Okay Geek Farm
The technology inside Apple's iPad 2 blows us away
Brandon DavenportDownload this EpisodeSubscribe on iTunesRSS FeedFollow on Twitter
iPad 2 benchmarks are blowing other tablets out of the water, and the inside of the device is as Apple-ish as it gets. iFixit ripped apart Apple’s latest device to find a bunch of familiar hardware, along with 3 massive batteries and that all of the parts were manufactured just months before the iPad 2’s release. Lets take a look!
The teardown
iFixit always tears down the latest gadgets with the up-most detail and clarity, providing a repair score (how easy it is to repair the device) and the iPad 2 got a score of 4/10 (10 being the easiest), so don’t expect to be ripping it apart yourself without a little struggling.
Some interesting notes are the WiFi board (which is the same used in the first iPad and iPhone 4), the amount of RAM is confirmed to be 512MB, the touchscreen controllers are the same as in the original iPad and the WiFi board is attached to the Logic Board under one of the EMI shields (iFixit managed to pry it off). — See more of the teardown at iFixit.
The immense power of the iPad
iFixit may have also discovered some more info about the iPad 2 than expected, which is the un-perceived amount of power in this thing. Using benchmarking software, the Apple A5 has proved itself boasting an average of 57.6 FPS in the GLBenchmark, whereas the Tegra-2 pumped out a meager 26.7 FPS. Last year’s iPad squeaked out only 17.6 FPS — That’s some really serious power from the iPad 2!
The Apple A5 chip is essentially a dual-core ARM Cortex A9, dynamically clocked to around 900MHz to support the iPad’s 10 hour, claim to fame battery life. Additionally, the iPad 2 houses a dual-core PowerVR SGX543MP2 GPU on the die, which helps the new iPad 2 mop the floor with the Motorola Xoom, and use the original iPad as air-freshener.
In Summary
The iPad 2 is defiantly a huge upgrade in terms of technology, and surpasses mostly everything else on the market in terms of sheer power. Honestly, we think Apple should have played all this hardware awesomeness more in the marketing of their new device — but that’s not for us mere mortals to question.
In the end, the iPad 2 isn’t just pretty, it’s a powerhouse that makes the Motorola Xoom, PlayBook and almost any other tablet look like a toy (from a technical standpoint) — and the crazy thing is they managed to make it thinner, and give it 10 hours of battery life — witchcraft I tell you!
Read more — Apple’s iPad 2 round-up
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