Teardown Preview: Inside the Apple iPhone 5

Editor's note: This teardown preview offers a taste of what's to come when the Apple iPhone 5 is released, which appears likely in a matter of weeks. Your thoughts on the device so far and anything you can add regarding the design and its components are welcomed!

There has been a lot of speculation over the past couple of months regarding the new Apple iPhone 5. First and foremost, will it be called the iPhone 5? We don't know for sure, but since that's the common consensus, let's go with that. Until we can lay our hands on a device and do a real teardown, let's take a look at what others are saying and render an opinion on the reliability of their comments.

From CNET: A video discussion between one of their reporters and their managing editor. Discussion centered on the screen (thinner due to some magic they've done with their touch technology and larger than the predecessor model 4S); the SIM card (was a micro-SIM but now is a nano-SIM); the dock or charge-port connector (was 36-pin but now is probably an 8-pin); and the battery. It is slightly larger capacity - changed from 3.7V @ 1.43A-hr to 3.8V @ 1.44A-hr; that's about 3% more energy.

The phone should be unveiled on 12 Sep and be available at retail on 21 Sep. Most of CNET's info looks pretty solid. But the battery details are suspect. Apple phones (actually all cell phones) certainly need better battery life, but 3% more is hardly worth the effort.

We've also seen some low-res pics of the logic board (front and back) posted by CNET that they obtained from Sina.com:

        

Hmm… could be the logic board… could be a board out of my DVD player. So I'd rate this info as less than solid, but still maybe accurate. Especially when we look at these somewhat better pics, albeit with the shields in place, that showed up on the Chinese forum Weiphone; these were then reposted by a French site Nowhereelse.fr; and then they were reposted by MacRumors: