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iPad2 to have A4 processor?

nunes013 said:
oh i really hope not. i was looking forward to a dual core either 1 ghz or 1.2 ghz. they need this now to compete with that hp ipad copy and all the android tablets
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But motorola xooom costs 799 dollars. Wi-fi version is going to be like 600-700 dollars.

HP Pad price hasn't been announced but we hear 699 dollars.

iPad starts at 499 dollars.

How do they compete exactly? iPad is cheaper. They are not even in the same price range.

WLS said:
This better not be true..
http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20110214PD219.html

If the iPad2 has only a A4 with more memory and a speed bump then I'm not buying it. Seriously! :confused:
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Then don't buy it...

iPad starts at 499 dollars and while the other competitors cost like 699 dollars and higher. with 200 dollars they got to cut the costs somewhere.

Also, this even makes more serious about iPad 3 this fall.
 
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It does make some sense if you assume that Apple's plan is to release an iPad 1.5 this Spring then do a redesign and come out with the new iPad in the Fall that has been rumored. Some of the most interesting components like the Samsung screen and the A5 don't sound like they are ready for production yet.
If this turns out to be the case I'll just go back to my laptop and wait for Fall before getting another iPad.
 
hcho3 said:
But motorola xooom costs 799 dollars. Wi-fi version is going to be like 600-700 dollars.

HP Pad price hasn't been announced but we hear 699 dollars.

iPad starts at 499 dollars.

How do they compete exactly? iPad is cheaper. They are not even in the same price range.
Click to expand...

And why do people keep comparing entry level models with something that is not entry level. I think moto should have more price points but if they choose to only focus on the middle to higher end market then that is their choice. There has been no annoucement on the price for a wi-fi xoom but the iPad is $130 cheaper but the xoom has another radio as well so the price could fall by as much as $200. And the wi-fi model has not even been announced in the US.
The xoom is $70 more than the comparable iPad so it is not out of line price wise.
 
If this is true apple HAS to drop the price by at least $100 dollars, otherwise it's a total joke and you'd have to be an idiot to buy it.
 
quetzalcoatl said:
And why do people keep comparing entry level models with something that is not entry level. I think moto should have more price points but if they choose to only focus on the middle to higher end market then that is their choice. There has been no annoucement on the price for a wi-fi xoom but the iPad is $130 cheaper but the xoom has another radio as well so the price could fall by as much as $200. And the wi-fi model has not even been announced in the US.
The xoom is $70 more than the comparable iPad so it is not out of line price wise.
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You answered your own question. There hasn't been an announcement of a wifi only Xoom so the entry level for the Xoom IS $799.
 
Meh. I don't buy it. Although there wasn't much difference between the iPhone and the iPhone 3G so who knows.

iPad 2 seems to be becoming more and more of a disappointment at least in a hardware sense.

We'll know soon enough.
 
hcho3 said:
But motorola xooom costs 799 dollars. Wi-fi version is going to be like 600-700 dollars.

HP Pad price hasn't been announced but we hear 699 dollars.

iPad starts at 499 dollars.

How do they compete exactly? iPad is cheaper. They are not even in the same price range.
Click to expand...

i know that is it cheaper. that is one of the selling points for me as i am a student. however i fear there are many who will look just at the features and buy. also there are the fanboys who will just be point at other products because it has "less."

i would 100% say my second choice tablet would be the touchpad after the ipad. webos is very polished and has great ideas. however for hardware i would also say hp basically looked at the ipad and matched it while putting in a camera, more ram and better processor which ipad 2 will most likely get this year. its almost as if they knew they dont have a big share in the smartphone/tablet war so they picked the best selling tablet and matched it to get back on par.

with prices coming down every year i think apple can match at least a 1.2 ghz single core, 512 mb ram and a camera all for $500. heck, they could probably put in a dual core and keep it at $500.
 
The way things work these days, the bulk of the heavy lifting gets off-loaded to the GPU. If Apple slightly modifies the processor so that the GPU is bulked up on steroids, performance will go up considerably with minimal change in the CPU itself, which they may still call "A4" because it has not changed all that much.

Or they could just be looking to undercut everyone else on price.
 
azentropy said:
You answered your own question. There hasn't been an announcement of a wifi only Xoom so the entry level for the Xoom IS $799.
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Even if that is the starting point it is not an entry level device. So it still does not make sense. You compare apples to apples. And where the iPad2 has not been announced it would be the samething as continuing to compare the xoom to the orignal iPad once the 2 is announced.
 
Hopefully this is not true.. it seems again that the iPad would be a step behind the next iPhone. Should be the other way around.
 
You guys don't even know what changes would occur in the updated A4 and you're already bitching. Unbelievable. :rolleyes:
 
NT1440 said:
You guys don't even know what changes would occur in the updated A4 and you're already bitching. Unbelievable. :rolleyes:
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It doesn't matter if they coat it in gold and diamonds, if it's an a8 processor, it's ancient technology and light years behind everything else. The worst apple should do is a single core a9 and even that would be huge deal breaker.
 
