iFixit has posted its complete teardown of the iPad Air 2, revealing some new details and confirming most of the specs. The article notes that Apple has revised a lot of the hardware from last year’s iPad Air, including: a fully laminated 9.7” IPS multi-touch LCD with 2,048 x 1,536 resolution at 264 ppi and an anti-reflective coating, the expected A8X 64-bit CPU with 2GB RAM and the M8 motion coprocessor, the 8MP rear iSight camera, 802.11ac Wi-Fi, and the new Touch ID fingerprint sensor. The iPad Air 2 also gets the barometric pressure sensor added to the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. The battery is located below the logic board, and this year’s model packs a reduced-capacity 27.62 Wh package, down from the previous 32.9 Wh capacity. Although Apple’s claims of the same 10-hour battery life suggest more efficient power use, it remains to be seen whether this will be the case in practice.
The new Touch ID sensor design closely resembles the sensors found on the new iPhone models, using an NXP chipset. The camera was noted to be different from the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus version, but is also described as a “leap in quality” over the original iPad Air. The main logic board is also glued into the case, with the Lightning connector soldered on, making replacement or repair of the Lightning port a more difficult task. iFixit summarized its report by giving the iPad Air 2 a very low repairability score, due to everything basically being glued together and the fragility of the front display assembly.