General May I have some advice concerning my iPad Air 2, please?

TripMX · April 27, 2017

Hello again everyone, it's me TripMX.

3 weeks ago, while charging, my iPad Air 2 had unexpectedly bricked on me while watching TV shows. It suddenly turned off after I heard a sharp "pop" sound while wearing my headphones. At that point, I knew it was serious because it has never done that before, and when it happened, I noticed a distinct "burnt electric" smell (stronger than the anodized metal coating). I then went through the whole procedure of trying to bring it back to life, but as expected, all of my attempts failed.

1 week later, I contacted Apple Inc. about it, and they said that they couldn't do anything about it...the limited-time warranty was up, no Apple Care was purchased, and the device was bricked. For the record, I bought that iPad Air 2 brand-new from an Apple retailer around 2.5 years ago. The next week, I took it to a 3rd party to investigate the problem, and they said that the CPU blew out.

So, here's the gist of it all:

PROBLEM: My iPad Air 2 (64GB [Wi-Fi]) model's CPU needs replacing, but I don't want to lose any of my data (that includes the currently installed apps and firmware) that's stored on the device.

From my experience so far, people have been saying that the likelihood of preserving the data is highly unlikely due to the severity of the issue. I understand that iPad uses NAND Flash Memory, and I think that (in theory) the chip could be transplanted and used on another compatible iPad's logic board. Even still, the cost would still be an exorbitant $350+ USD to replace the CPU alone, and possibly even more for special procedures such as transplanting/re-soldering chips.

MY QUESTION TO YOU ALL:

Q: Should I spend $350+ on repairing my iPad Air 2 (64 GB [Wi-Fi]) model's CPU?

OR

Q: Should I buy the lackluster "New iPad (2017) [32 GB - Wi-Fi]" for $350+?

OR

Q: Should I wait for the next generation 9.7" iPad (2018?) model?

Thanks in advance!