iFixit’s iPhone 11 Pro Max teardown finds higher-capacity battery, 4GB of RAM

As has become an annual custom, iFixit tore down the latest iPhone—in this case, the iPhone 11 Pro Max—to see what has changed inside Apple's flagship device. The site found that the phone has 4GB of RAM, a 3969mAh battery that adopts the L-shaped design for the first time in a Max phone, and an improved thermal management system.

Also intriguing: "We have a secondary battery connector for the first time ever in an iPhone, plugging in directly adjacent to the wireless charging coil. We're not sure what Apple was up to here."

This additional connector, iFixit postulates, could be evidence of the bilateral charging feature that was rumored before the phone's release. Pre-launch reports claimed that the new iPhone would be able to charge AirPods wirelessly, much like Samsung's recent Galaxy phones. However, iFixit notes that Apple published documentation indicating that the iPhone 11 Pro Max has new hardware for tracking battery performance, and that may be an alternative explanation.

Other interesting findings include a new barometric sensor design and an explanation of one way Apple achieved improved thermal performance: it's "accomplished by pulling heat from the logic board straight through several layers of graphite where it dissipates into the rear case."

iFixit sells repair-related parts and services, and it advocates for user-performed repairs for the reduction of environmental waste. As with prior teardowns, the site gave the phone a repair rating. This time it was a 6/10, the same score given to the iPhone XS and XS Max in 2018. iFixit reported that the battery is easier to service than before but that breaking the glass back of the phone requires replacing the entire chassis to repair.

You can visit the teardown page for more photos and details.

Listing image by iFixit