iFixit Tears Down iPad Air 2, Confirms Smaller Battery, A8X Chip, and 2GB RAM

[Keirasplace]

iPad mini's weight is perfect, so Apple's target for Air should be under 400g
There is no need to make the tablet thinner, it has to be lighter.

Thinner and lighter go together. Battery is the major weight in a phone. If you have a phone were you can remove the battery, you'd see how little a phone weights without its battery. In this case, the phone is much faster which has an impact on battery life too. If they had stayed with the A8 clocked as in the Phone, they could have shaved another 1mm (5mm) while improving battery life to say 16h, but would people have appreciated that rather than a much faster tablet?

 

[jeremiah239]

Smaller battery to decrease costs?

Nope, to make it thinner.

 

[Will0827]

Here is a result with todays date, which shows that it does indeed have 2gb of ram. There are a couple of other benchmarks results that were ran in the last couple of days.

 

[rsocal]

If geek bench was able to confirm that it is a 3core cpu I'm sure that they confirm that it is 2gb ram.

I agree, and a gentleman relied to one of my earlier posts confirming part numbers as 2GB Ram.#
Below is the post from Wizard confirming part numbers.


It took all of two minutes to find this link: http://www.micron.com/parts/dram/mobile-ddr3-sdram/edf8164a3pk-gd-f?matpart={7D648E18-DBF9-4303-A25D-F57B9E3E2DAB}#faqs

The important part, the root defines the basic part. The suffixes which do vary indicate the configuration. Effectively this verifies the correctness of the reports.


Nope, two minutes of searching would have relieved you of this terrible burden of distrust.
Originally Posted by wizard

 

[mtcowdog]

Someone probably said this in the previous 300+ responses, but I think this very likley means the next iPhone with have 2GB RAM as well.

 

[Will0827]

The A8X is able to get a score near the base 2014 macbook air, granted the MBA is dual core but it does have 4GB of ram. Imagine if apple were to use a quad core A8X and 4GB of ram in the ipad air.

 

[MentalFloss]

Someone probably said this in the previous 300+ responses, but I think this very likley means the next iPhone with have 2GB RAM as well.

I don't see the logic. Does the fact that the iPad has a 10 inch screen also imply that we will see an iPhone 7 Plus Plus with a 10 inch screen?

Check out the teardown. The additional RAM chip takes up space. Quite a lot of space, actually. Not too much for a tablet, but too much for a phone, so I strongly doubt that Apple will use this setup also in an iPhone. If they put 2GB into the next iPhone, then they will use one single chip. So whatever they are doing in the iPad has no impact on the iPhone. The iPhone will get 2GB when Apple has a single chip RAM solution that hits the right price point and offers the right performance.

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The A8X is able to get a score near the base 2014 macbook air, granted the MBA is dual core but it does have 4GB of ram.

It actually beats the lower-end 2011 MBAs in both single and multi core performance.

Imagine if apple were to use a quad core A8X and 4GB of ram in the ipad air.

Well, the memory has no impact on the benchmark result.

 

[tbrinkma]

Not when my iPad 2 can last easily for a week of constant use, if not more, on one charge. One full day isn't good enough. It's a step backwards, not forwards.

If your iPad 2 (rated at 10 hours of battery life) can "last easily for a week of constant use, if not more, on one charge", then the iPad Air 2 (also rated at 10 hours of battery life) will do so as well.

Of course, for the first to be true, you've got to have a pretty odd definition of 'constant use' or 'a week' (or both).

 

[Rootus]

It gets you through an entire day of use. What more do you want from any electronic device? 1 full day isn't good enough?

Since when is 10 hours an entire day? LOL Put down the koolaid.

I for one am hoping for a revolution in battery technology soon. We've had revolutionary developments in processors, storage, memory, and most recently displays, but you still can't buy a smartphone and feel confident that it will last an entire day regardless of how much you use it. We need one of two things, at least, and preferably both -- fast charging, and much higher capacity. There's hope for the charging bit (will Apple fans remember in a few years that Motorola did it first? ;-)), but I'd really like to see a capacity bump too.

 

[osofast240sx]

Someone probably said this in the previous 300+ responses, but I think this very likley means the next iPhone with have 2GB RAM as well.

