Apple iPad 2 Preview
by Anand Lal Shimpi, Brian Klug & Vivek Gowri on March 12, 2011 6:01 AM ESTThe Display: Multiple Vendors, Nearly Identical to iPad 1
Apple built the iPad 2 with a similar 9.7-inch 1024 x 768 IPS panel as the original iPad. Side by side the two panels appear to have similar qualities in terms of brightness, black level and contrast ratio. Once we started measuring however we noticed a trend: there appear to be multiple panel vendors in play here.
Between Brian, Vivek, Manveer and myself we have four iPad 2s. Brian and I have two 3G models (AT&T and Verizon), while Vivek and Manveer have two WiFi models. All four are white and all four have 16GB of NAND. The results from our baseline display testing are below:
| Display Quality Comparison | |||||
| White Level | Black Level | Contrast Ratio | |||
| Apple iPad 2 #1 (AT&T 3G) | 406 nits | 0.42 nits | 966:1 | ||
| Apple iPad 2 #2 (VZW 3G) | 409 nits | 0.49 nits | 842:1 | ||
| Apple iPad 2 #3 (WiFi) | 352 nits | 0.45 nits | 778:1 | ||
| Apple iPad 2 #4 (WiFi) | 354 nits | 0.41 nits | 859:1 | ||
There seem to be two different values for white level: either around 400 nits or 350 nits. Black level is pretty variable between 0.41 nits and 0.49 nits, there doesn't seem to be a correlation between white and black levels in our admittedly limited sample size. For our display graphs we simply averaged all four together:
On average the iPad 2 seems to be marginally brighter with a bit worse black levels than the original iPad, resulting in a lower contrast ratio. The display is pretty close to what was in the original iPad and very tough to tell apart. There's still a visible advantage in contrast ratio over the Motorola Xoom.
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Destiny - Saturday, March 12, 2011 - link
If Apple iPAD 2, NVIDIA's Tegra 2, TI's OMAP 4 and Samsung's Exynos all use the same Dual Core ARM Cortex A9... why are there performance differences shown in your testing and benchmarks of these products?StevoLincolnite - Saturday, March 12, 2011 - link
iPad uses iOS the others use variations of Android with who knows whats loaded in the background.But the simple reason is different OS's provide different performance characteristics as they handle processes and memory loads differently.
Destiny - Saturday, March 12, 2011 - link
Thank-you for the reply... now my knowledge and processor IQ just went up a notch... : )solgae1784 - Saturday, March 12, 2011 - link
Yep. All that hardware specs means nothing if your software can't utilize it. That much is clear even way back in the days.vol7ron - Saturday, March 12, 2011 - link
It's not just due to the OS, it is also due to the other hardware coupled with the A9. For instance, more RAM means application data can be loaded quicker, rather than from the HD. The GPU and screen size/resolution also effect benchmarks - the amount of effect depends on the type of test.Also the different hardware vendors may have modified some of the firmware instruction sets to make it more efficient.
But that's a big reason why these benchmarks are used, to have some sort of common ground that more accurately compares the different hardware/software combinations.
MonkeyPaw - Saturday, March 12, 2011 - link
We also don't know the clocks of the A5. Maybe it's not safe to assume it's running at 1.0ghz?Anand Lal Shimpi - Saturday, March 12, 2011 - link
Er you're very right about that. Geekbench reports 900MHz :)Take care,
Anand
tipoo - Saturday, March 12, 2011 - link
http://www.apple.com/ca/ipad/specs/Its 1GHz. Geekbench reports the instantaneous speed, so you'll hear different numbers from that depending on what it ramps its speed down to to save power.
dagamer34 - Saturday, March 12, 2011 - link
It's all about the OS at that point, just like how iOS 4.3 gives 2.5x increase in Javascript performance compared to iOS 4.0 even using the same original iPad.vol7ron - Saturday, March 12, 2011 - link
That isn't the OS, that's the JS engine. Both software, both different roles.