Unannounced hardware tweak gives new iPad 2 longer battery life

When Apple unveiled its third-generation iPad in March, the company also announced that the iPad 2 would remain on the market at a reduced price. The Cupertino-based company did not reveal that the year old tablet had a significant upgrade to its internal hardware,however. The original 16GB Wi-Fi only iPad 2 featured a 45nm A5 processor, but the $399 iPad 2 is equipped with a smaller and more power efficient 32nm A5 processor, according to AnandTech. Performance remains the same on both devices, but the smaller processor delivers an overall increase of 16% to battery life while web browsing and a 30% increase when playing games. There is no way to tell whether an iPad 2 features the new smaller processor without opening the box and running a benchmark test, unfortunately, because the external packaging and the device itself look identical to the older model.

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