iPad 2 teardown - what do you want to know?

[JulianL]

Now that the announcement is done, there is still some excitement to come. I assume that once the thing is launched we'll see some of the usual suspects doing teardowns and other in-depth analysis. I'm really looking forward to that. In particular the questions I'm interested in having answered are:

- The obvious one - How much RAM?
- What type of RAM? DDR, DDR2?
- Are the cores very close to an existing A9-Cortex design or did Apple's design teams add some significant enhancements?
- How genuine is the claimed 9x increase in GPU power? Is it some peak figure on some very specific benchmarks or is it reasonably indicative of overall capability?
- How big (physically) is the battery? According to the specs it is the same capacity as the current iPad battery but is it physically any smaller or was all the reduction in depth gained elsewhere? I'm really hoping that the battery is physically smaller because that would bode well for a boost in the iPhone 5 battery life.
- Are there any changes to the Flash subsystem (e.g. faster and/or wider access path)?

Hopefully some good teardowns and some xraying of the A5 will answer some of these questions. What else are people hoping to discover when the detailed hardware analyses begin to come in?

And before anyone starts - yes I know that it's all about the user experience and that most of the public don't buy based on specs like these, I really do get that, but as an industry insider I'm always interested to know what's going on behind the curtain. It won't influence my personal purchasing decision, it's just professional curiosity.

- Julian

 

[Piggie]

Ram spec - they not saying anything about it.

Rear Camera spec - they not really saying anything about it.

Speaker quality/volume - they not saying anything about it.

CPU and GPU also of course.

 

[mudy1]

i totally agree with you julian, it's good to know what you're buying, but i guess we'll have to wait and see till 11th of this month.

 

[yodaxl7]

Apple did not want have 3 hour presentation. However, they could spell it all out in a press release. Like I said before, Apple has a great reputation of a high quality devices that work. They surely tested the device. Otherwise, you would had a major returns on the first iPad. It sold over 15 mil as of end of dec. 2010.

 

[zenio]

I quit caring when Apple decided the new products are to be chucked into the land fill after a year or so. Now being sealed appliances I don't care.

Apple a green company?

A total con job.

 

[Kadin]

I quit caring when Apple decided the new products are to be chucked into the land fill after a year or so. Now being sealed appliances I don't care.

Apple a green company?

A total con job.

Are you actually implying that an iPad gets physically thrown away? How often do you think this actually occurs?

 

[Ksane]

What I'd like to know is.......with most of the iPad 1 cases fit on the iPad 2??
The zip-around cases obviously will but what about ones like Cyber Acoustics and such? I suppose the ones that are held in by elastic bands will still work, too.

 

[eastercat]

I'm curious how tightly packed the ipad2 will be. I'm thinking the designers/engineers of Apple must be part-time contortionists; they're able to fit the same basic components into an even smaller, lighter package.
Every time I read someone bitching about the lack of this feature or that on the first ipad, I tell them to look at the innards of ipad, vers 1. That sucker didn't have an inch of free space.

 

[Kadin]

^ I could have sworn there was quite a bit of space in the first iPad. Or maybe just the Wifi version? I thought when it first torn down, it revealed a good bit of unused space...

 

[Piggie]

I'm curious how tightly packed the ipad2 will be. I'm thinking the designers/engineers of Apple must be part-time contortionists; they're able to fit the same basic components into an even smaller, lighter package.
Every time I read someone bitching about the lack of this feature or that on the first ipad, I tell them to look at the innards of ipad, vers 1. That sucker didn't have an inch of free space.

What?

You could of fitted a medium sized elephant into the empty space in an iPad1 !

 

[mkivsupra]

Apple did not want have 3 hour presentation. However, they could spell it all out in a press release. Like I said before, Apple has a great reputation of a high quality devices that work. They surely tested the device. Otherwise, you would had a major returns on the first iPad. It sold over 15 mil as of end of dec. 2010.

