessity there
is no way they could have crammed a
30-pin dock connector in the iPhone 5
there just isn't enough room so with all
of the components removed from the rear
case we made an interesting discovery
the entire rear case of the iPhone 5
weighs only slightly more than just the
glass of the iPhone 4s and that probably
has something to do with the 20%
decrease in weight with our teardown
complete it's time to answer the million
dollar question just how repairable is
the iPhone 5 here at I fix that our
mission is to teach everyone how to
repair everything so we give every
gadget we tear down a repair ability
score between one and ten ten being the
easiest to repair and one being the most
difficult the iPhone 5 scores a very
respectable seven out of ten for
variability and here's why with only a
couple of small tools the display comes
right off making replacing it super easy
on the downside the screws holding the
display in place are proprietary so
you'll need a special pentalobe driver
to remove them the Lightning connector
assembly has so many other components
attached to it that it makes replacing a
single component like the headphone jack
for example impossible the iPhone 5 is
50% more durable than the iPhone 4 and
4s as only one of its phases is made of
glass while the iPhone 5 isn't a
perfectly repairable device it is
certainly a refreshing change from
recent Apple devices like the iPad 3 and
the MacBook Pro Retina which scored an
abysmal two and one out of ten
respectively that about wraps up our
teardown big thanks go out to our
friends at Mac fix-it Australia for
their warm hospitality and letting us
use their facility for the complete
teardown including gorgeous
high-resolution images check out
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and happy repairing