iPad 2

A

AlphaWolf

Specious Misanthrope
Legend
http://www.engadget.com/2011/03/02/the-ipad-2/

In terms of new software, Apple's launching iOS 4.3 alongside the new iPad and bringing with it much improved Safari performance as well as FaceTime, Photo Booth, iMovie and GarageBand (the latter two costing $4.99 a piece) apps specifically for the newly camera-enriched iPad. Personal Hotspot capabilities are also arriving in the latest version of the OS, but they'll be exclusive to the iPhone 4, so you won't be able to share your 3G iPad's connection.
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Dual core a5, up to 9x graphics performance
thinner (33%) and lighter (1.3 from 1.6 pounds), same battery life
front and rear cameras
smart cover ($39 or $69) auto sleep and wake up

I'm impressed they've managed to reduce size and increase performance so much without sacrificing battery life. Although that may shake out different in real world use.
 
Particularly happy with same price as well as better graphics performance, and the cameras. Will consider swapping some overtime for the 499 one definitely.

What's the A5 pack?
 
Since I'm not familiar with the specs of most tablets, I'm curious as to where this puts it relative to other Android tablets and the Playbook in terms of hardware. Is A5 still only 256MB of RAM? (Looks like Playbook and Xoom have 1GB, which is becoming standard) Was the CPU in A4 single-core 1GHz, or dual-core 1GHz?
 
Arwin said:
What's the A5 pack?
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I expect its a dual core A9, but no confirmation of that. It's at 1Ghz.

Scott_Arm said:
Since I'm not familiar with the specs of most tablets, I'm curious as to where this puts it relative to other Android tablets and the Playbook in terms of hardware. Is A5 still only 256MB of RAM? Was the CPU in A4 single-core 1GHz, or dual-core 1GHz?
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A4 was Single core. There's 512 MB of ram on the ipad 2(ok apparently not sigh). A4 package didn't contain the ram.
 
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Scott_Arm said:
Same as Playbook then. I know absolutely of GPUs in this space, so that part is a mystery to me.
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The SGX540 in the Playbook is clocked at 307MHz. Per clock a single SGX543 is about 40-50% faster than a SGX540. The iPad2 GPU could be clocked at somewhere in the 200MHz region and the most important detail is that it consists of two GPU cores and not one.
 
Ailuros said:
The SGX540 in the Playbook is clocked at 307MHz. Per clock a single SGX543 is about 40-50% faster than a SGX540. The iPad2 GPU could be clocked at somewhere in the 200MHz region and the most important detail is that it consists of two GPU cores and not one.
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So GPU-wise, iPad 2 has the upper hand by quite a margin.

Now word on RAM in iPad 2?
 
Ailuros said:
The iPad2 GPU could be clocked at somewhere in the 200MHz region and the most important detail is that it consists of two GPU cores and not one.
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Two GPU cores ? I am curious where did you get that piece of info cause so far the only related thing I could find was their page mentioning a dual core CPU (A5)
 
A 543 is too small not to be multi-cored in a device like this.

543MP2 + A9 Dual has been a lock for ages. The only surprise would be more than dual core for the GPU, but the marketing probably would've been different if they had used a 543MP4.
 
AlphaWolf said:
I expect its a dual core A9, but no confirmation of that. It's at 1Ghz.
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It might still be A8, they only promise "Up to 2x faster CPU", if the A5 is A9-based it should be significantly faster than two times the performance of the A4.

Have you seen any confirmation of 512MB RAM, some claim that is still has only 256MB (I find that hard to believe).
 
RAM wasn't announced, but it obviously had to be upgraded to at least 512 MB and hopefully more (even acknowledging the unpleasant surprise of last year's iPod touch).
 
Tim said:
Have you seen any confirmation of 512MB RAM, some claim that is still has only 256MB (I find that hard to believe).
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No, I have no confirmation of that, just a bazillion rumors. I can't really believe they would have stuck with 256 either.
 
Wonder did apple consider disabling one of the 543 cores, and then when they *do* eventually increase the screen res of the ipad, enable it thus giving a doubling of the graphics performance to cope with the enhanced screen resolution. This might fit in with some speculation in the press that ipad will sync with itouch in having a sept/oct refresh, allowing it to happen without a perceived graphics performance hit and still use the A5 across the entire product line.
 
tangey said:
Wonder did apple consider disabling one of the 543 cores, and then when they *do* eventually increase the screen res of the ipad, enable it thus giving a doubling of the graphics performance to cope with the enhanced screen resolution. This might fit in with some speculation in the press that ipad will sync with itouch in having a sept/oct refresh, allowing it to happen without a perceived graphics performance hit and still use the A5 across the entire product line.
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Conceivable, but needlessly awkward. I'd sooner think that they would either
a, regard the performance as sufficient (iPhone3GS => iPad,iPhone4 provides prior examples of performance per pixel drops)
b, introduce a new SoC made on finer lithography, and simultaneously reap all the other benefits associated with such a move. (We don't have any solid data on A5 lithography, but lets assume that it doesn't use Samsung 32nm.)

In the time frame you specify, I'd say option a seems likely. Games could render to half resolution and upscale.
 
Guess we'll have to wait for someone to do CAT scans of the A5 to determine the amount of RAM.

They couldn't run iMovie last year because it only had 256 MB of RAM. So this year, there's iMovie for the iPad so it's at least as resource intensive as iMovie for iPhone 4.

GarageBand for iPad is probably similar in requirements.

With the aggressive roadmap for SOCs, maybe quadcore tablets later this year will force Apple to release an iPad 3 later this year too.

One thing is that they have this mania about making it thinner. So they might have been able to put a mini HDMI and SD card slot but they wanted to make it thinner and if you want HDMI out or SD, you have to buy separate dongles.

Along with the cover/case, these accessories add up.
 
No surprise to see that the screen is little different than the original. Also no surprise about anything else announced, really!

Hopefully Apple have pushed the boat out a little and included 1GB RAM - it really was ridiculous that the original iPad was crippled with such a small amount of RAM, especially when you consider that the iPhone 4 had double this amount.

All in all, it looks as though this will probably be the most powerful tablet of this generation, possibly for the rest of 2011, too?

Just a question now of seeing if NVidia's roadmap can advance as quickly as claimed and whether the other mobile/tablet processor producers similarly accelerate the development process and release of new technology.
 
Apple fan at my work says the screen is 1080P?
I think he just got confused by 'output 1080P over HDMI attachment'.
 
I don't have a particular interest in other brands over the iPad, since I have a bunch of iOS apps. that I've come to rely on.

But the Xoom has come out at an uncompetitive price, with inferior battery life and Playbook appears shaky too:

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news...ths-before-launch.ars?comments=1#comments-bar

One or more of these competitors need to gain some kind of traction, to push Apple. Or else they'll stay on an incremental path. Would the iPhone have gotten a Retina Display without the inroads Android phones, which pushed out higher resolution screens before iPhone 4, made?

Doesn't seem likely.
 
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