It's not that it would have taken too long, they just leave stuff out that they consider irrelevant. They know that all us technology peeps are going to find out this information through the back channels within a few hours of sunrise on launch day anyway, so why spend the time throwing numbers on the board when they can keep it simple and appeal to all demographics... Non-tech savvy people and tech savvy people.

They spend a lot of time making flashy simple presentations to suck you in to this "magic". Lol. Not that I'm complaining. I love all their products... It's just what they do

 

[JulianL]

They spend a lot of time making flashy simple presentations to suck you in to this "magic". Lol. Not that I'm complaining. I love all their products... It's just what they do

Yeah. I hate some of the videos though, particularly the ones where they have the Apple execs saying how good the products are. What on earth else is an Apple exec going to say? By all means produce them to give bite-sized introductions to new devices and put them up on the web, but I wish that they wouldn't play them out during the launch events to a room full of journalists, technology bloggers, and technology followers watching the live blogs. It's just a waste of time and adds no new information or, at least for me, no extra level of excitement.

With the massive increases in CPU and GPU performance, I'm a bit surprised they didn't get one of the big games houses up on stage to showcase something really graphically amazing. Maybe it would have taken too long and they didn't trust any of the companies to be leak-proof for the length of time that they would have needed to have hardware before launch in order to come up with something.

I'll also be interested to see CPU benchmarks because, by my calculations, Apple might be understating the CPU boost at least on benchmark figures. If it's two cores at the same clock speed then that's pretty much 2x performance but they've also almost 100% certainly gone from Cortex-A8 cores to Cortex-A9 cores and an A9 core has about 25% better performance at the same clock speed as an A8 (there are very significant architectural improvements in the A9) so that would all add up to more like a 2.5x increase. Maybe Apple just wanted to stick with round numbers and, in the real world, memory contention would probably knock that figure down somewhat. Still, it's all exciting stuff. It's encouraging when phrases like "insanely fast" start coming out of the hands-on reports.

- Julian

 

[hwalker84]

Things I need to know before I commit to a purchase

Amount of RAM

Things i'd like to know just for the hell of it.

GPU Model/Spec
Camera Spec
Full Breakdown and CPU Spec

 

[urkel]

Exact camera specs and comparison to cost of an iPhone 4 camera

I just want an honest reasoning on why they put a non-Autofocus .69MP Face/1MP Back camera This is a $500-800 device so putting in a camera that locks out certain apps from functioning like they would on an iPhone 4 is incredibly disappointing. (Google Translate, Google Goggles, In app-Check cashing, Artistic photos, QR scanning, Barcode scanners etc dont work without AutoFocus.) And lets not forget they spend 30min showing iMovie to prove this is a Media Creation device so why cripple us with the camera?

 

[Cybersteve]

Cyber Acoustics Case

What I'd like to know is.......with most of the iPad 1 cases fit on the iPad 2??
The zip-around cases obviously will but what about ones like Cyber Acoustics and such? I suppose the ones that are held in by elastic bands will still work, too.

Kane. the iPad2 is just a hair shorter than the original along with the thickness being reduced by a 1/3 and a rear facing camera we are in the process creating a new case. Plain and simple the iPad2 will not work with our original case. Hope that helps.

Steve
Cyber Acoustics

 

[Piggie]

Exact camera specs and comparison to cost of an iPhone 4 camera

I just want an honest reasoning on why they put a non-Autofocus .69MP Face/1MP Back camera This is a $500-800 device so putting in a camera that locks out certain apps from functioning like they would on an iPhone 4 is incredibly disappointing. (Google Translate, Google Goggles, In app-Check cashing, Artistic photos, QR scanning, Barcode scanners etc dont work without AutoFocus.) And lets not forget they spend 30min showing iMovie to prove this is a Media Creation device so why cripple us with the camera?

From what I can find:

The iPhone4 rear 5 Megapixel Autofocus camera is supposed to have a component cost of $9.75

The front facing VGA Autofocus is suppose to be $1.00

These prices were around 1 year ago.

