iPad Air 2 teardown reveals lower capacity battery, internal layout tweaks

Posted:
in iPad edited January 2015
A teardown of the recently released iPad Air 2 on Wednesday revealed a slew of iterative changes made to Apple's flagship tablet model, including sized-down components and a smaller battery.




Repair firm iFixit has started its traditional disassembly of Apple's latest iOS device, revealing a few new components designed to fit within the tight constraints of a 6.1mm-thick chassis.

As announced by Apple last week, the new Air 2 comes with a 9.7-inch laminated touch panel, A8X SoC, 8MP rear-facing camera, 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Touch ID fingerprint reader. The shell was also redesigned, seeing the deletion of the orientation lock/mute button and minor aesthetic modifications to the speaker grille and volume control buttons.

Today's teardown finally put a number on battery capacity, with the Air 2 sporting a 27.62 watt hour, 7,340mAh dual-cell unit, down from last year's 32.9 watt-hour configuration. According to Apple, that will get you about 10 hours of continuous use per charge, or 9 hours on the Wi-Fi + Cellular model.

Also new is the Touch ID home button, which appears to share a design similar to the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. The module itself is manufactured by NXP. Touch ID is a major addition to the iPad lineup as it enables Apple Pay purchases, though without an NFC chip, payments are limited to online payments.

Finally, the Air 2 features redesigned speakers, repositioned Wi-Fi antennas (located at the top-edge of the Wi-Fi model), dual ambient light sensors and dual microphones, all arranged on variety of customized flex cables.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 40
    irelandireland Posts: 17,798member

    Engadget got a dig in for the iPad Air 2 getting only 11 hours 15 minutes battery in its video watching tests. Idiots.

     

    If the iPad Air 2 was getting 5 or 6 hours I'd use that as a complaint about the thinness, but as the battery is well good enough and far exceeds Apple's claims I'd say the weight and thinness reduction were super decisions. I think when it comes to tablets weight and thinness were always going to be the most important factors to having a great device if the battery was good.

     

    My only grips about this year's iPad lineup is I think ? needs to be more aggressive with price and killing old product. It should have been Touch ID across the board this year. I think they should have killed every iPad but the new ones, and started the iPad mini 3 at $299 and iPad Air 3 at $399. This is why they are losing market share in the tablet race, even with easily the best tablets. Not a race to the bottom, but a sensible trade-off in keeping a firm hold of the reigns in this tablet race. And then, Phil, we'd think the 16 to 64 to 128 up-sell scheme justifiable.

  • Reply 2 of 40
    ahmlcoahmlco Posts: 432member
    Just once I'd like to hear them say, "And we listened to our users. Instead of taking all of our new power-saving technologies and using them to make the iPad thinner, we made it exactly the same thickness and filled the interior with a larger battery, adding 18 additional hours to the battery life!"

    We call this iPad the "weekender"...
  • Reply 3 of 40
    rogifanrogifan Posts: 10,669member
    ireland wrote: »
    Engadget got a dig in for the iPad Air 2 getting only 11 hours 15 minutes battery in its video watching tests. Idiots.

    If the Air 2 was getting 5 or 6 hours I'd use that as a complaint about the thinness, but as the battery is well good enough and far exceeds Apple's claims I'd say a weight and thinness reduction were super decisions. I think when it comes to tablets weight and thinness were always going to be the most important factors to have a great device, provided the battery is decent which it is.
    For me battery life complaints are only legit if someone had to change their real world usage because of shorter battery life. I'd love to know who needs to use an iPad for more than 11 hours without a charge. Even if you're on a long plane ride are you really going to be using your iPad for 11 hours straight? I doubt it. I'll wait to see what people's real world usage is a month or two into using their device.
  • Reply 4 of 40
    ahmlcoahmlco Posts: 432member

    Besides, you can't make the silly thing much thinner with venturing into iPad "bend-gate" territory...

  • Reply 5 of 40
    I find it interesting that iPad is losing battery, while others gain it, at this rate it's lovely, now it's quicker charge(on same charger) and still lasts that good day.

    What's the complaint, people bending ipads in pocket yet? People cathing themselves on fire by sitting on it? Other? We will see.
  • Reply 6 of 40
    rogifanrogifan Posts: 10,669member
    ahmlco wrote: »
    Just once I'd like to hear them say, "And we listened to our users. Instead of taking all of our new power-saving technologies and using them to make the iPad thinner, we made it exactly the same thickness and filled the interior with a larger battery, adding 18 additional hours to the battery life!"

    We call this iPad the "weekender"...
    How do they fill it with a larger battery if it's the same size and thickness? When Apple went retina with the iPad 3 people complained because it was noticeably heavier and thicker. I for one will take any weight reduction I can get. But then I'm never away from power long enough where 11 hours of battery life wouldn't be enough.
  • Reply 7 of 40
    irelandireland Posts: 17,798member

  • Reply 8 of 40
    rogifanrogifan Posts: 10,669member
    I find it interesting that iPad is losing battery, while others gain it, at this rate it's lovely, now it's quicker charge(on same charger) and still lasts that good day.

    What's the complaint, people bending ipads in pocket yet? People cathing themselves on fire by sitting on it? Other? We will see.

