Some words about the A4 chip

This chip has arrived along with the iPad.

Called the A4, ("A" presumably for Apple), the most obvious difference with the chip in the iPhone 3GS is speed. The iPad's chip runs at 1GHz, compared to the estimated 600MHz (0.6GHz) of the iPhone 3GS. At the event in San Francisco, the A4 was billed as "the most advanced chip" Apple has done yet.

While fast, it's also frugal with power. "The A4 chip is so power efficient that it helps iPad get up to 10 hours of battery life," according to Apple's iPad Web page.
The A4 is a system-on-a-chip, or SOC, that integrates the main processor, graphics silicon, and other functions like the memory controller on one piece of silicon--not unlike what Intel is trying to achieve with its future "Moorestown" Atom processor. And a similar SOC chip architecture is already used in the iPhone and other smartphones, such as Google's Nexus One and Motorola's Droid. Based on what Apple has achieved with the iPhone 3GS, the chip should deliver a snappy interface. Of course, as in any 3G smartphone or laptop with a 3G connection, the 3G service can often be the weak link in performance, not the processor.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs described the iPad the "best (Web) browsing experience you've ever had". He referred that the A4 is a system-on-a-chip with a CPU, GPU, I/0 and memory controller.. A whole Web page right in front of you that you can manipulate with your fingers. Way better than a laptop, in a video of the event streamed by CNET. That browsing experience, of course, will rely on the chip's ability to handle the background tasks as users access images and video.