Apple may have discontinued the iPad Mini 3 with the arrival of the next-gen iPad Mini 4, but does the successor pack in more punch when compared to its previous iteration is the question on everyone's mind.
The company did not share too many details on the iPad Mini 4 at its event, merely letting on that it packs the innards of the iPad Air 2. A teardown by iFixit gives us a detailed look into what the 7.9-inch tablet houses.
iFixit's teardown of the iPad Mini 4 reaffirms Apple's claims of the device being a smaller variant of the iPad Air 2, but the tablet packs in a few surprises in its folds, such as an altered component layout.
Physically, the iPad Mini 4 is 18 percent slimmer than its predecessor, which is attributed to the glass screen being fully laminated to the multi-touch display. However, while this display may be aesthetically viable, cracking it means that replacement of the screen will burn a hole in your wallet.
Delving deeper into the tablet, the iFixit team found that the Touch ID cable for the iPad Mini 4 was integrated with the display cable - similar to the iPad Air 2, and a departure from the iPad Mini 3.
The battery for the iPad Mini 4 also gets an overhaul and is single-cell vis-à-vis two-cell. The capacity of the battery is also less as it is 5,124 mAh versus the iPad Mini 3's 6,471 mAh battery. Interestingly, Apple has claimed that the battery for the iPad Mini 4 is the same as that of its predecessor.
The team at iFixit also revealed that the FaceTime camera is also thinner and the antennas too have been shifted.
"This iPad is some kind of Mini/Air hybrid-half its antennas on the top, like an Air, half on the bottom like a standard Mini," notes the iFixit team.
The folks at iFixit also divulged the iPad Mini 4 has 2GB of RAM. A GeekBench 3 test also confirmed that the new tablet housed a 1.5GHz A8 processor with 2GB of RAM.
The iPad Mini 4 garnered a reparability score of 2 out of 10.
