Apple’s iPhone 4 isn’t officially available until Thursday, but iFixit has already stripped one down to its frame. The new iPhone model includes a new glass and stainless steel form factor and a higher resolution multi-touch display.
Service providers will be glad to know that the iPhone 4’s battery isn’t soldered in place, which will make replacing one much easier. It is, however, safely tucked inside, so you’ll still need a phillips screwdriver to get at it.
The new 3.7V 1420 mAh Li-Polymer battery also takes up a substantial amount of space inside the iPhone 4 case.
The iPhone 4, in pieces
The iPhone 4 includes 512MB RAM, instead of the 256MB RAM found in the iPhone 3GS and iPad. Presumably that extra memory will help with video editing and gaming performance.
The new 5 megapixel camera with LED flash will make many iPhone users happy since customers have been asking for higher resolution than the 3.2 megapixel camera in the iPhone 3GS offers. The iPhone 4 camera also captures 720p video at 30 frames per second.
Apple’s own A4 processor, the 1GHz ARM Cortex A8. Apple also uses an A4 chip to drive the iPad. In comparison, the iPhone 3GS uses a 600MHz processor, and the iPhone 3G includes a 400MHz processor.
Both the processor and the RAM are manufactured by Samsung.
While most of the components in the iPhone 4 look to be fairly easy to access, the front glass and display are a different story. The front glass, digitizer and LCD display are glued together, so replacing the glass means replacing the digitizer and display, too.
The iPhone 4 will be available in a 16GB capacity for US$199, and 32GB for $299. The official launch date is June 24, although some pre-order customers have already received theirs.
The full iPhone 4 breakdown is available at the iFixit Web site.