When Apple released the third-gen iPad, they also dropped the price of the iPad 2 to $399. But they didn’t just drop the price – as we’ve pointed out previously, they also packed a newer 32nm A5 processor into the iPad 2, which offers a number of interesting benefits.
Anandtech has managed to get ahold of the new unit, which is referred to as iPad 2,4 (as opposed to the previous WiFi-only iPad 2, which was called iPad 2,1), finding that the new iPad 2s run cooler, and get between 15 and 30 percent better battery life.
Unfortunately, there’s no way of knowing that you’ll get a unit with the new 32nm processor if you purchase an iPad 2 today, as there are still units in stock with the older and less efficient processor – the only way to find out is to actually power on the unit.
The site also speculates that Apple may be using the new 32nm processors to test how efficient they are, and suggests that the new 32nm chips could bring significant power savings and temperature benefits to the next-gen iPhone. That would especially come in handy if Apple adds LTE to the next iPhone, as they are widely expected to do.