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IPad 2 Teardown Shows Tablet's Guts
alphadogg writes "Apple's iPad 2 tablet, which became available Friday, boasts a big battery, tiny speakers, an ample 512MB of RAM and a glass front that's tricky for tinkerers to take off. That's the upshot from an initial teardown of the new Apple tablet by iFixit, which specializes in Apple product repair. IFixit warns that those who dare to peer into the insides of the iPad 2 on their own risk cracking the glass front panel, which is thinner than that from the original iPad (0.62 mm vs. 0.85 mm) and glued on rather than attached via tabs. A heat gun was needed by iFixit to disassemble the device."
The thing with courier is that, whilst I agree it was a great form factor, it didn't actually exist. It was all talk - no shippable product. So for all the flaws that may exist in Apple's vision of the tablet form factor (or the Android ones for that matter) at least they actually exist - they're real, they work and they are being sold today.
Courier looked as though it was years away from even being thought of as a real product, let alone being sold to people in the real world
Have you ever seen somebody watching a two hour movie on ipad? It's a sight to behold. TWO HOURS of holding it in your one hand.
Have you ever seen somebody watching a two hour movie on a laptop? It's a sight to behold. TWO HOURS of holding it in your two hands. Or someone reading a book. Hours and hours of never moving or shifting and just keeping that thing suspended at arms length the entire time. ;)
tablets do not function as a useful tool except for the guys who scan your creditcards with a handholding device (and for similar purpose). But who am I to reason with retards, fucktards and fanbois?
You're right. And 15 million people who've bought an iPad are completely wrong. And the millions more who bought/may buy Android tablets. Why can't these people see that tablets is ill suited to your needs and thus they should never get one?
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Right now it appears that Apple is using every advantage they have to keep the pricing low...
Hi, my name is Steve, welcome to the Apple store and thanks for purchasing the iPad. In order to use your device, you'll need to register with iTunes to ensure a constant flow of money to Apple for apps, music, media, ebooks, etc. Don't worry, e-magazines and such will still be the same price as other websites if they want to get their stuff on your tablet (don't worry that we are taxing your media companies 30% for the privilege of getting through the gatekeeper to your DRM'd locked down device...) Which credit card would you like to register with?
Ample here means sufficient. It seems to get the job done, and gets it done better (by all accounts) than the Samsung, despite it being half as much.
Having more RAM in and of itself isn't useful if you're not going to use it. Apple gets to save money on the memory AND beat the performance of the Samsung? That's just clever.
I don't have an iPad of any sort yet, but putting good cameras in it seems a waste of time to me. I've got an iPhone 4 that I'm far more likely to take pictures on (who wants to hold up a whole freakin' tablet to take a picture?) and a Sony cybershot that I'm MUCH more likely to take travelling with me to take movies and pictures with.
Samsung is wasting time and money spec-padding. And that dual-core graphics and CPU don't seem to be helping them any in head-to-head comparisons.
Apple has just designed a better tablet at a better price that people are willing to buy. Don't blame Apple for doing it the smart way, blame Samsung for not paying attention to what will actually perform best and attract customers.
Sorry to burst your applesauce bubble, but 512mb ram is hardly ample in 2011.
Thanks for the valuable info. Without your wisdom, how would I know that the 256MB RAM on my iPad 1 was so pitifully inadequate?
On other systems, users would know that they had inadequate RAM due to the usual symptoms (machine slowing to a crawl, errors, crashes) but Evil Apple has conspired to ensure that these rarely happen on the typical iPad, fooling customers into think that, because their device runs perfectly, they have adequate RAM.
The rascals! I feel soiled.
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
...and copy the sleek design to create a product that is equally appealing to the eyes and twice or three times as powerful?
Ignoring the "economy of scale" issue (Apple orders displays, Flash etc. in huge quantities to get low prices) how do you make it twice or three times as powerful and still use the same parts?
Faster processors/graphics cost more. They generate more heat (so you can't pack them in as tightly) and they use more power (so you have to make the battery bigger or sacrifice battery life).
Higher-res cameras cost more, and probably use more power/generate more heat to boot. They're usually less sensitive (less light falls on each pixel) which means poorer low-light performance, or more amplification (more noise, more power, more heat => even more noise) or built-in illumination (more power/heat). Higher-quality cameras need higher-quality lenses which occupy more space.
Many of the "improvements" that Apple critics ask for also occupy more space or consume more power: more USB/SD/video connections = more space occupied by connectors and their internal cables and daughterboards + more complex and expensive assembly. Removable battery = user-proof internal battery connectors, extra protection to stop users damaging innards when replacing battery (more space, weight), need to make the battery rigid and safe to handle outside the case (more space, weight, less volume for battery) user-removable back (more space, weight...).
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
Sorry to burst your applesauce bubble, but 512mb ram is hardly ample in 2011.
Truth mod me up, fanboy mod me down. In the end, you know an expensive piece of tech like this should have at least double, if not quadruple that ram... its 2011, don't forget that.
Ahh, the passion of youth. The unadulterated joy of believing that the new way is the best way, that nearly a million years of human history can be shoveled under the Pergo flooring with nary an afterthought. The exuberance that comes from a knowledge base spanning months in time.
Get over it kid, people have been running entire rocket systems on much less than 512 MB RAM. It's a limited appliance designed to do a couple of things well. Running Crysis isn't one of them. Sorry to bust your nihilist bubble, but Apple is laughing all the way to the bank.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
The Xoom compares to only one iPad2 model, a 3G unit with a decent amount of storage - and even then it's around $70 more.
The thing is that you can get twice the storage for even less with an iPad if you are willing to forgo 3G. Or if you don't have a lot of money you can get an iPad for many hundreds less.
I don't think it's correct to say that because one particular model is close at all price-wise, that the two units are close in price. You have to consider the entry price to get into the platform, which is the starting point that consumers use to make choices. For someone initially considering these two devices they come off as $500 for an iPad2 and $800 for a Xoom... or even to be fair I guess you could use the subsidized Xoom price at $600. But that seems a bit dubious to me as not many people will see that price and it's not MSRP.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley