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1Suction Cup
“I never thought I would be so happy to see a suction cup,” iFixit’s MJ said in a video on the company’s blog. “A screwdriver and a suction cup are all you’ll need to replace a broken display.” That’s a far cry from the 38 steps—and roughly 45 minutes—required to get the display on the iPhone 4S.
2The iPhone 5s Display
3Battery
4The A6 Processor
Apple has stopped talking in terms of gigahertz and cores, as these terms are misleading indicators of power. Instead, it just shares that it uses its own A6 processor, which is twice as fast as its A5. iFixit, however, adds that, according to Chipworks, the label on chip denotes a “1GB Elpida LP DDR2 SDRAM. Contrarily, the infographic presented during Apple’s keynote,” they continue, “clearly showed Samsung RAM in the A6. … Not too long ago, Apple decided to reduce the number of RAM chips ordered from Samsung. Time to invest in Elpida? Or is Samsung lurking in the next phone on the shelf?”
5Lightning Dock
6Home Button
7Scuff Gate!
People are already worried about the iPhone 5’s black coating will scuff off, says iFixit, which scratched away with a coin and found “that the side is pretty tough, but the chamfered edge can be susceptible to scuffing, making for a shiny streak on the side.” Possible solutions: get a case; chill out and stop worrying about such things; or buy a Nokia Lumia smartphone, which features a unibody case that has been dyed all the way through, so the color can’t be scratched away.
8Sapphire Crystal
The iPhone 5 features an 8-megapixel iSight camera that can take panoramic images, among other new perks. Apple has said it also included a sapphire crystal—an incredibly hard stone—in the new camera. iFixit scratched at the outside lens with steel tweezers and … nothing. While this doesn’t prove the outside bit is the sapphire, says iFixit, it does prove that the camera lens is pretty darn scratch-resistant. Nice work, Apple.
9Speaker
10Great Phone
iPhone executives have called the iPhone their best and most beautiful iPhone yet. iFixit seemed to agree, giving it a score of 7 out of a possible 10 and concluding, “This is a great phone, and we’re thrilled to show you how it’s constructed.”