The iPad 3 is rumoured to be coming out this quarter, and consequently the rumours about it have reached fever pitch. Sources all over the world are reporting contact with various bits of it – a shell here, a chipset there, a camera over here. Let’s go through the rumours and find out what we can expect if the iPad 3 is announced as expected on March 7th.
CPU
It now looks like the iPad 3 will be coming with a high speed dual-core processor A5X processor rather than the quad-core A6 that was rumoured. The dual-core will still present a significant speed improvement over the previous A5 chip though, and will also include a stronger graphics processor.
Display
This seems to be one of the most confident rumours circulating – the iPad 3 will come with a 2048 x 1536 screen at 9.7″, double the pixel density of its predecessor at 264 ppi. A screen purporting to be the iPad 3’s has been examined by Mac Rumors, and they’ve shown the screen does include 16 pixels in the space of 4 in the iPad 2, which seems to be proof enough for me.
Shell
The iPad 3 is expected to be a little thicker than the iPad 2 in order to contain that extra-HD screen, but with rather more tapered edges. The overall look and feel is relatively unchanged.
Camera
A Hong Kong blog with access to an iPad 3 noted that it included the same 8 megapixel back-lit camera as the iPhone 4S. That’d be a massive upgrade over the current rear-facing camera, which is rated at less than 1 megapixel. The front-facing camera will also likely be upgraded.
LTE
This is one of the most contentious rumours – will the iPad 3 support 4G / LTE networks? There have been rumours both ways, but the easier bet is that it won’t. It doesn’t matter too much for UK customers anyway, as the UK isn’t expect to have an LTE network until 2015. That’s a fair way behind the US and Germany, where LTE is becoming common in major cities.
OS
The iPad 3 is expected to ship with iOS 5.1, which adds Japanese language support to Siri as well as a different camera unlock screen.
Conclusion
So there we have it – a rather heavily upgraded iPad 3. The rumoured launch date is the first Wednesday of March, the 7th, so at the very least wait until then if you’re looking to pick up a new iPad. What do you think of the new specs? Let us know via the comments below.
This article was written by William Judd. William writes for Mobile Fun, the UK’s leading online retailer of the MHL adapter, Jabra Wave and Griffin Survivor.
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