The iPad Air launched in dozens of countries today and it has already reached many lucky buyers, reviewers, unboxers and people who are ready to dissect the device. They include the famous guys of iFixit who were not all sugar and praise with the device.
This one was a Halloween teardown, so it also involved some masks, for some reason. Getting to the goods, this is a device that’s 20% thinner, 28% lighter and 24% reduced in volume compared to the 4th gen iPad. The device has a dual microphone at the top edge and the speakers are now stereo and moved to either side of the Lightning connector, like the iPad Mini.
We skip straight to the end of the teardown, where iFixit says that the iPad Air repairability score is 2 out of 10, so not so easy to repair, not at all. The LCD is very easy to remove once the front panel is taken off. The battery is not soldered to the logic board, which is a big plus. The bad thing is that the front panel is glued to the rest of the device and that there’s a ton of glue inside the slate.
The LCD has foam sticky tape used to stick it to the front panel. So, basically don’t break and don’t try to fix it!
