The new iPad
Apple’s new iPad has sold 3m copies in just three days, Apple confirmed last night – making it the most successful iPad launch yet. The device went on sale in the US, UK, France, Germany and a number of other countries last Friday.
The new iPad will arrive in Ireland on 23 March, as well as in Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Macau, Mexico, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden.
It will be available at 8am Irish time on Friday.
“The new iPad is a blockbuster with 3m sold – the strongest iPad launch yet,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing.
“Customers are loving the incredible new features of iPad, including the stunning Retina display, and we can’t wait to get it into the hands of even more customers around the world this Friday.”
The new tablet computer also has a 2,048 x 1,536 resolution display. It offers 264ppi on the iPad screen and has 44pc better colour saturation than the iPad 2.
The new iPad Wi-Fi models will be available in black or white for a suggested retail price of US$499 for the 16GB model, US$599 for the 32GB model and US$699 for the 64GB model. The iPad Wi-Fi + 4G will be available for a suggested retail price of US$629 for the 16GB model, US$729 for the 32GB model and US$829 for the 64GB model.
The new iPad runs on an A5X chip with quad core graphics and voice dictation, which lets users speak into their iPads to type a message. Voice dictation supports UK English, US English, Australian English, Japanese, German and French.
Its rear-facing camera has a 5-megapixel sensor which offers backside illumination, a 5-element lens, a hybrid IR filter, auto focus and face detection. It can also film 1080p footage.
It will provide 4G LTE connectivity with speeds of up to 73Mbps. It also offers HSPA+ connectivity of up to 21Mbps and DC-HSDPA connectivity of 41Mbps.
As with the iPad 2, the next iPad comes with a 10-hour battery life. It comes in black and white in 16GB, 32GB and 64GB models.
The new iPad’s predecessor the iPad 2 will now be offered at a more affordable price of €399, including VAT (€324.39 excluding VAT) for the 16GB Wi-Fi model, and just €519, including VAT (€421.95 excluding VAT) for the 16GB Wi-Fi + 3G model.
