iPhone 6S Teardown: Smaller Battery, Heavier Display, Kinda Repairable

With the arrival of the iPhone 6S in eager hands around the world today, iFixit has already torn the new phone apart. Here’s what’s inside.

It’s not the first iPhone teardown, but it is certainly the prettiest and likely the most comprehensive. With glass and metal prised apart, the slightly thicker and marginally heavier phone spilled its secrets to iFixit. Here are some choice findings:

• The battery of the phone is indeed smaller, with a capacity of 1715 mAh rather than 1810 mAh.
• In fact, the new Taptic Engine takes up a chunk of space below the battery — which may explain the reduction in capacity.
• Some of the extra weight of the phone comes from the new display: it now weighs 60 grams, which is a 15 gram increase over the one in the iPhone 6.
• The A9 chipset is a little bigger then the old phone’s A8 unit, measuring 14.5 x 15 mm compared to 13.5 x 14.5 mm.

There is, of course, way more detail in the full teardown over on the iFixit website. Once nice finding, though, is that “the battery is straightforward to access. Removing it requires a proprietary pentalobe screwdriver and knowledge of the adhesive removal technique, but is not difficult.”

That was enough to snag the phone a repairability score of 7 out of 10—not bad for an Apple product.