AirPods 4 are taken apart and, unsurprisingly, they’re still impossible to repair

We take a look inside the new AirPods 4

We recently shared iFixit’s teardown of the iPhone 16, revealing some mysteries about the inside of the company’s new generation of mobile phones with the bitten apple logo. On this occasion, it was the turn of demolish AirPods 4 and there are a few surprises.

In the case of the iPhone 16 range, its teardown confirmed that the phones’ batteries were much easier to replace. However, for its part, AirPods 4 are virtually impossible to repair.

So much so that iFixit gave the AirPods 4 a repair score of 0 points.

Disassembly of AirPods 4

Apple announced its AirPods 4 on September 9 with some very important news. This generation of AirPods is available in two versions, including one with active noise cancellation and transparency modeand the other version with much cheaper price.

While the noise-cancelling AirPods 4 are available for 199 dollarsthe base model is priced at 149 dollars.

iFixit’s AirPods 4 teardowns reveal minor internal changes to Apple’s wireless earbuds, and their hardware components remain impossible to repair.

On the other hand, it is also worth noting that AirPods 4 are strikingly similar to AirPods 3 in terms of internal design structure. On other levels, you can compare their performance in this AirPods 3 vs AirPods 4 comparison. The most notable visual difference is that the AirPods 4 case is much smaller.

You can see the demolish AirPods 4 from the following video:

So here we are again, another year and another AirPods teardown that totally disappoints in terms of repairability. And it’s a shame too, because Apple has created amazing functional hardware that provides real improvements in quality of life, but at the expense of creating a completely disposable device.

Other AirPods 4 features

AirPods 4

• H2 chip
• USB-C port
• MagSafe Charging
• 30 hours of audio playback
• 6 hours of battery life on a single charge
• Apple Custom High Excursion Transducer
• Custom amplifier with high dynamic range
• Custom spatial audio
• Adaptive equalizer
• Bluetooth5.3

AirPods 4 with noise cancellation

• H2 chip
• USB-C port
• MagSafe Charging
• 30 hours of audio playback
• 6 hours of battery life on a single charge
• Apple Custom High Excursion Transducer
• Custom amplifier with high dynamic range
• Active Noise Cancellation (ANC)
• Custom spatial audio
• Transparency mode
• Adaptive equalizer
• Bluetooth5.3

The launch of AirPods 4 was very curious. This is the first time that Apple has launched two different versions of the same AirPods earphone model. Initially, rumors indicated that Apple was planning to introduce the AirPods SE or AirPods Lite at a much cheaper price. They ultimately ended up being AirPods 4 with fewer features than the more advanced version to reach a wider market range.

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