iPad 2 iPad 2 w/ 'Retina Display' = resolution of 27" iMac

Even the fastest mobile GPUs today wouldn't be able to handle 2500 by 1900 resolution. Maybe the OS would run. Barely. But any games you can completely forget about.

And although there is a high chance that the GPU will be upgraded this time around, there is no way Apple is going to put the fastest ones available in it.

Not to mention the CPU. You would need at least 2 GHz dual core to run anything at that resolution.

The resolution is going to stay at 1024 by 768. Face it. Maybe gen 3 will have 1280 by 800 but for now it's not changing.

And don't get me started on cost. The display in the 27' iMac costs $800 alone.

We'll throw the iMac's GPU in the iPad.

1.) Don't even compare desktop x86 CPUs and mobile ARM CPUs. ARM chips use a fraction of the power but they do not have 3-6 MB of L2 cache like the Intel chip or bus speeds of 1066 MHz (best one's I've seen in use have 100 MHz bus and 512kb L2) so consider 1/10 the data flow rate and 1/6th to 1/12th the amount of data a CPU can process efficiently. To make up for that you would need a whole lot more processing power. Maybe 2.5-3 GHz Quad Core to match the MacBook CPU

2.) Memory bandwidth? The mobile eDRAM in iDevices runs at 200 MHz on a 64-bit bus. The 1066 MHz DDR3 in the MacBook Air runs on a 256 bit bus. That's 21.3X faster memory.

3.) Yes a GeForce 2 MX can run that resolution on Windows XP's plain CPU-based UI. iOS has cool GPU-accelerated animations and effects all over the place. Also, it has 166 MHz of it's own dedicated DDR memory on a much faster AGP bus. And the GeForce 320M in the MacBook is 35X faster than the rebranded Intel GMA 500 found in iDevices. It (GeForce 320M) struggles to handle PC games at even 1280 by 720. It can output 1536p res but but can't do any intensive work at that resolution.

Have you seen the games developers are pushing out on iDevices these days? Real Racing 2, Infinity Blade, and Aralon all have near console quality graphics and on an iPad and iPhone 4 they struggle to run at 30 FPS. You get frame rate drops frequently. You can add a Galaxy S GPU in them and you would get a nice 60 FPS maybe but if you quadruple the resolution again, you would want quadruple the GPU power as well, leading to the quad or octo core SGX 543 chips, but eight 200 MHz cores with say 1GB RAM needed at 400 MHz would eat the batteries alive.

The resolution is staying the same. Get over it. Why do you think most laptops run at 1366 by 760 or 1440 by 900? Their integrated chips just can't handle the load of Windows 7 effects at 1080p let alone old games like Counter-Strike. The current display in the iPad costs $30 to make. An equally sized display with a much higher resolution would cost $60-70 to make, and with a dual core ARM CPU and a newer GPU and licensing for new drivers, etc...and Apple's pricing, think a price addition of $250 to $300 more.