The folks at iFixIt have turned the art of tearing apart electronics into a science over the years. Every teardown is methodical, beautiful and best of all – educational. So what do we learn from today’s iPad Mini Retina teardown? Apple makes it very hard for consumers to fix their devices.

In today’s iPad Mini Retina teardown, iFixIt found that Apple’s latest mini-tablet has its share of good and bad. Unfortunately, the bad far outweighs the good thanks to the large amounts of glue Apple uses to keep its components in place. Doing so makes it harder to remove parts, and can even damage them if you’re not careful. They also note that there are hidden screws inside the iPad which makes removing some components a dangerous proposition.

Interestingly enough, iFixIt found that the iPad Mini shares the same CPU with the iPhone 5S instead of the new iPad Air. All three use the same A7 CPU, but the iPad Air’s A7 has been clocked to a higher frequency. So you could say that the new iPad Mini is more like an oversized iPhone 5S instead of a slimmed down iPad Air. Either way, you’re getting what looks to be a powerful 7-inch tablet.

If poor repairability doesn’t phase you, you can pick up the iPad Air today for $399. If you want to go all out, you can also pick up an 128GB model with LTE for $829.

[Image: iFixIt]