iPhone 15 Pro Max Teardown: X70 Modem for Faster 5G, 5x Optical Zoom Lens, A17 Pro Chip, and More
Repair website iFixit today shared a video teardown of the new iPhone 15 Pro Max, providing a closer look inside the top-of-the-line device.
While the iPhone 15 Pro Max has a similar internal design as the iPhone 14 Pro Max, the device has a redesigned frame that allows the back glass panel to be easily removed, resulting in lower repair fees for cracked glass for customers without AppleCare+ coverage. This change was first made to the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus last year.
The teardown provides a brief glimpse at the iPhone 15 Pro Max's upgraded Telephoto lens with a tetraprism system, which enables 5x optical zoom. iFixit said the Main and Ultra Wide lenses on the device appear to look the same as the ones on the iPhone 14 Pro Max, in line with information shared on social media last week. This suggests camera improvements beyond 5x optical zoom are the result of the A17 Pro chip and software optimizations.
iFixit says the iPhone 15 Pro Max has a similar logic board as the iPhone 15 Pro. In addition to the A17 Pro chip, the teardown confirms that the device is equipped with Qualcomm's Snapdragon X70 modem, which
reportedly enables faster 5G speeds as expected.
Overall, iFixit gave the iPhone 15 Pro Max a low repairability score of 4/10, in part due to Apple's parts pairing requirement that it says harms independent repair shops.
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