 

[King Luis]

so what people and techies want to know is:

- RAM specs
- Front and rear camera specs
- GPU specs
- Same display as iPad 1?
- Same battery as iPad 1 or smaller/larger model?
- Speaker specs

 

[Carouser]

The iPhone4 rear 5 Megapixel Autofocus camera is supposed to have a component cost of $9.75

The front facing VGA Autofocus is suppose to be $1.00

Adjust those prices to reflect increased demand and multiply them by 30 million, then see what that does to Apple's flexibility and bottom line.

The number of iPads they would sell because of a different camera is statistically insignificant and not worth such a cost.

 

[Ksane]

Kane. the iPad2 is just a hair shorter than the original along with the thickness being reduced by a 1/3 and a rear facing camera we are in the process creating a new case. Plain and simple the iPad2 will not work with our original case. Hope that helps.
Steve
Cyber Acoustics

I certainly appreciate you taking the time to answer, Steve. Your personalized approach to customers is refreshing. I know I wouldn't want Apples "smart cover" with zero protection for the back.

 

[Pressure]

The LPDDR2 RAM is integrated on the A5 chip, so unless the DRAM part number is printed on the chip (like it is on the current A4 chip), there is no way of telling. Unless some program can read the information.

The ImgTec SGX543MP2 puts out 9 times the GFlops/sec compared to the current SGX535 at the same clock.

 

[b166er]

The most important spec for me is RAM. I will not buy an iPad 2 if the RAM is anything less than 512. iPad 1 is thin, they mad iPad 2 thinner which is cool and all, but if they did it at the expense of tech specs I think it was a lame move. Seriously, no one was complaining about how thick the iPad 1 was. I'd rather keep the form the same on the outside, while year after year the guts on the inside get smaller, meaning you can pack more of them in there.

I'm also pretty curious about iMovie- I want to know if I can import movies from my iPhone 4 and my Sanyo camcorder one way or another. I'm sure you can, but I want to be sure.

The main reasons for me to purchase an iPad 2 is school work and on the fly video/audio editing so those are my must haves. I'd like to know what is going on with those cameras as well, but that's not a make or break for me. I've had an iPhone 4 since launch and I've used facetime exactly once. I'm sure I'll use it more in the future as these iDevices fall in to the hands of my friends but for now it's not a big deal.

In conclusion- gimme dat RAM

 

[hcho3]

The most important spec for me is RAM. I will not buy an iPad 2 if the RAM is anything less than 512. iPad 1 is thin, they mad iPad 2 thinner which is cool and all, but if they did it at the expense of tech specs I think it was a lame move. Seriously, no one was complaining about how thick the iPad 1 was. I'd rather keep the form the same on the outside, while year after year the guts on the inside get smaller, meaning you can pack more of them in there.

I'm also pretty curious about iMovie- I want to know if I can import movies from my iPhone 4 and my Sanyo camcorder one way or another. I'm sure you can, but I want to be sure.

The main reasons for me to purchase an iPad 2 is school work and on the fly video/audio editing so those are my must haves. I'd like to know what is going on with those cameras as well, but that's not a make or break for me. I've had an iPhone 4 since launch and I've used facetime exactly once. I'm sure I'll use it more in the future as these iDevices fall in to the hands of my friends but for now it's not a big deal.

In conclusion- gimme dat RAM

I hope it's 256MB. I hate people who care about nothing but numbers. 1 more iPad on launch day for me.

 

[b166er]

well, I'm not planning on buying at launch so you don't have to worry about me.

It's all "just numbers" but usually the bigger numbers are better when you're talking about specs. 600 is just a number, but when it's in the form of money I'd like to know what's going on before I drop it.

Some cars get 10 MPG, but hey, that's just a number.

 

[outz]

I hope it's 256MB. I hate people who care about nothing but numbers. 1 more iPad on launch day for me.

yeah, damn those people for wanting to know whats under the hood prior to shelling out $500+

 

[Carouser]

yeah, damn those people for wanting to know whats under the hood prior to shelling out $500+

How about wanting to know how well it works before you assume (1) it doesn't have enough RAM and (2) that it needs 512 MB. If it works fine, I don't care about spending the money because then the amount of RAM is irrelevant.