You’d be crazy to crack open your iPhone 4S on day one, but iFixit.com has done just that so we can take a gander at what’s under the hood.
As you’re well aware, the iPhone 4S shares the same outward appearance as the iPhone 4, and while many of the internal parts haven’t changed either, here are some of the ones that have.
Battery
The iPhone 4S’ battery has a wee bit more capacity than the iPhone 4’s and, as such, you’ll see an extra hour of talk time over a 3G network but 100 fewer hours of standby time (300 on the iPhone 4, 200 on the 4S), which may be due to the 4S’ more powerful processor and new antennas.
Processor
One of the most noticeable differences between the iPhone 4 and 4S is the processor. The iPhone 4 has a single-core A4 processor, while the 4S has a dual-core A5 processor.
Camera
The new one has more megapixels—eight versus five—but the bigger news is the larger aperture the and fifth lens that Apple added, which should do more for the quality of most casual photos than the extra megapixels. The new system also captures 1080p video, versus 720p on the iPhone 4.
Double the RAM
The iPhone 4S sports 512 megabytes of RAM versus the iPhone 4’s 256 megabytes, which should help keep the interface and apps running smoothly.
New Antenna System
The iPhone 4S that iFixit tore apart was a German version, so the antenna system won’t be the same as the U.S. versions, but we know that there’s a new dual-antenna setup that intelligently switches between the two when sending and receiving voice data, which should improve call quality.
The AT&T version is also theoretically capable of 14.4 Mbps download speeds versus the iPhone 4’s 7.2 Mbps theoretical max. Real world speeds will be much lower, of course, but downloads should be faster nonetheless.
And, of course, the Sprint and Verizon versions join the AT&T version as world phones capable of roaming in over 200 countries around the globe.
[via iFixit]
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