Hi, I'm MJ with iFixit and it is that time of year again. Like clockwork, Apple has released its latest iteration of the iPhone, the iPhone 5. It seems as if anybody who's been paying even casual attention to the tech and Apple blogs knew all about it well before Apple even announced it. From the largest screen and body to the updated dock connector, we've been getting sneak peaks at this new iPhone since as early as May of this year. And interesting as those leaked product images are, they don't do much for us here at iFixit. We don't think we've really seen a device until we've done what we do best, and that's tear it down. Thanks to the international date line and some frequent fire miles, our co-founder Luke Souls traveled all the way to Melbourne, Australia to stand in line all night long to get his hands on the iPhone 5 a full day before any of us in the United States have the opportunity. While the iPhone 5 shares some superficial similarities to its younger siblings the 4 and 4s, it has in fact been entirely redesigned. The first and most striking difference is the 8.6mm increase in length, which makes room for the larger 4 inch retina display. The display now has a perfect 16-9 aspect ratio and a pixel resolution of 1136x640. You might say that the iPhone 5 finally hit adolescence as it's not only gotten taller, but thinner too. It lost some baby fat to measure in at 7.6mm, which is 1.7mm thinner than the 4s, and saw about a 20% decrease in its weight, coming in at just 3.95oz versus 4.9oz for the 4s. But being tall and thin isn't everything, as we all know it's what's on the inside that counts. So on that note, let's take a look at what's making this latest iPhone tick. Getting into the phone was deja vu inducing, as Apple continued using its proprietary Pentalobe screws to hold the phone together. We, of course, saw that coming and sent Luke with a Pentalobe driver that was just perfect for the job. Once those screws were out, we were met with a pleasant surprise. I never thought I would be so excited to see a suction cup, but there it is. A screwdriver and a tiny suction cup are all you'll need to replace a broken display, and this is going to score huge points in terms of repairability. Apple has returned to a top-down construction with the iPhone 5, and anyone who's ever swapped their broken screen on their iPhone can tell you that this is great news. Because rather than digging through all of the other internals to get to the display, on the iPhone 5, the display is the first thing that comes off. For context, replacing the display on an iPhone 4s takes 38 steps, and the quickest I've ever done it is 45 minutes. It looks like the iPhone 5 will take just a few steps, and likely 5 to 10 minutes. And since the display is the most common thing that breaks on most smartphones, we consider an easily replaceable display to be a win for consumers. Our next step, as any good repair person can tell you, is to disconnect and remove the battery. For comparison, the iPhone 5 has a 3.8 volt battery, whereas the iPhone 4s' battery is 3.7 volts. How they're getting increased performance from a battery that's only marginally more powerful is still a mystery to us, though my money is on a combination of other hardware and software improvements. We'll probably know more about the battery performance as soon as we get a closer look at the chips. And speaking of chips, once the battery is out, we got our first look at the logic board and on it are lots and lots of goodies. As we worked toward freeing up the logic board, we noticed that there were all kinds of metal to metal contacts inside the iPhone 5. Our initial guess is that this could be some kind of an antenna, but only time will tell. With the logic board free, we finally have the opportunity to inspect the chips that make up the iPhone 5. Behind some shielding, we discovered the elusive A6 chip. Here's where the chip geeks should get excited. The A6 is Apple's first custom design processor for the iPhone, and it seems like it's quite the little powerhouse. Early geek bench scores show a 150% increase in performance from the iPhone 4S, and we can verify that it does have one gig of RAM. This is not a minor upgrade. We'll have a lot more information about the A6 processor once our pals over at chip works really have a chance to dig into it, so keep your eyes peeled for that. Another chip of note is the Qualcomm MDM 9615, and I'm not sure if you know this, but the Qualcomm MDM 9615 is kind of a big deal. For those of you that were cheering when Apple announced that the iPhone 5 would be LTE enabled this is the chip you need to thank. So we set the logic board aside and turned our attention to the rear case. The lightning connector assembly contains the headphone jack, loudspeaker, and of course the new lightning dock connector. This is the guy you want to blame for making all of your accessories obsolete. Though we have to say that it looks like Apple didn't make this decision out of spite so much as out of necessity. There is no way they could have crammed a 30 pin dock connector in the iPhone 5. There just isn't enough room. So with all of the components removed from the rear case, we made an interesting discovery. The entire rear case of the iPhone 5 was only slightly more than just the glass of the iPhone 4s, and that probably has something to do with the 20% decrease in weight. With our teradun complete, it's time to answer the million dollar question. Just how repairable is the iPhone 5? To what I fix it, our mission is to teach everyone how to repair everything. So we give every gadget we tear down a repairability score between 1 and 10, 10 being the easiest to repair, and 1 being the most difficult. The iPhone 5 scores a very respectable 7 out of 10 fold durability, and here's why. With only a couple of small tools, the display comes right off, making replacing it super easy. On the downside, the screws holding the display in place are proprietary, so you'll need a special pentaloge driver to remove them. The lightning connector assembly has so many other components attached to it that it makes replacing a single component like the headphone jack, for example, impossible. The iPhone 5 is 50% more durable than the iPhone 4 and 4s, as only one of its faces is made of glass. While the iPhone 5 isn't a perfectly repairable device, it is certainly refreshing change from recent Apple devices like the iPad 3 and the MacBook Pro Retina, which scored an abysmal 2 and 1 out of 10 respectively. That about wraps up our tear down. Big thanks go out to our friends at Mac Fixed Australia for their warm hospitality in letting us use their facility. For the complete tear down including gorgeous high resolution images, check out iFixit.com. For all the latest tear downs and repair videos, make sure you are subscribed to our YouTube channel, you can follow us on Twitter at iFixit or like us on Facebook. Thanks for watching and happy repairing.