Today, November 1, the iPad Air started to be sold in a huge list of countries: United States, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, China (Wi-Fi models only), Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece , Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macau (Wi-Fi models only), Macedonia, Montenegro, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Romania, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom – nothing has yet been said about when the new tablet will arrive in Brazil.
As we know, when such a gadget is launched, the repair firm iFixit he runs to get his hands on a unit to take it apart as soon as possible – and it couldn’t be different with the iPad Air!

To recapitulate the novelties of this beauty: it is 20% thinner, 28% lighter and has 24% less volume than the fourth generation iPad, it has the same Retina screen as always (9.7 inches; 2048 × 1536 pixels resolution) ; 264ppp), A7 processor (dual-core, 64-bit) and M7 motion coprocessor, iSight camera (5 megapixel rear) and 1.2 megapixel FaceTime HD (front), support for 14 4G (LTE) bands including our Brazilian, 16GB, 32GB capacities, 64GB and 128GB, among other things.

The new model is identified by the code A1475.

Now there are two microphones to reduce / cancel noise.

Detail of the new volume buttons, which are now separated (as in the iPad mini).

And, of course, the stereo speaker, which also looked exactly the same as the smaller iPad.

As always, Apple uses a lot of adhesive to attach the device’s screen to the case.


Inside, small screws to make things even more difficult.


Task done, we come to the iPad Air battery. It is smaller than the one found on the fourth generation iPad (two 3.73V cells, 32.9WHr vs. three 43WHr cells). However, due to the A7’s optimizations, Apple promises the same battery life.

The display (from LG, model LP097QX2) is exactly the same as the previous iPad – which is surprising, considering that the iPad Air is only 7.5mm thick against 9.4mm of the fourth generation model. In addition, the display remains separate from the glass, which iFixit classified as a breath, a spirit of reparability in this one device so difficult to do maintenance.

Here, the Home button cable (Home) in detail. From what iFixit saw, the interior of the iPad Air looks a lot like a mini.


And take more adhesive, now adding the battery to the housing.

Although the SIM card tray is glued to the frame (more stickers!), IFixit liked to see that it is separate from the logic board, which is a good thing for repairability.

Detail of the logic board.

Here’s what we have in it: A7 processor (APL5698), a little different than what equips iPhones 5s (APL0698), 1GB of LPDDR3 SDRAM from Elpida (F8164A1MD), 16GB Toshiba NAND Flash (THGBX2G7B2JLA01), M7 motion coprocessor (NXP1 LPC1) ), Among other things.

Above, the Lightning connector.

Little by little, the carcass is becoming completely empty …

But getting to that point is not at all easy, and because of that, iFixit gave a 2/10 score to the repairability of the iPad Air – the same as that of the fourth generation iPad. For more details of teardown, visit the iFixit website.