The
iPad 3 is now available for pre-order and will be shipping on March 16. It will
have a 9.7-inch 2048×1536 Retina Display, cellular radios up the wazoo
(including 4G LTE), a new A5X SoC with quad-core GPU, and an iPhone 4S-grade
camera, with the same price as the iPad 2 at $499. The iPad 3 is a bit thicker
than iPad 2 (9.4mm vs. 8.6mm) and a little heavier (1.46lbs vs. 1.325lbs),
probably because of some addition on the battery. So, the battery life is still
10 hours, and 9 hours on 4G.
Then,
what so surprising about it? Of course it is hard to believe that a
9.7-inch display can handle 2048x1536 resolution. It is like you are watching some 20-inch monitor on a
less than 10-inch device. And with the power of new A5X SoC with quad-core GPU,
it will blow away everything on its
way, not just tablet, any portable game console will be kneel on fear. But put that aside
for now, how about the battery and the price?
The new processor, radios, and reduced power consumption
(to keep the battery life the same) all thanks to a new 28nm fabrication process.
By dropping down from 40nm to 28nm, Apple instantly reduces power consumption
by around 30%. And pressumable that the two Cortex-A9 cores might have been
tweaked to reduce their power usage. The 4G radio is probably a
second-generation 28nm part provided by Qualcomm. It will suck down power, but
significantly less than the first-generation 40nm parts. 28nm parts are cheaper
to produce too, because you can squeeze more of them onto the same silicon
wafer.
But it won’t be without issues. First, just like with the
iPhone 4, app developers will have to create new assets and creating icons and
textures that look good at 264 PPI, and that won’t be cheap or easy. And then,
unless Apple has somehow reinvented backlight, LCD, or lithium-ion battery
tech, there’s no way the iPad HD will be comparable to the iPad 2 in terms of
weight, cost, or longevity.
