Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Througherer

Going by this really good analysis...

But Apple's stuff is built more solidly than the Nexus:  aluminum, steel, and glass rather than plastic.

Redoing Gruber's weight estimates by calculating the Grams per Cubic Millimeter, the iPod touch is 0.00215 g/mm³ and the iPhone 4S is 0.00223 g/mm³.  Multiplying that by his estimated volume comes out with a weight between 416 and 432 grams if it had a similar weight-per-volume as an iPod touch or iPhone.

On this list, that puts it around the Kindle Fire.

Doing similar with the iPad 3, it's about 423,557 cubic mm.  For 0.00154 g/mm³ (the iPad 2 gives a virtually identical number, which is another good confirmation on this weight-per-volume method.)  Based on those two, it gives a potential weight of 298 grams.

I'd guess that just about 300 grams is a pretty safe estimate, and not far off from the Gruber's original 265 :)



(updated to show correct g/mm³ unit label.)

6 comments:

Joe said...

I was thinking the same thing... Gruber was on the ball, but comparing apples to oranges (could I change that to lemons????) instead of apples to apples.

joeclark said...

Michael, please! “gm/mm3”? “cubic mm”? Those aren’t the correct symbols and this isn’t an IBM Selectric, which at any rate could type superscripts.

g/mm³ and mm³, please.

a random John said...

Do the larger screens require thicker glass to maintain strength over a larger area? Same goes for the back panel. I would guess that the density falls between an iPhone and an iPad.

Michael said...

I'd guess the newer iPad will use newer glass that's even thinner for the same strength. http://www.corninggorillaglass.com/news/press-releases/corning-unveils-new-gorilla%C2%AE-glass-2

And yeah, g/mm³ is right. I just couldn't find the ³ key on my keyboard. Maybe I should have stuck to pounds per cubic inch :)

Unknown said...

Nice analysis.

FWIW, kg/L seems like a nice measurement of density (1 kg/L is the density of water) and would give numbers 1000 times the values you state, which would be between 0 and 5, and probably easier to read.

Jeb said...

Please, everyone, it's a microliter: µL.