Dissection of the iPhone 4 shows 512MB of RAM

28th June, 2010 by adina
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A quick inspection of an iPhone 4 gives hints of theoretically as good performance as an iPad, as the repair site iFixit says. The A4 processor runs at a similar 1GHz clock speed, in spite of a smaller size. The 512MB of memory are supposed to work better with multitasking. There are no known reasons for Apple to underclock the A4, but early benchmarking showed it faster than the iPhone 3GS, but slower than an iPad.

There are also other unique parts besides the A4 processor. The AGD1 gyroscope, an ST Micro design, appears to have been made for Apple or for the first time used for the iPhone 4. While not using an existing equivalent, Apple has chosen to have an accelerometer from ST Micro.

It is worthy to note that other important components are an ameliorated magnetic sensor to provide better motion response, Samsung flash memory, a LED backlight for its LCD, Skyworks GSM hardware as well as Broadcom hardware for wireless such as Bluetooth, GPS and 802.11n Wi-Fi. The audio chamber is also improved and should remove speaker noise more efficiently than the precedent generation.

Durability and serviceability should also show significant improvement. The screen is more expensive in case of replacement as the LCD, glass and touch layer are all glued together, but it is less exposed to breaking. Apple claimed to have used a special aluminosilicate glass which is actually Gorilla Glass, an extra-tough glass from Corning, specially designed to prevent scratches and cracks. The larger lithium-ion battery can be easily replaced by a technician as the operation of opening the phone back implies only the simple removal of two Philips screws. The battery is not soldered in and therefore can be quickly pulled out.

The whole design of the iPhone 4 is considered as a superb example of engineering, mainly when referring to the steel frame which is doubling as the antenna. The shapes of the mainboard and of many other components are quite unusual because Apple was very careful and wanted to drastically maximize the usable space. As a logical result, the device is smaller although it is equipped with an extra camera and has a larger battery.


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