iFixIt tears apart the iPhone 5c

Just a few hours ahead of the iPhone 5s/5c launch in the United States and an additional ten major international markets, the repair wizards over at iFixIt gave the flagship iPhone 5s its usual teardown treatment. But wait, these guys are really quick – they’ve also posted their ritual teardown of another new iPhone, the gorgeous plastic iPhone 5c. I’ve included the most interesting tidbits and a nice video right after the break…
For starters, CellHellmet did a nice bolt-by-bolt teardown of both the iPhone 5s and 5c, have a look below.

http://youtu.be/O0VIQ-Y_y68

Now onto the iFixit’s teardown of a blue iPhone 5C.
As you know, the iPhone 5c features a rear shell made from polycarbonate plastic with a steel frame inside that serves as an antenna and structural support.
Compared to its aluminum iPhone 5s counterpart, the iPhone 5c is a tad heavier due a slightly lighter display assembly on the 5s (and despite the addition of a fingerprint sensor and the sapphire Home button with Touch ID circuitry to the 5s).
Because “a greater mass of plastic is required to match the strength and durability of a lesser mass of aluminum,” the 5c rear case is actually way heavier: 43.8 g vs 25.9 g for the 5s.

It’s good to know that, though the rear panel is made with plastic to presumably cut costs, Apple did not compromise build quality in the process.

The front glass, digitizer and LCD are all one component, which increases cost of repair. Apple still uses Pentalobe screws on the exterior that appear to be slightly different than the one in the iPhone 5 and 5s, making the device difficult to open.

The 5c’s 1510 mAh battery (bellow) is just a hair slimmer than the 1560 mAh battery of the 5s. Note the lack of the pull tab: the 5c’s battery is now glued, requiring heat and prying to remove.
Other tidbits: there’s little difference between the iPhone 5s/5c back-facing iSight cameras, except for aperture which is larger on the 5s ( f/2.2) than on the 5c  (f/2.4), allowing for better-looking photos on the former by virtue of letting more light in.
Additionally, the vibrator motor assembly in the 5c is actually slightly larger than that of the 5s, despite its similar component design. Adhesive on the antenna connectors “hinder disassembly” and the volume buttons are “considerably larger”. The familiar ten-hole microphone grille and sixteen-hole speaker grille have been replaced with one and four-hole grilles, respectively.

Here’s the iPhone 5c logicboard, featuring (from left to right) an Apple A6 APL0598 application processor, Qualcomm MDM9615M LTE Modem and Qualcomm WTR1605L LTE/HSPA+/CDMA2K/TDSCDMA/EDGE/GPS transceiver. The A6 processor contains 1GB of Elpida-made DDR2 RAM (B8164B3PM-1D-F 8 Gb).
The back of the motherboard includes a Toshiba THGBX2G7B2JLA01 128 Gb (16 GB) NAND flash, Apple-branded 338S1164 and 338S1116 chips, Qualcomm PM8018 RF power management IC, Broadcom BCM5976 touchscreen controller, Murata 339S0209 (based on the Broadcom BCM4334) Wi-Fi module and other chips (Skyworks 77810-12, Skyworks 773550-10, Avago A790720, TriQuint TQM6M6224 and Avago A7900).

Although both devices sport a similar construction and share some internals, don’t get your hopes up high for parts cross-compatibility, mainly due to the differences between their display assemblies and the differently-sized FaceTime/speaker connectors.
Here’s iFixIt’s recap vid.
iFixiIt gave both new iPhones a repairability score of six out of ten (ten being the easiest to repair).