New iPad unboxed in Vietnam, shows 4G toggle and benchmarks
updated 07:40 am EDT, Tue March 13, 2012
iPad 2012 gets shown off early
Well-known for its pre-release Apple access, Vietnam's Tinhte in a pair of posts has gotten early access to the third-generation iPad and answered some of its core questions. Apart from proving that the box will be very familiar, the site confirmed that the new iPad has an LTE toggle to save power. Most Android devices often won't allow this without a third-party app or hack.
LTE itself couldn't be tested without coverage in Vietnam, although 3G worked on Viettel.
Benchmarking also both confirmed rumors and tempered expectations. At least when running Geekbench, the core processor still ran at about 1GHz and wasn't necessarily much faster by itself. The A5X chip should still be faster, however, as it's now known to have the rumored 1GB of RAM.
Most of Apple's emphasis on performance has been on the graphics, which should be a quad-core PowerVR SGX543MP4. The use of an A5X over a 'true' A6 has been attributed mostly to underdeveloped manufacturing technology for a meaningful leap, whether it's a smaller 28 nanometer design process or a next-generation ARM Cortex-A15 architecture.
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Feb 2005
Retina?
The demo would have actually meant something if retina was shown in action, even if its just surfing to Apple.com to see the upsized resolution.