The iPad 2 has completely dominated the tablet market over the last year, and rightfully so. It’s a superb product, addressing almost all the flaws of the original. With the third generation tablet, Apple has bet everything on screen quality, hoping that the leap to a retina display will prove as popular for its tablet as it was for the iPhone 4.
Almost everything that has changed in the new iPad is there to work with the new 2048x1536 screen (provided by arch-rival Samsung).
The new unit requires a significant boost in horsepower to maintain that pixel density, which in turn presents additional challenges and minor design compromises.
Dimensions and form factor are much the same as the iPad 2, with the new tablet packing quad core graphics technology, a standards setting display and upgraded cameras.
In order to maintain the iPad line’s signature 10-hour battery life, the iPad 2’s 25WHr lithium ion batteries have been given an upgrade to an impressive 42.5WHr in order to accommodate the GPU upgrade, the extra RAM and the screen. This means the unit is a little heavier than the iPad 2 and runs significantly warmer too, especially after playing a 3D game for any length of time.
First impressions of the new display are positive – the vibrancy and colour reproduction are superb. However, in terms of the resolution boost, initially you may well end up wondering what all the fuss is about. Zero in on the individual pixels and you can see the difference – no pixellation is evident.
However, adjusting your focus to take in the whole screen diminishes the impression. In terms of usual tablet tasks such as browsing or eBook reading, it’s more comfortable on the eye – text looks more natural and easier to read while photos and 1080p movies are beautifully reproduced.
The increased pixel density also does wonders for 2D games. Titles such as Angry Birds Space HD look great. The quad core GPU appears to have no issue rendering at 60 frames per second.
Beyond the screen and CPU/GPU upgrades, there aren’t many tangible advantages over the iPad 2. However, the rear-facing camera has also benefited from an improvement.
The previous 720p HD video recording has been upgraded to 1080p (with image stabilisation), while still shots get a useful boost to a more impressive 5-megapixels with nice features like face recognition and auto white balance.
Here, the high quality of the new iPad’s screen does a great job in resolving much of the real life resolution of the images you take and the improvement over the horrendous 0.7 megapixel camera in the iPad 2 is as much of a leap as the screen upgrade.
The only glitch is that the design of the tablet itself makes photography and filming an uncomfortable process.
As you might expect, the camera sensor works best in daylight, but the glossy nature of the screen makes it extremely difficult to see what you’re actually taking photos of, and framing a shot is almost impossible unless you can shade yourself from the sun.
In addition, the shoot button is small and hard to see in broad daylight, and if you have your fingers resting anywhere else on the screen, it doesn’t work at all – thankfully here, the volume button can be used instead.
Front-facing cameras for Face Time and Skype are obviously where the optics will actually get some real practical use, yet here there are no upgrades at all, with the same VGA resolution camera used in the iPad 2 deployed in the new hardware.
The new iPad doesn’t do anything substantially better or particularly different than the iPad 2, offering the same rich world of content as before.
But it’s the amazingly high quality window into that world the new iPad offers that is, for the moment, completely unmatched.
I have no doubt that others will be bringing similarly high-res offerings to the market soon. Is it worth a purchase if you still have the original iPad? Absolutely. The iPad 2? That, dear readers, largely depends on how much disposable income you have.
A technology enthusiast who has his own blog at www.itnewsblog.com.