If it is true, it makes no sense. Even if an iPad 3 comes in September. Just so you can spend a few hundred now and then 6-7 hundred then? It makes no sense at all.

And you can't compare base iPad to a Xoom, whether you like the stuff on the Xoom or not, it has much more to it.

Nonetheless, it's all speculation at this point.
 
Interesting. If it is true then that would make me think that the rumours of a September-ish iPad 3 are almost certainly true. If Apple release an ARM Cortex-A8 based iPad 2 in the next month or so and don't refresh it for another year then that would mean that their main tablet offering in February 2012 will still be based on a single Cortex A8 core. I just can't see that as being viable.

Although I hope it isn't true, I can however see some reasons for the almost-here iPad 2 being A4 (ARM Cortex-A8) based so that they can hold back the big update to September and wrong-foot their competition launching in the summer. I also agree with John Gruber's reasoniong as to why switching the major iPad refresh to September-ish would make sense. The iPhone is still higher volume and the flagship product so it clears the stage for the June iPhone announcements to be the ones that premier the latest Apple A<whatever> chip, last year the iPad stole some of the iPhone's thunder by revealing the A4.

A couple of other points in favour of an A4 in the iPad 2:

1) If the iPad 3 really is going to be the point where apple quadruple the pixel count then that is where they need the step-change in CPU and GPU power. Boosting the performance too much for the 1024x768 resolution of an iPad 2 might mean that when they need to push around 4 times as many pixels for the iPad 3 they end up with a slight performance drop vs the iPad 2. Holding off the big CPU/GPU upgrade until the iPad 3 could avoid this issue.

2) They almost certainly need to move to sub 45nm technology to get to the CPU/GPU capabilities required for a retina display so maybe one of the tweaks for the updated A4 in the iPad 2 would be a shrink in process size. It might make sense for Apple to test out the new smaller geometry sizes on the A4 architecture (both in terms of their own design capabilities and their manufacturer's fabrication capabilities) before using for the A5. A bit like Intel's "tick tock" strategy.

- Julian
 
A4 is just a made up processor name that Apple came up with to call a Cortex A8 SoC. They could call anything an A4 at this point, it is just marketing. This whole thread is full of unsubstantial speculation and a few people who focus way too much on one piece of a bigger puzzle.
 
WLS said:
If the iPad2 has only a A4 with more memory and a speed bump then I'm not buying it. Seriously! :confused:
Click to expand...
come to the dark side and buy an iPad now :D

Seriously, I wouldn't be all that surprised. Apple has never been a company that raced to bump up the processor before. They took their sweet time during the PowerPC days and even with intel, they take a slow approach. Just look at the 13" MacBook Pro, its still on the C2D platform
 
maflynn said:
come to the dark side and buy an iPad now :D

Seriously, I wouldn't be all that surprised. Apple has never been a company that raced to bump up the processor before. They took their sweet time during the PowerPC days and even with intel, they take a slow approach. Just look at the 13" MacBook Pro, its still on the C2D platform
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I just sold mine!
I will take a close look at what comes out and decide then if it is worth getting.
I would expect an enhanced A4 to have more memory (one GB??) run faster and as said above be a new die with sub 45nm technology that would use less power. If they improve the graphics also it might be worth it. I'm not happy about having to spend the next 6 months without my iPad.
This rumor is really out of nowhere though and we have had many others that said the iPad2 IS going to have the next gen cortex cpu. Last year the iPad led with the A4 which then showed up in the iPhone albeit with enhanced memory.
 
I have a hard time believing that apple is that dumb. What kind of a moron will buy a single core A8 iPad2 when every other tablet is sporting dual core tegra or qualcomm CPU and most likely has more ram.

Sent from my SCH-I800 using Tapatalk
 
It would only make sense for Apple to use Cortex-A9 because it uses less power, while being faster clock for clock compared to the currently used Hummingbird processor in the A4.

I expect the "A5" to be manufactured on a 40nm or 32nm process to help achieve this, which should result in better battery-life.

We are most likely down to a 2-chip solution ("A5" coupled with an LPDDR2 memory chip) because the new baseband supports both GSM/UMTS and CDMA2000.

The next thing for Apple to get rid of is the SIM. It takes up precious PCB-area, so the rumors of a digital SIM-card only makes sense.
 
alex2792 said:
I have a hard time believing that apple is that dumb. What kind of a moron will buy a single core A8 iPad2 when every other tablet is sporting dual core tegra or qualcomm CPU and most likely has more ram.
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Apple has never really been a spec whore, they do what they want too.

Again, as I mentioned. They're the only company that I'm aware of that is selling a C2D based laptop for over 1,000 bucks.

Besides, given this a tablet, is a dual core processor really required? Are apps running right now so sluggish that many people are clamoring for something with more horse power?

Correct me if I'm wrong but the other shipping product - Galaxy Tab is only a single core.

Others are adding dual core processors because honeycomb requires it, so you have to wonder if the OS is that bloated how will apps run even with a dual core and how will the battery life be on dual core processors?
 
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