The New iPad: Same Battery Life, Same Price, Slightly Thicker
by Anand Lal Shimpi on March 7, 2012 1:38 PM EST- Posted in
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- Apple
- iPad
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Apple delivered the final details of the new iPad. It will be available on March 16th at the same prices as its predecessor (starting at $499 for WiFi). Preorders start today. Capacities up to 64GB will be available and there are the same two color options (black and white). As we already announced it will use Apple's A5X SoC - likely a dual-core Cortex A9 based chip with a PowerVR SGX543MP4.
To accommodate the higher resolution display the new iPad is thicker at 9.4mm vs 8.8mm for its predecessor. The new iPad weighs in at 652 grams, slightly heavier than the 601 grams of the iPad 2. Battery life remains unchanged at 10 hours and Apple is claiming 9 hours of battery life on LTE. I suspect Qualcomm's 28nm LTE baseband is to thank for that.
Update: Apple has confirmed the new iPad's battery capacity has increased significantly from 25Whr to 42.5Whr, explaining how Apple was able to maintain 10 hours of battery life despite a significant increase in power consumption on the display side.
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mygocarp - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
"The new iPad weighs in at 1.4 lbs, slightly heavier than the 601 grams of the iPad 2"Ouch, can we stick to keeping either only metric or only imperial in a given sentence?
quiksilvr - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
652 grams vs 601 grams1.44 lbs vs 1.32 lbs
new iPad specs:
http://www.apple.com/ipad/specs/
iPad 2 specs:
http://www.apple.com/ipad/ipad-2/specs.html
bupkus - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
Is there any reason we aren't calling The New iPad, iPad3?MarkLuvsCS - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
It wouldn't be magical product if it wasn't NEW. :PRonakbhai - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
Please do forgive Mr. Anand. His childhood spent memorizing massive multiplication tables has made him forget that many of us do not naturally do metric <-> imperial conversions. :)mutil0r - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
"Battery life remains unchanged at 10 hours and Apple is claiming 9 hours of battery life on LTE. I suspect Qualcomm's 28nm LTE baseband is to thank for that."Or the fact that this version of the iPad has a much larger battery at about 42 Whr compared to the 25 Whr in the previous model?
solipsism - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
But it's 10 hours with just the WiFi model. So being that close to the non-cellular model and being the same between WiFi and cellular models on the iPad 2 points to the MDM9615.mutil0r - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
It's sort of a no brainer that the new ipad has a qualcomm modem in it (given how Apple has used their modems in previous devices and no one else can actually supply the volumes that Apple needs)While it is impressive that the LTE battery life is so close to the non-LTE life (testing methodology not known), the article doesn't mention the almost 70% larger battery anywhere, while making it sound in the concluding line that the LTE chip alone might be responsible for the battery life.
The 10 hours for the WiFi model is not really that impressive (even with the 2048 x 1536 display) when you consider the humongous 42.5 WHr battery.
Draiko - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
It looks like the A5x SOC is a 65nm power hog. 42.5 Whr battery for 9-10 hours of usage is kinda dismal when it comes to power efficiency.philbotimus - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
Ummm, the original A5 was 45nm, so the A5X is at least that small.(http://www.ubmtechinsights.com/teardowns/apple-iph...