iFixit Tears Down the iPad 2

It rarely takes the folks at iFixit long to tear down the latest Apple product, and the iPad 2 is of no exception. The tear-down guide was posted late last week, and a couple of interesting details were discovered. The most important one? The iPad 2 is even harder to break down than the original, and it’s simply not recommended to consider it yourself. Unless you enjoy shattered glass, that is.

Apple for the most part was up-front about the tech specs of the iPad 2, but one omission it made was the amount of RAM it contained. Like rumors suggested, though, it does seem to retain the same 512MB LPDDR2 as the original. While it’s a little upsetting not to see an increase here, I guess it’s still sufficient enough. Had the display resolution also been increased, having 1GB or more would have been almost required.

To open the iPad 2, a heatgun is required, because rather than retain the same tabs to help keep the glass in place, Apple this time opted to use glue, and lots of it. Even with a heatgun, things are tricky, so it’s simply unwise to do it unless you love living dangerously.

In the end, the iPad 2 received a “Repairability Score” of 4 out of 10, with 10 being the easiest. Given the difficulty in removing the display, I’m surprised to see a score quite so high, since it will take a bit of talent and patience to not cause irreversible damage. Fortunately though, once the glass is removed, removing everything else doesn’t seem to be too much of an issue.

As much as we hated trying to remove the clips in the original iPad, this much adhesive is even more of a pain. Be ready to crack your front panel if you dare open it! We’ll be investigating the best way to get inside over the next few weeks.