Gadgetory

from the outside apples third-generation iPad may look a lot like its predecessor but it's what's on the inside that counts I'm bill detwiler head technology editor at cnet sister site techrepublic and i'm going to crack open the Wi-Fi only version of the 2012 ipad the 2012 ipad is nearly identical to the ipad 2 in design and construction now this is nice as it means many ipad 2 accessories such as the Smart Cover will fit this year's model but it also means the new tablet is a real pain to crack open and work on now to begin cracking open the third-generation ipad I used a hair dryer to loosen the adhesive which holds the front panel to the aluminum case I then used a series of plastic and metal tools to gently pry off the panel even having done this before on the iPad 2 and the new 4g this process took at least 30 minutes so be patient and don't rush it now with the front panel open I removed the retina display and disconnected the front panel from the motherboard I then detach the visible connectors from the motherboard and remove the motherboard itself now unlike the 4G version the Wi-Fi only ipad lacks the separate cellular board and cellular antennas at this point i decided against removing any of the other components from the case most are either held in place with very strong adhesive or their connector cables are forcing them loose could damage them and I want to put this iPad back together so the only thing left to do is remove the EMI RFI shields from the motherboard and with that my teardown was complete so what did I learn from cracking open the Wi-Fi only version of the 2012 iPad well Apple kept the overall hardware layout the same but upgraded many of the internal components the new 9.7 inch Retina Display has a resolution of 2048 x 1536 at 264 pixels per inch and that offers four times the total number of pixels as the ipad tues screen now to run this display apple gave the ipad more GPU and more RAM from what I can tell the 2012 iPads a 5x system on a chip has a dual core cpu like the ipad 2 but a quad-core GPU now the 2012 ipad also has one gig of ram compared to the ipad 2 s 512 megabytes along with the upgraded graphics the new ipad also has an improved isight camera and support for AT&T and Verizon 4G LTE networks on the 4g model now as this is a Wi-Fi only ipad it doesn't have the separate cellular card or antennas found on the 4g version now one of the more surprising features of the new ipad is the battery although it's roughly the same physical size as the ipad tues battery it provides a lot more power the new battery is rated at 43 watt hours compared to just 25 watt hours for the ipad 2 but given the new tablets souped-up hardware battery life remains about the same on the downside ample didn't increase the ipad storage capacity the 2012 model comes in 16 32 and 64 gig versions also the tablet has a single speaker whereas most other 10-inch tablets have to lastly like the ipad to the new ipad is very difficult to work on Apple definitely didn't design this tablet to be user serviceable as far as pricing Wi-Fi only iPads start at 499 and go up to 6 99 Wi-Fi + 4g models and one hundred and thirty dollars to the base price now as I noted in my review of the 4g iPad there's nothing revolutionary about the 2012 model but it is a solid incremental update and a seam or iPad teardown photos check out my full cracking open gallery at techrepublic com forward slash cracking open for cnet and techrepublic I'm bill detwiler and this has been a cracking open of the wifi-only 2012 iPad you