Has been working on it's own mobile 6 GB ram chip

 

[Will0827]

[/COLOR]
It actually beats the lower-end 2011 MBAs in both single and multi core performance.


Well, the memory has no impact on the benchmark result.

Thanks didn't know that.

 

[MentalFloss]

Here is a result with todays date, which shows that it does indeed have 2gb of ram. There are a couple of other benchmarks results that were ran in the last couple of days.
Image

The star of the show also in the Geekbench benchmarks is actually the memory performance. As far as I can tell, that is where the biggest improvements ocurred.

It seems like the single processor cores on the A8X are not much faster than on the A7. A computationally intensive task like SHA1 scored only marginally higher on the iPad Air 2 than on the iPad Air in single core performance (4808 vs 4555). In multicore performance, obviously, the three A8X cores outstrip the two A7 cores. But then in tasks where also memory bandwidth are more of an issue, the iPad Air 2 outperforms the iPad Air by somewhat larger margins.

Perhaps Apple has redesigned the whole internal architecture and provided the A8X with a means of faster memory access? The L2 cache is twice as big on the iPad Air 2, but that should not account for the amazing results in benchmarks like Stream Copy. The performance jump is not quite as huge as from the iPad 3 to iPad 4, but this is an improvement from a much higher level, so that makes it at least as surprising. Apple did some serious work there.

In any case, that means that Apple can boast all they want about their new processor - the main improvements in single core performance don't come from the processor design, but from the slightly higher clock rate (1.51Ghz vs. 1.4Ghz) and a much much much faster memory performance that might even exceed the advantage of having a third core available for many (most?) applications.

 

[PunjabiSoorma24]

How do you even think about use an iPad air to pay something in a store???

I wouldn't plan on doing it, but it's nice to have the option to do so.

 

[bigchief]

I can see loads of bending threads for the iPad air 2 in the near future.

 

[milo]

Smaller battery, and yet some people have still been insisting that the worse battery life is because of more ram.

Battery life hasn't decreased since the iPad 1 in 2010.

I can post a video of Steve Jobs on stage saying even though the iPad 2 is thinner than the first iPad, it still gives you the same "legendary 10 hour battery life".

Sure seems like you're making that claim based on what Apple says. Actual testing by reviewers disputes that and says that battery life is in fact shorter than the previous generation.

I guess some people just have to find something to complain about

Or you know, the device might actually have some issues that a reasonable person would complain about. But I guess it's more fun to just assume that people have some sort of mental illness that compels them to complain about things whether they are a problem or not?

Call me crazy, but if battery life actually did decrease from the previous model, that seems like a perfectly good reason to complain. And I would have to wonder about anyone defending shorter battery life.

 

[atlatnesiti]

I can see loads of bending threads for the iPad air 2 in the near future.

"Bending" remarks are now little bit long in the tooth.
Good try, but about 3 weeks too late.
Don't you have anything original, constructive and informative to say?!

 

[smeagol]

Apple's obsession with thinness has just got silly.
Protruding cameras in one product and a decrease in battery life in another.

So many jaded consumers in the tech space these days. Serious, Apple is doomed if they do, doomed if they don't, so they choose to do it anyway. Good for them.

That said, the protruding camera you are whining about only sticks out by a measurement in mm. Will it affect your handling of the phone? No. Will it rock on a table? Slightly, but when the phone is not in use it's mostly in your pocket which will make no difference to you.

All iPad users who read in bed will know first hand that when you start falling asleep the iPad is liable to face smack you. Painful. An iPad in regular use will get your hands tired after a while, so it definitely needs to get thinner and lighter. Does the iPad Air 2 have a smaller battery as a result? Yes. Does it give you less hours of use? It depends on who you ask. Fact is it lasts right in the ballpark of the old one, which is still way ahead of most competitors.

I'd like to file this one under, none-issue.

 

[MyopicPaideia]

Maybe as with other things Apple, they're leaving it up to 3rd parties to come up with hardware add ons to make the iPad NFC POS capable. Look at the battery, they're smaller compared with others but we have companies like Mophie and iBattz creating solutions for this issue. Same with a lack of a microSD slot for extra storage you have other companies creating solutions for this with cases having flash drives built in.

