New Apple TV gets the teardown treatment, has increased RAM

Like little kids on Christmas morning, Apple fans cannot wait to open up their shiny new toys. The new Apple TV is the latest Apple device to be disassembled in the name of curiosity. The teardown reveals the same amount of flash storage as the 2nd generation Apple TV, but an increased amount of RAM — 512MB, up from 256MB.

Intrepid forum commenter Aicjofs on XMBC.org did the dissecting, beating teardown experts iFixIt to the punch. MacRumors first noticed the post.

The big news is the RAM increase, and the poster deduces the 512MB RAM from Hynix is the same as what’s found in the Kindle Fire. The processor is an A5 chip possibly made in February 2012. The naming conventions indicate that this Apple TV processor (PL2498) is similar to what’s found in the standard dual-core A5 (APL0498).

There is 8GB of on-board flash storage by Toshiba, the same amount as on the last Apple TV. And Aicjofs spotted a mystery second antenna inside the third-gen Apple TV that didn’t exist in previous models, which will hopefully be used to boost the Apple TV’s steaming performance.

Photo by aicjofs