iPad 2 will have dual core 1.2GHz processor?

The improvement of the iPad 2 display focuses on thickness and anti-reflection, not resolution. iPad 2 display module is 30~35% thinner than iPad 1 and it’s helpful for better form factor.

Thanks to anti-reflection, iPad 2 could have better sunlight readable experience and it's helpful for Apple to compete with Amazon's fast growing Kindle business.

The most important reason why iPad 2 won’t have retina display is yield rate of panel making. At this point, making high resolution and bright IPS/FFS panel is not easy and the production volume and cost couldn’t meet Apple’s requirements.

iPad 2 will use [ARM] Cortex-A9 dual core processor running at 1.2GHz. Increasing 1~2% single core processor clock results in a 3~5% power increase and dual core could get a better balance between computing power and power consumption. That's the reason why Apple will use dual core for iPad 2.

The iPad 2 will also have a GPU using Imagination’s SGX543 dual core graphics technology which is 200~300% powerful than iPhone 4.

For making full use of GPU upgrading advantage, iPad 2 needs bigger memory bandwidth. So iPad 2 has 512MB RAM, same as iPhone 4 and twice as much as iPad 1, but running at higher clock 1,066 MHz for getting bigger memory bandwidth (iPhone 4 memory clock is 800 MHz).