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And the iPad 2 display rumor of the week is...

iPad 2 rumors are coming fast and furious lately. A report today focuses on the display--or, rather, the lack of a super-high-resolution Retina display.

Brooke Crothers Former CNET contributor
Brooke Crothers writes about mobile computer systems, including laptops, tablets, smartphones: how they define the computing experience and the hardware that makes them tick. He has served as an editor at large at CNET News and a contributing reporter to The New York Times' Bits and Technology sections. His interest in things small began when living in Tokyo in a very small apartment for a very long time.
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Brooke Crothers
2 min read

iPad 2 reports--er, rumors--are getting difficult to keep track of, but let's put this one in the no-high-resolution-display hopper.

After repeating fairly well-established hearsay about a dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 processor (running at 1.2GHz), an analyst cited by Apple Insider says the iPad 2 will not have a high-resolution Retina display, corroborating an earlier CNET report. Reason? Manufacturing yields aren't there yet. But "anti-reflection" is mentioned as a step-up in display quality.

Another display consideration not mentioned is cost: adding a super-high-resolution display to the iPad 2 could drive up the cost significantly, pricing it out of the more cost-conscious Android tablet market.

Don't dismay, though, the iPad 2 will focus on processing punch, keeping it competitive with Motorola's Xoom and RIM's BlackBerry PlayBook, among other upcoming designs packing high-performance silicon. And, like other tablets from top-tier suppliers, the iPad 2 will have a better graphics chip, too.

And, again, repeating previous rumors, the next-gen iPad is slated to be slimmer, shaving off as much as 35 percent of the current iPad's chassis.

The report also mentions 3G modes: The iPad 2 will add a CDMA model using a Qualcomm chip, and a separate GSM model will use a chip from Infineon (note that Intel is in the process of buying that company's wireless business). This contradicts some earlier reports of a dual-mode iPad 2 (and iPhone 5).

When is all of this going to happen? 4.5 million to 5 million units will ship in the first quarter, with delivery late first quarter or early second quarter, the report says.