WHAT'S INSIDE THE iPAD 2?

 Although the iPoO is a tablet by name, it's not actually cut from smooth stone. Underneath its shiny black exterior is a wealth of technological innovation. With the help of iFixit, we break clown the iPad 2 to find out what makes it tick.

Apple has wasted no time highlighting why the iPad 2 is better than the original. This device is thinner, lighter and faster and Apple is promising the same 10 hours of battery life.

That means it's doing much more with less which is pretty impressive. So, how did it get there?

Kyle Weins, co-founder of US electronics self-repair company iFixit.com, was among the first in the world to get his hands on the device. Instead of playing with it, he took it apart and shared what he found with touch.

So, let's pop the top and find out just what's inside Apple's newest toy.

1 THE DEVICE

The IPad 2 is like a giant iPhone. Apple used the iPhone as its starting point, rather than the iMac, because the iPad is also a multi-touch device. Inside there is a lithium-polymer battery, a logic board, a huge display, speakers, a camera and a communication port.

2 THE LOGIC BOARD The iPad's logic board, is like a person's head - it houses essentials, like the AS chip, which is the brain of the device. There are also parts like the Toshiba Flash (MLC NAND) memory chip and two Broadcom touchscreen controllers, a power management chip and a Cirrus audio chip.

The board, while extremely small, still takes up about 60 percent of the iPad's width. It's covered with an electromagnetic interference shield to stop radio waves penetrating its core.

"The shieldinggets more sophisticated every year," says Weins, "It's a challenge to design the internals of these things so they work well in all electromagnetic conditions."

3 THE AS CHIP

One of the most exciting components is the iPad is also one of the smallest. The AS 1GHz dual-core processor sits on the logic board and is the jewel of the device.

It is revolutionary because it is more than just a 'processor'. It is an entire 'system on chip'. It combines two processors (the portion of the iPad that carries out instruction), 512 MB of Samsung-manufactured RAM and the graph ics processor. The two processors use ARM technology.

Welns says having two processors "means that running multiple programs at once should go better and should also be faster",

ARM is the default technology for tablet devices like the iPad: "What the entire industry has found is that they can't create mobile devices using the classic desktop architecture. They need to use something much more efficient, and the ARM architecture is more efficient," says Weins.

But he is especially impressed with the graphics chip: "It's about nine times faster than the original iPad's. So, I think the IPad 2 is going to be a phenomenal gaming machine."

Part of the iPad's excellent energy efficiency is thanks to the AS chip. By combining ail the packages into one, the device doesn't overheat, making it possible for the iPad to deliver on the promised 10 hours of battery life.

4 THE WI-FI BOARD

Ttie Wi-Fi board is attached to the logic board. It's a pretty standard part in Apple's smartphones and it was part of the original iPad. Made by Broadcom, the board includes Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and FM tuner chips.

5 THE BATTERY

The lithium polymer battery, which is consists of three connected Li-Ion cells, takes up the bulk of the device. It's a 3.8 volt, 25 watt-hour unit.

The 10 hours of power that these batteries provide is about the same as the original iPad, but Wiens says that's impressive: "it means they packed in a processor which is twice as fast, a graphics processor which is nine times as fast, twice as much RAM and they kept the battery performance the same."

6 SCREEN

The screen is a 9.7in, 786 x 1024-pixel, LED-backlit display, glossy widescreen with multi-touch.

The display makes use of 'in-plane-switching' (IPS) display technology which gives the user a very wide viewing angle and accurate colours. For years nobody-used it because it consumed too much power, but recently LG.Phiiips improved the IPS technology.

Weins says that little has changed about the display since the original iPad: "It looks exactly the same as far as anybody can tell, but they managed to make a third thinner than it was,"

7 THE CAMERAS

The iPad has two cameras, a high-definition rear-facing 1280 x 720 pixel (HD) camera and a low-resolution VGA 640 x 480 front-facing one.

The front-facing camera lives on an assembly that also includes the headphone jack and a microphone.

"It's actually a pretty crappy camera," says Weins. "One reason could be that they want to keep costs down. Another reason is thickness. The iPad is thinner than the iPhone 4 and they have less room to integrate the camera."

8 THE SPEAKERS

Apple's goal to reduce bulk was sure to affect the size of their speakers. "The speakers are much smaller than on the previous iPad," says Weins.

Even so, the quality of the dual-mono speakers remains the same. "The last set weren't very good but these speakers don't sound any worse," says Weins.

9 THE ACCELEROMETER AND GYROSCOPE BOARD

The gyroscope and accelerometer are the reason why Apple's devices are so much fun for gamers. They detect direction and speed and react accordingly. STMicreelectronics produced these parts in the iPad 2.

10 STICKY BUSINESS

Keeping the iPad super-thin has a down side. Instead of screws Apple has used glue to assemble the device. This means that parts that fail over time, like the battery, will be much harder to replace.

"It's a $600 disposable device. What if you bought a printer that could only print 500 pages and you had to throw it away and buy a new one?" says Weins.

Weins and his team are working hard to find a way around this and are developing easy-to-use tools that might resolve the issue. They are nonetheless concerned that this will become an ongoing design feature, which will negatively affect both consumers and the environment.