With the introduction of every new
product, Apple is expected to reinvent the wheel, and not without good reason.
For over a decade, the company has refined or reinvigorated not one, but
several product categories. But even the wizards in Cupertino cannot escape the
natural ebb and flow between evolutionary and revolutionary iterations.
With a largely similar aesthetic
design, a higher resolution display, improved cameras, LTE connectivity and
more powerful innards, the new iPad is a solid update over last year’s iPad 2.
But is it enough to satisfy
consumers’ demands for constant innovation, or, more importantly, stave off the
advance of competing products? Only time will tell, but as it stands, Apple
remains the unrivaled champion of the tablet market with its latest iPad.
The most notable feature of the new
iPad is without question the new retina display. At a staggering 2048x1536, the
9.7-inch display now packs double the resolution of the iPad 2 (1024x768) and a
higher resolution than just about every HDTV on the market (1920x1080). With a
pixel density of 264 pixels-per-inch (ppi), the new iPad falls short of the
iPhone 4S, which offers 326 ppi. From a user’s perspective, however, the
difference is negligible, if not completely unrecognizable.
The retina display is not only a
substantial improvement over the iPad 2, it’s one of the best looking displays
on the market. The most immediately recognizable benefit of the new high-res
display is crisper, cleaner text. Much like we saw on the iPhone 4S, lines of
text and individual characters are so smooth that you can’t see a single pixel,
even when fully zoomed in. The impact for images and other graphical media is
dependent largely on whether or not it is presented in high-resolution.
Currently, the number of optimized
websites and apps is small since the new iPad only hit stores a few days ago,
but you can bet more are on the way. The iTunes App Store’s collection of new
or optimized apps for the new iPad consists of 40 or so titles, including
Flipboard, Twitter for iPad, Infinity Blade II, Modern Combat 3, Mass Effect
Infiltrator, SketchBook Pro for iPad, Real Racing 2 HD and others. While each
has been updated to render graphics and its UI at 2048x1536 resolutions, there
aren’t any games that truly harness the power of the new A5X chip and 1GB of
RAM in terms of advanced textures or more detailed characters and environments.
At least, not yet.
Still, the very simple fact that the
A5X can sufficiently output 3D graphics at such a high resolution without
framerate performance issues is impressive. Games like Modern Combat 3 and Mass
Effect Infiltrator look gorgeous and run smoothly, and load times are slightly
faster.
After running GLBenchmark tests, I
was able to get a better sense of how the new iPad compares to the iPad 2 and
the NVIDIA Tegra 3-powered ASUS Transformer Prime. Unfortunately, the results
cannot be considered an apples-to-apples comparison due to the fact that the
GLBenchmark app runs at the native resolution of whatever device it is running
on, thus making a standardized test impossible. All the same, despite running
at a substantially higher resolution (2048x1536 vs. 1024x768 and 1280x800), the
new iPad outperformed both devices. In the GL Benchmark 2.1 Egypt Standard test,
the iPad 2 produced 6627 frames at a rate of 59 frames-per-second, while the
new iPad ran 6633 frames at the same framerate. Comparatively, the Transformer
Prime was only able to produce 5702 frames at 50 frames-per-second. With any
luck, the GLBenchmark app will be updated to allow for set resolution testing
but as it stands, we have only a rather vague sense of how powerful the A5X
really is.
The introduction of the A5X
processor, LTE networking and the retina display yielded two notable changes: a
larger battery and, as a result, a slightly thicker and heavier design. In
order to power these new power-hungry features, Apple ditched the iPad 2’s 25
watt-hour battery in favor of a 42.5 watt-hour battery, which bumped the
overall weight of the device to 1.46lbs (up from 1.33lbs) and the thickness to
9.4mm (up from 8.8mm). Comparing the two devices side-by-side made the
variations fairly noticeable, but in terms of real-life usage, there’s no
considerable impact.
The benefit of the new larger battery
is purely compensatory, and the overall battery life of the iPad remains
unchanged at roughly 10 hours. Performance will vary based on settings and
usage, but during testing I was able to achieve anywhere between 9 to 10 hours
with Wi-Fi-only and 8 to 9 with 4G LTE with brightness set to about 60-percent.
Network connection speeds for 4G LTE
models will vary by region, though in San Francisco, I was able to achieve
downloads of up to 29Mbps and uploads of 16Mbps, which rivals or often
surpasses broadband speeds. To sweeten the deal for users who were previously
apprehensive about paying for a dedicated data plan, Apple has added mobile
hotspot capability to the iPad. In the United States, the feature is only
supported on Verizon versions of the device, though AT&T says they will
soon offer the feature as well. What’s most exciting about the functionality is
that it’s free to use with any Verizon data plan, whereas the same feature on
your smartphone would require additional charges.
Apple has also upgraded the iPad’s
rear-facing camera, which hitherto sported an abysmal 0.7-megapixel sensor.
Now, the camera has a 5-megapixel sensor with the same image processing tech
used in the iPhone 4S. While it doesn’t support high dynamic range (HDR)
stills, it is now capable of recording 1080p video with image stabilization. In
terms of image and video quality, the new iPad falls behind the iPhone 4S, but
far beyond the iPad 2 and other competing tablets. What’s most confounding,
however, is Apple’s choice to leave the front-facing camera unaltered at
0.3-megapixels. While a rear-facing lens is handy to have, the front-facing
camera is critical for video conferencing. The front camera is still functional
but the image quality is as grainy and uninspiring as ever.
The only software feature exclusive
to the new iPad is voice dictation, which, like Siri, takes spoken words and
converts them into written text. The feature is accessible as a microphone key
on the on-screen keyboard and can be used in any app, first-party or otherwise,
that uses text entry. Overall, the feature works well, though ambient noise and
other factors could impact your experience. I found the feature most useful for
quick drafts of tweets or emails, which I could then make quick formatting
edits to.
What’s interesting is that voice
dictation seems like a feature that could have been easily ported to older
versions of the device via the iOS 5.1 update, but for reasons unknown, it’s
limited to the latest model. The choice to implement only voice dictation and
not the extensive voice-assisted functions of Siri is also somewhat odd. My
first guess was that Siri’s need for constant connectivity to the Internet was
a determining factor, but upon further investigation, I’ve found that voice
dictation on the new iPad also requires a Wi-Fi or 4G LTE connection. When no
connection is available, the dictation key disappears from the on-screen
keyboard.
Several new and updated first-party
apps accompanied the announcement of the new iPad, such as iPhoto and new versions
of GarageBand, Keynote and others, but aside from retina display support, all
are exactly the same and are available for older devices as well.
At the end of the day, what consumers
are getting with the new iPad is a gorgeous new display with double the
resolution of last year’s model, a powerful new dual-core CPU with quad-core
graphics, 1GB or RAM, a new 5-megapixel rear-facing camera, voice dictation and
optional 4G LTE networking with mobile hotspot support. If you already own an
iPad or you weren’t interested in one before, the changes may not be enough to
inspire a purchase, but for others, the new iPad is the best yet and is worthy
of your consideration.
Cc: http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/03/19/apple-ipad-review-2012
