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iPhone 12 teardown reveals how 5G has changed things

The new 5G-equipped iPhone 12 has a smaller battery than last year's iPhone 11.

The first two models from Apple’s iPhone 12 have started shipping, and of course the folks at iFixit are busy taking them apart. As of this writing the detailed teardown is still incomplete, but they’ve exposed enough of the details to get a good look under those screens. The iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro are surprisingly similar inside, as iFixit points out that the cheaper model has a plastic spacer in the spot where the Pro puts its telephoto lens and LiDAR sensor.

They also have the same size battery, at 10.78 Wh, which is slightly smaller than the 11.91 and 11.67Wh batteries iFixit reported in last year’s iPhone 11 and 11 Pro. In our review we noted that battery life on the iPhone 12 doesn’t quite match its predecessor, and that could be your explanation.

Of course the teardown also mentions that the phones open on a different side this year, and have much larger logic boards. That’s likely because of the addition of 5G technology, which may be squeezing the battery size Apple can fit in there. iFixit already streamed a video teardown of the new iPhones, if any other interesting details are found in the devices then we’ll update this post to let you know.