According to a news report from Taiwan prepared by Ming-Chi Kuo of Concord Securities, as reported by AppleInsider, Apple's iPad 2 will sport a better display, will support CDMA and GSM in two different versions, will have faster chips, and will feature dual cameras like the iPod touch.
If you think that better display means Retina Display, then you will be disappointed to know that it is not the case. The iPad 2 display will support a resolution of 1024x768, which is the same as that if the first generation iPad, but the improvement being reported is about it being 30% to 35% thinner than that of its predecessor and will be anti-reflective for better viewability in brightly light room or even under direct sunlight. The low yield rate and the considerably higher cost have been quoted as main reasons for the Retina Display not being implemented on the iPad 2.
The iPad 2 will also pack in more processing horsepower with an ARM Cortex-A9 dual core processor running at 1.2GHz, which will help achieve better balance between computing power and power consumption. The graphics processing unit to be used is Imagination s SGX543 dual core graphics technology, said to be anywhere between twice to thrice as powerful as the one in the iPhone 4. RAM has been doubled to 512MB, and running at 1066MHz for better memory bandwidth.
The report states that there are separate project IDs for Wi-Fi, GSM and CDMA iPad 2 models, so there is an increased possibility of three different variants of the iDevice. The GSM iPad will be powered by Infineon chip, while CDMA iPad will be powered by Qualcomm. Also mentioned is a possibility of expandable memory by means of an SD card slot and two cameras, similar to the iPod touch. The front camera supporting Facetime will be 0.3MP (VGA), while the rear one will be 1MP and will be used for video recording and augmented reality applications.
Foxconn is slated to remain the sole maker of the iPad 2, and the production has already begun this month with a target of at least 4.5 to 5 million units in the first quarter of this year. As reported yesterday, iPad 2 will most likely be launched towards the end of March or in early April.
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