Apple has been one of the most technologically advanced brands and we see their prowess year after year in their devices, however, despite that, it has been usually late to adopt the latest standards in the tech world.
Usually, because it waits for the technology to mature, this allows it to attain higher margins for its products. One instance was when Apple’s competitors launched 5G-ready handsets, while the company took an entire year. Another instance is the RAM type, where Android smartphone makers are releasing devices with LPDDR5 RAM, the iPhone 13 sticks with the older LPDDR4X standard.
During an extensive teardown of the iPhone 13 Pro, iFixit took apart the logic board and found out that the model uses 6GB of RAM of LPDDR4X procured from SK Hynix.
Keep in mind that the memory manufacturer earlier had announced the 18GB LPDDR5 memory chips for smartphones, which are found in the top-tier version of the ASUS ROG Phone 5 and others. Apple appears to have gone this route to cut costs.
Though LODDR5 RAM is faster and more energy-efficient than LPDDR4X, it is more expensive to incorporate in smartphones. Another notable thing is that the 128GB of NAND storage in the iPhone 13 Pro belongs to Kioxia, if you have been following the industry, you will know that Samsung is the biggest maker of memory and storage chips.
So Apple not choosing Samsung for these components can only mean it chose other suppliers to save its production costs.
It is also possible that some iPhone shipments feature Samsung-made parts since the iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max displays are provided by the South Korean tech behemoth.
We can only provide information based on the latest teardowns, also with the current chip shortage, Apple was quite possibly forced to make some cost-saving decisions, otherwise, it may not have been able to sell the iPhone 13 Series at the same price as last year’s iPhone 12.
This chip shortage is likely a factor as to why the iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 mini feature a 4-core GPU in the A15 Bionic, while the more premium models get the 5-core GPU.
Source:iFixit
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