Apple Announces Launch Date & Price Of New iPad In India; Should Samsung, Others Worry

It's been little over a month since Apple first announced its new iPad and now we have an official Indian launch date and price. The new iPad will be available in India from April 27, 2012 (less than 10 days to go) for a starting price of Rs 30,500.

According to the official Apple statement, the new iPad will arrive in South Korea and Malaysia besides a string of Latin American and East European countries this Friday April 20, 2012 and on Friday, April 27, the new iPad will be available in India, Colombia, Estonia, Israel, Latvia, Lithuania, Montenegro, South Africa and Thailand.

We couldn't find any specific logical reasoning for clubbing the launch dates of these markets but assume it has to do with logistics partners. Here's a look at the prices of the different models of the Tablet.

The new iPad has a 9.7 inch (diagonal) LED-backlit Retina display and it has a pixel resolution of 2048×1536 at 264 pixels per inch (ppi). It runs on Apple's iOS 5.1 and offers a number of new features and enhancements that include a redesigned camera and support for dictation, among others. It is powered by Apple's new dual-core A5X chip with quad-core graphics.

The Tablet comes with a new 5 megapixel iSight autofocus rear camera with tap to focus and face detection in still images. It can also record full high definition videos (1080p) up to 30 frames per second (fps). A front facing FaceTime camera with VGA-quality photos and video at up to 30 fps has also been provided in the device. Also, Apple promises the same battery life of 10 hours on Wi-Fi and up to 9 hours on 4G for the Tablet.

To know about the detailed specifications of the Tablet and how it compares with the iPad 2, read here.

Competition

For Apple fanboys, the biggest competition for Apple is Apple itself. By that we mean its existing products. If you don't already know, Apple has already slashed the prices of the iPad 2, which is now available for Rs 24,500 and Rs 32,900 for the 16GB Wi-Fi only and 16GB Wi-Fi + 3G model respectively.

The new Tablet will compete with the likes of Samsung, ASUS, Acer and new entrant Sony, among others. Some of the Tablets that will directly compete with the new iPad include ASUS Eee Pad Transformer TF201 (Rs 46,278); Samsung's Galaxy Tab 730 (Rs 28,999), Galaxy Tab 750 (Rs 30,990) and Galaxy Tab 620 (Rs 25,900); Sony's SGPT211IN/S (Rs 32,990) and SGPT113IN/S (Rs 29,990); Acer Iconia A500 (Rs 27,013); and Milagrow TabTop MGPT01 (Rs 27,490), etc.

In comparison to Apple's dual-core A5X chip (with quad-core graphics), Samsung's Galaxy Tab 750 and Sony's SGPT113IN/S come with a 1GHz ARM dual-core processor, but the ASUS Eee Pad Transformer TF201 has a NVIDIA Tegra 3 Quad-core processor (the clear winners on paper at least). All three Tablets have 1GB of RAM and while Sony and Samsung are available in 16GB, ASUS is available in both 32 and 64GB. Also, while Samsung and Sony sport a 3MP and a 5MP camera (in comparison to Apple's 5MP camera), ASUS comes with an 8MP camera.

But the Tablet already has a couple of advantages over its competitors. First of all, it is the only Tablet that comes with 4G. And although 4G is not that prevalent in India as of now, Airtel has already launched it in Kolkata and is launching it in Bangalore soon; hence it is only a matter of time before other Telco's follow suit.  Then the Tablet comes with Apple's new dual-core A5X chip with quad-core graphics, which we reckon is probably a notch better than what any of its competitors is offering as of now (except ASUS's Eee Pad Transformer that has a quad-core processor).

Also, the fact that Apple Inc sold 3 million units of the new iPad within a week of its launch (setting a new record for the iPad) only confirms the excitement that the product builds among consumers. So it's safe to say that the Tablet will give everyone a run for their money, at least till they come out with their own quad-core offerings.

But there is one thing that Apple could definitely have done, and that is giving a proper name to the new iPad (like iPad 3 or iPad 4G) because it's really bugging to keep calling it the 'new iPad'. What's next, the 'newer iPad'?