Apple iPad mini 5 teardown reveals RAM upgrade

It took Apple four years to upgrade the iPad mini to its 5th generation — and even then, it wasn’t a major upgrade, but a (major) overhaul of the last model. 

Still, while it looks roughly the same on the outside, the iPad mini 5 does bring numerous important upgrades on the inside, and a new teardown by iFixit reveals exactly what Apple has changed compared to the 2015 model. 

We already know that the new iPad mini has Apple’s A12 Bionic chip and a new, 7-megapixel selfie camera. But iFixit’s teardown shows that the iPad mini 5 also received a RAM upgrade — it has 3GB of RAM, compare to the iPad mini 4’s 2GB of RAM. 

The teardown didn’t reveal many other surprises. There are a few minor tidbits worth mentioning: The microphones were moved closer to the selfie cam, and the battery has the same capacity as on the previous model (though it looks to be a different model). 

Overall, the iPad mini 5 is still horribly hard to repair, with many parts stuck to other parts with tons of glue. One thing you may be able to replace if you’re very, very crafty is the battery, but iFixit says the process is “unnecessarily difficult.”

Check out the full teardown here.