    The Nexus 9, which has a bigger battery and thicker case claims 9.5 hours of video playback. Engadget got over 11 with the Air 2 and people are still finding reasons to complain?
  • Reply 9 of 40
    rogifan said:
    "For me battery life complaints are only legit if someone had to change their real world usage because of shorter battery life. I'd love to know who needs to use an iPad for more than 11 hours without a charge.%u201D

    I use my ipad as a tabletop display showing my book trailers and new book info while selling at conventions. These events can run the whole day, and I already have to watch for the low battery warning with my existing iPad with Retina. What I want is a larger display and an enormous battery. The weight does not bother me at all.
  • Reply 10 of 40
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,718member
    rogifan wrote: »
    For me battery life complaints are only legit if someone had to change their real world usage because of shorter battery life. I'd love to know who needs to use an iPad for more than 11 hours without a charge. Even if you're on a long plane ride are you really going to be using your iPad for 11 hours straight? I doubt it. I'll wait to see what people's real world usage is a month or two into using their device.

    Maybe these complainers are signing up for the one way Mars trip. :D
  • Reply 11 of 40

    I agree, that retiring the older models and introducing the newer ones at a lower price would have been preferable.  I do think the iPad Air 2 is nice, but not sure of the point of the mini 3.  Why couldn't they have given it the better chip?

  • Reply 12 of 40
    fallenjtfallenjt Posts: 4,053member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Curtis Hannah View Post



    I find it interesting that iPad is losing battery, while others gain it, at this rate it's lovely, now it's quicker charge(on same charger) and still lasts that good day.



    What's the complaint, people bending ipads in pocket yet? People cathing themselves on fire by sitting on it? Other? We will see.

    When you say "losing battery", you mean battery life? because the battery life wasn't lost but remained the same I believe. If you think smaller battery pack is "losing battery", it's incorrect.

  • Reply 13 of 40
    rogifan wrote: »
    The Nexus 9, which has a bigger battery and thicker case claims 9.5 hours of video playback. Engadget got over 11 with the Air 2 and people are still finding reasons to complain?

    Brad Molen tested it. He's not an Apple fan. The iPad even liveblog was the most cynical I've ever seen.
  • Reply 14 of 40
    quadra 610quadra 610 Posts: 6,757member
    The word of the day is "iterative", apparently, and in an altogether unflattering way.

    Folks were expecting time travel and holographic porn.

    Instead they got just a "better" iPad.
  • Reply 15 of 40
    I have to say, I'd much rather have a thinner iPad and the same ~10 hours (though probably 12 if the current Air is anything to go by) of battery life than an iPad the same thickness but with 18 hours of battery. Two reasons for this, really: 10 hours is perfectly adequate, and an extra 6-8 hours wouldn't add much given that even with heavy usage I charge my iPad every two days; and making it thinner with the same battery life sets the stage going forward for further iteration, more so in my opinion than if you just whack an enormous battery in there. Also, the possible improvements in battery lifespan or charging time can't hurt.
  • Reply 16 of 40
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by digitalclips View Post





    Maybe these complainers are signing up for the one way Mars trip. image

    And maybe they have a point, if they can afford the trip ;) Coz the battery wouldn't last to get them there

  • Reply 17 of 40
    rogifanrogifan Posts: 10,669member
    Brad Molen tested it. He's not an Apple fan. The iPad even liveblog was the most cynical I've ever seen.

    I'll wait for real world usage tests. All the complaints now are from people that don't even own an Air 2. They just hear it's a smaller battery and assume battery life will be worse. Because apparently there's nothing Apple can do software or hardware wise to improve battery life or at least keep it the same. That can only happen with bigger batteries and heavier devices. :rolleyes:
  • Reply 18 of 40
    I have to say, I'd much rather have a thinner iPad and the same ~10 hours (though probably 12 if the current Air is anything to go by) of battery life than an iPad the same thickness but with 18 hours of battery. Two reasons for this, really: 10 hours is perfectly adequate, and an extra 6-8 hours wouldn't add much given that even with heavy usage I charge my iPad every two days; and making it thinner with the same battery life sets the stage going forward for further iteration, more so in my opinion than if you just whack an enormous battery in there. Also, the possible improvements in battery lifespan or charging time can't hurt.

    Yep. These things need to get even lighter. .94 pounds is probably as light as we'll see for a while (unless the A9X is just that much more power efficient).
    rogifan wrote: »
    I'll wait for real world usage tests. All the complaints now are from people that don't even own an Air 2. They just hear it's a smaller battery and assume battery life will be worse. Because apparently there's nothing Apple can do software or hardware wise to improve battery life or at least keep it the same. That can only happen with bigger batteries and heavier devices. :rolleyes:

    Not to mention hardware, with the third core the A8X can race to idle even faster than the A7 in the first Air. Intel has a lot of reason to be worried, Apple's chips are being designed to be competitors to the Core series, not Snapdragons or Tegras.
  • Reply 19 of 40
    hentaiboyhentaiboy Posts: 1,252member

    iFixit link down. How much RAM?

  • Reply 20 of 40
    calicali Posts: 3,494member
    hentaiboy wrote: »
    iFixit link down. How much RAM?

    2GB.

    So iPad fans were shouting 64-bit and iKnockoff fans were claiming it's useless with only 1GB of RAM.

    Now iPad has both. Where do we go from here?
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