Do you have a link to one of these cases? I'm definitely interested in how they do that!

 

[bobob]

Apple's obsession with thinness has just got silly.
Protruding cameras in one product and a decrease in battery life in another.

The protruding camera you are whining about only sticks out by a measurement in mm. Will it affect your handling of the phone? No. Will it rock on a table? Slightly, but when the phone is not in use it's mostly in your pocket which will make no difference to you.

That may be incorrect.

It may make a huge difference to dc89 - - it may be absolutely imperative that he has an absolutely flat-backed phone.

Fortunately, there is a simple solution for dc89 - - don't buy an iPhone 6 Plus - - problem solved!

Unfortunately for the rest of us, he has to take his whining public.

 

[melendezest]

Those crying about battery life, who in the world is using the iPad more then 10hrs in one day?

People in the field with no access to electricity.

It'd be nice to go out and rough it for a couple of days and have enough juice to come back.

Think military applications, hunting, etc.

More battery life is better, period. That said, Apple meeting the standard here cannot be derided.

The issue is that many of us (except the App-ologists) see what Apple is doing: Save "features" for future introduction. For example, the iPad Air 1 should've had touchID, the original iPad should've had a front-facing camera, etc.

Apple is very, very clever in giving consumers just enough to spur sales, but not the best product they could actually produce.

Their marketing genius should not be underestimated, and Tim Cook, by virtue of being a bean-counter, knows how to withhold to save cash.

Like a drug dealer, Apple hooks you in and gets you on the comeback.

 

[Max(IT)]

Best Product pipeline in 25 years my ass.

Revising existing products is nothing new, the apple watch is a joke and the new 5k iMac is nothing to cheer about.

What the hell is this company doing.

The company is doing well, very well....
The question is what are YOU doing here, but I could be banned if I state the obvious answer

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You're insane. A product that isn't yet released is a joke? Okay. The 5k iMac is amazing. THIS iPad Air 2 is as fast as a notebook computer from 2 years ago. Apple stock hit an all-time high today.

... don't tell him

 

[MisterPunchy]

Personally, I'm happy for a smaller, thinner design so long as the battery life is in the same ballpark as the previous generations. I think it's reasonable for apple to design this way. 10+ hours is more than acceptable, and those users who truly require more (as the above post suggests) can always get a battery case to surround their ipad. They're in the minority of usage cases. They'll have a bigger, thicker device covered with some protection for their field needs, and lots of battery life to boot.

KudoCase sells them, and will surely have an Air2 model soon. Or Wait for one of the new ones to spin up - take the Lily-pad, just as one example. Slide your iPad into that sucker and get 12 DAYS of battery life. Plus it's got a solar charger built in. For those who have need of more than one day's battery life in areas and applications where there is limited access to electricity, there Ya go. The rest of us can enjoy a nice, thin device that lasts all day.

 

[Max(IT)]

I am very aware of the enormous amount of work it takes to make a device even .1 of a mm thinner. But, your average consumer couldn't care less. They want products. NEW products. None of these products are new. None of them (Apart from the watch) are in a new product category. They are all an evolution of previous products.

What do you want them to create? A shiny new time machine? A portable teletransporter?

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Meanwhile they'll continue making new sales records year after year...

Fortunately world doesn't end in this and others tech forums infested with haters and whiners....

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Mate, if everyone was like you we'd all be still riding around on horseback, yours is the most stupid comment I've read since I've been on here, and that's saying something.

No wonder Apple is making so much money with people like you around.

Do you mean with people like him, satisfied customers? Yes Apple is very happy about satisfied customers like him....

The most stupid comment you have read since you have been here? It's not a long time, dear Sept 2014 mate......

 

[dannyyankou]

 

[Max(IT)]

iPhone 5 is the best example of poor battery life. Every iPhone before and after it has better battery life. Apple acknowledged part of the problem and offered free replacement to some iPhone 5 users, but some others are not eligible for the replacement program (my anecdote) also encounter similar battery issues and have to pay Apple to have the battery replaced.

IPhone 5 battery life was just fine. You are speaking about a defective batch of batteries, which Apple serviced even out of warranty.
That doesn't have nothing to do with poor design or manufacturing choice.