The “new†budget iPad 2 features an advanced chip

[dgstorm]

Last month when the next generation iPad was released, Apple saw fit to lower the price for the iPad 2 16 GB WiFi to $399 and the 3G model to $529. Apple already established this strategy with the iPhones.

Now, some interesting bit of information has surfaced about the "new cheaper" version of the iPad 2. According to sources coming from Anandtech, the device uses an improved version of the A5 processor that has been built on the 32nm Samsung High-K+ Metal Gate process. Why is this a big deal?

Because smaller transistors mean smaller chips, which basically translate into lower power consumption and less heat. The most important benefit is that the chip becomes a lot cheaper. Most people probably don’t care about this kind of stuff, so Apple did not make a big announcement about the chips being switched. The A5 in the cheap iPad 2 version is the same as in the old version of the iPad 2 that has been around for a year now in the US, except that, this time, Samsung ended up building it using a 32 nanometer instead of 45 nanometer.

The big question according to Brian Klug of Anandtech is whether or not the brand new iPad 2 owners have experienced improvements in battery life or not, compared with the old owners of the iPad 2.

The same chip is also used in the Apple TV but since it’s a single-core version, one of the processors is turned off.

By Radu

Source: CNET