iFixit have torn down the iPad 2 to get a close up view of what’s inside. The device has 512MB RAM on board – double its predecessor’s, a slightly better battery, the A5 processor, and a thinner screen that’s glued on to the main frame. AnandTech tested the iPad 2 on the software front and the device came up tops in GPU performance recording 44fps.
iFixit took apart the iPad 2 piece by piece to discover some good and some not-so-good realities of the second gen iPad. The inside contains:
- a 3.8V, 25 watt-hour battery (slightly larger than the 24.8 watt-hour battery of the iPad)
- A5 dual-core processor with a 500 MHz bus and manufacture dates of late January and mid-February 2011
- Toshiba 16GB NAND Flash
- Broadcom Microcontroller for the touchscreen (same as the first gen iPad)
- Broadcom capacitive touchscreen controller (same as the original iPad)
- Texas Instruments touchscreen line driver
- Broadcom Wi-Fi/Bluetooth/FM tuner combo chip (same as iPad and iPhone 4)
- Power Management IC
- ST Micro gyroscope
- ST Micro accelerometer
- Apple-branded SGP chip (similar to the Cirrus audio codec Chipworks found in the Verizon iPhone
On the downside, the iPad 2 has a thin glass screen and LCD that’s more vulnerable to breakage. Plus, the screen is glued on to the screen for the sake of the slim design instead of being attached through the usual tabs. That’s not good for home repairs (that’s not recommended unless you’re a hardware expert) and raises doubts on the device’s durability. The speakers too are quite small (the same as competing tablets though) and a headset is the only way to hear some good music.
On the software side, AnandTech ran some benchmark tests on the iPad 2 comparing it to the iPad and Motorola Xoom. In the GPU test, iPad 2 was way ahead at 44fps, leaving behind iPad at 8.1fps and Xoom at 11.8fps. This is a big plus when playing games such as Infinity Blade. In the GPU test, iPad 2 performed at 170.9 MFLOPS against iPad’s 42 MFLOPS. The device did not demonstrate 9x graphic speeds as claimed by Apple but it’s definitely the best of what’s available on tablets today.
The iPad 2′s dual core processor has certainly added to the performance. The operating system iOS 4.3 also brings enhancements such as the faster Safari JavaScript engine and faster web page loads.
