iPad 3 Teardown by iFixit

The guys at iFixit have been hard at work tearing down the iPad all morning. First posts of the teardown revealed that the iPhone's retina display is being produced by Samsung. Well the teardown has finally been completed and posted online, exposing the full glory of the new iPad's guts. It's a beautiful sight, and we've got some of the best pictures below, but first, here are the entire specs of the new iPad.

* Dual-core Apple A5X processor with integrated quad-core graphics
* 9.7 inch LED backlit in-plane switching LCD with 2048×1536 pixel "Retina Display." Our unit is made by Samsung; we hear that Sharp and LG may be supplying panels at a later date.
* 16, 32 or 64 GB Toshiba NAND flash memory
* 5 MP HD rear-facing camera
* 1 GB DRAM comprised of two 4Gb Elpida LP DDR2 parts
* Broadcom BCM4330 802.11a/b/g/n Baseband/Radio with Integrated Bluetooth 4.0+HS
* Qualcomm MDM9600 3G and 4G wireless modem (not the expected 2nd generation MDM9615)
* Qualcomm RTR8600 multi-band/mode RF transceiver for LTE bands

Getting inside the iPad is as tricky as we expected, knowing how tough it was to get into the iPad 2. The front panel is glued to the frame. We carefully used a heat gun to loosen the adhesive, worked to budge the panel with some guitar picks and plastic opening tools, and finally gently lifted it off with some heavy duty suction cups.

Here's a neat photo that breaks down the different components of one of the parts

How do you break into an iPad? Guitar picks

The iPad 3 is most just a big ass battery

Update: iFixit's site has been up and down but the group just revealed that the new iPad is equipped with a Texas Instruments CD3240 driver device anda  Broadcom BCM4330 a/b/g/n Mac/Baseband Radio with Bluetooth 4.0+HS and an FM transceiver.

Update 2: iFixit has also confirmed the device has the following specs: "2 x 4Gb Elpida LP DDR2 = 1 GB DRAM in separate packages in a 64-bit configuration, Qualcomm PM8028 Power Management IC, Toshiba Y0A0000 Memory MCP, Qualcomm RTR8600 multi-band/mode RF transceiver for LTE bands (under the thermal pad), Broadcom BCM5973 I/O controller." iFixit also said the A5x processor is manufactured by Samsung and that "There isn't much difference between the old and new version of the A5: an "x" in the name and an extra 0.2 GHz clock speed."

Update 3: The new iPad has a 42.5 watt-hour Li-ion battery, up from the 25 watt-hour battery in the iPad 2.

Post from my iPad 2