Rapid Repair has, as expected, descended on the new iPhone 3G S, bristling with sharp tools like some sci-fi torture-bot, and splayed its remains on the cold slab of the teardown lab. It’s not an easy job — you’ll need a heat gun to remove some parts, other sections can be taken apart but not reassembled (the home button) and you’ll be left with a pile of tiny screws that look more like cake-topping sugar-strands than actual nuts’n’bolts.
The most interesting part is the CPU, the Samsung S5PC100 (both previous iPhones used the Samsung S3C6400). It runs at 600MHz, just as T-Mobile let slip last week, but according to Samsung’s spec sheet it can run at up to 833MHz and its native speed is 667MHz. This means that Apple is underclocking, presumably for better battery life. The chip also has built-in 720p video, and the memory for use by the OS has been doubled to 256MB.
Otherwise things are pretty much the same (apart for the compass and camera. of course). The screen is the same, as is the Wi-Fi (b and g, still no n). The Bluetooth gets a boost from 2.0 + EDR to 2.1 + EDR, and the whole package comes in at two grams more than the 3G, at 135g. Incremental upgrades all, but of course welcome. We can't wait for the overclocking geeks to get started on it.
iPhone 3G S Repair Guide [Rapid Repair]
iPhone 3G S Comparison Chart [Rapid Repair]
