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Teardown of new $199 16GB iPod touch finds same design & parts as 32GB & 64GB models

Apple's refresh of the 16-gigabyte iPod touch this week brings the newly price $199 media player in line with its larger-capacity brethren, including the same internal design and an identical rear facing iSight camera, a teardown of the device has revealed.

After getting its hands on the new 16-gigabyte iPod touch, iFixit proceeded to dismantle it, revealing any secrets it may have inside. It turns out, however, that there weren't any surprises, as the new model appears identical to the 32- and 64-gigabyte versions, aside from sporting half the available flash memory.

Apple's surprise update on Thursday brought the 16-gigabyte media player in line with the larger models, namely giving it a 5-megapixel rear camera, and also making it available in a total of six colors. The new $199 iPod touch, coming in $30 less than its rear-camera-less predecessor, also offers a button for the iPod touch loop, but the strap is sold separately for $9.

The new iPod touch has the model number "A1421" on the back, which is the same as the higher-capacity versions. All three fifth-generation iPod touch models now come in black, space grey, pink, yellow, blue, and (Product)RED.

All three models also include the A5 processor with 512 megabytes of integrated RAM. The internal radios are capable of 802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0, while the 5-megapixel camera captures 1080p video. A forward-facing FaceTime camera also captures 720p video.

The unit's logic board, FaceTime camera, battery, Lightning connector, headphone jack, speaker and home button are all found on a single cable within the compact device.

The full list of integrated chips found on the logic board are:

  • Apple A5 dual-core processor, with 4 Gb (512 MB) of Elpida Mobile DDR2 RAM, denoted by the B4064B3PM silkscreen label
  • Toshiba THGBX3G7D2KLA0C 128 Gb (16 GB) NAND flash
  • Apple 338S1064-B1 dialog power management IC (similar to the Apple 338S1131)
  • Murata 339S0171 Wi-Fi module
  • Broadcom BCM5976 touchscreen controller
  • 338S1146 Apple/Cirrus Logic audio codec
  • STMicroelectronics AGD4 2336 L84DC low-power, three-axis gyroscope