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How does the iPad stay so cool? (temp, not hip)

I have an alienware laptop that has rendered me unable to have children and is good at cooking oatmeal in the morning. Even my Mac G5 is toasty.
My Ipad is a fantastic machine capable of anything I want it to do except world of Warcraft. Best toy I’ve ever had. So with all it’s power, How does the IPad stay cool?
—–
Rand Reeves

Comments: 6 Responses to “How does the iPad stay so cool? (temp, not hip)”

    13 years ago

    Well, for one thing there are no moving parts: no spinning hard drive. That helps. But also it uses Apple's A4 chip that consumes very little power and gives off very little heat. All of the chips in there, in fact, are designed to use little power and give off little heat.
    Your gaming laptop is designed for power -- it uses chips that use a lot of it, and give off a lot of heat as a trade-off for power and speed.

    Michael
    13 years ago

    Yea but my iPhone4 gets quite hot and it has the same A4 processor. Is there other chips in there that are contributing to the heat?

      13 years ago

      No sure, but I think the wireless chip does. But I'd guess that it has more to do with the smaller area and less surface to dissipate the heat.

        Rand Reeves
        13 years ago

        Actually my first iPhone never got warm. It died just before the warranty expired (!) and was replaced. The new iPhone has been hot from day one. It's worse when I'm using an external battery pack but I've noticed it's at it's hottest after charging, which I would expect but it's very hot at times where as the first one was never even all that warm. The new one is always warm but there are times it's so warm it's uncomfortable to hold to my ear after sitting in my shirt pocket. My first one never did that. So did the first one die an early death because it internalized everything in order to keep it's cool? Or is the new one the one with the problem because it hot?

    Vikcy
    12 years ago

    I think that all the iOS devices are designed in such a way that less power is consumed and less heat is evolved. The little heat escapes through the mic hole of these devices!

    Steve
    11 years ago

    Its the same as when I had my iPod touch I assume the iPad at least cools down through the USB connector otherwise as the post says it uses processors that somehow doesn't produce heat yet the iPad still gives awesome performance

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