It looks like Apple will be taking the wraps off the iPad 2 next Wednesday, but if the specs posited by Analyst Min-Chi Kuo of Concord Securities are on the money, I may just be leaving my wallet in my pocket.
Kuo’s report indicates that the new iPad will be a little thinner, non-reflective, and sport more power under the hood in terms of memory, CPU, and GPU capability. Beyond that, the biggest new features are likely to be two lowish-res cameras, facing front and back. This should allow video conferencing, a feature I was a bit shocked wasn’t part of the original offering. No word was offered on price, but it seems likely to be in line with the current structure given the paucity of new features.
The biggest–and most unwelcome–omission from the feature list is the lack of a higher-resolution display. The current iPad can boast just 1024 x 768 resolution — enough to read web pages, but–it turns out–not quite enough to read the hand-drawn-style fonts typically used in comics. Although some, such as Dark Horse, have apparently taken pains to ensure that the typography in their digital offerings reads well on tablets, many of Marvel and DCs offerings are nigh-illegible at full page view. These comics desperately need the higher-resolution that a “retina” display (akin to the iPhone 4, but larger) might have offered. If Kuo is to be believed, however, this is not in the cards for the iPad 2.
Here’s hoping he’s wrong…