David Hanak On the company's website iFixit instructions for the complete disassembly of the new iPad Mini appeared today. Two weeks after the presentation, we can see what the smallest and most powerful tablet of this segment looks like under the hood. It turns out that not much has changed, and maybe that's a good thing.
The original iPad Mini was popular mainly due to its very compact size, which, combined with performance and a good display, put together a piece of hardware that was extremely attractive to a certain target group. The new iPad Mini follows the same path. The basis remained the same, only the little things were improved, on which the entire tablet is built.
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A look under the cover reveals that this is an improved iPad Mini of the previous generation, rather than a scaled-down new iPad Air. Outwardly, it is almost no different from its predecessor. The only difference is the absence of certification regulatory marks on the back (not valid for Europe) - these are now only present in the System Settings inside the operating system.
After exposing the back of the chassis, the internal components are revealed, which are very similar to the predecessor. The camera, the position of the microphones, the sensor of the ambient light sensor and the battery have changed - the capacity is more or less the same, but the older batteries are not compatible due to the completely new connector.
Logically, the most changes took place on the motherboard, which is now ruled by the A12 Bionic processor, 3 GB of LPDDR4 RAM and other updated chips, including a memory and network module, namely Bluetooth 5.0.
As for the disassembly process itself (and possible repairs), the new iPad Mini definitely does not excel here. The battery is very strongly glued to the chassis, the glue is also used extensively to secure other internal components. Most of the parts are modular, but due to their gluing, replacing them is very difficult, if not impossible. The Home Button is also very difficult to remove, and for any intervention you have to remove the display, a process during which there is a high chance of damaging it.
Hello, I have my second iPad mini 2019 and both of them have quite a strong crunch/crack in the bottom half after a while when bending really gently. It's as if something has come off or loosened after a while... Has anyone else had this experience?