Apple iPad (3rd-Gen): The TechSpot Review

As was widely anticipated, Apple unveiled the third-generation iPad last March 7 at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. Analysts speculated that we would see the iPad 3 or perhaps the iPad HD but Cupertino defied all in attendance by simply calling it "the new iPad."

It's an overly simplistic yet strikingly bold decision that perhaps only a company as confident and charismatic (or maybe cocky) as Apple could pull off. I personally thought it was a lazy choice when I first heard it, but now that it's had some time to sink in, and considering some of the terrible product names already on the market (the majority of HTC smartphones, for example), it's more like a breath of fresh air. Steve Jobs himself would be proud, assuming he wasn't directly responsible for coming up with the name before his untimely passing last year.

Much like the iPhone 4S announcement roughly five months ago, Apple introduced a tablet that's best described on paper as an evolutionary update in the product line. The new iPad is nearly identical to the iPad 2 aesthetically and with both units off you'd be hard pressed to spot any visual differences in passing.

There's a 9.7-inch display, home button and camera on the front, a 30-pin connector on the bottom, power and headphone jack on top, orientation lock switch and volume rocker on the right and an aluminum back, speaker port and camera on the rear. Apple accessories like the Smart Cover are compatible with the new iPad should you want to protect the screen from dust and scratches.

 A closer inspection reveals that the new iPad is 0.03 inches (0.6mm) thicker and is 0.11 lbs (51g) heavier than the iPad 2. This would generally go against Apple's mantra but it's a reality for the new iPad, and there are compelling reasons to support the increased girth.

Apple has packed a 70% larger battery inside the new iPad (42.5-watt-hour versus 25-watt-hour in the iPad 2) that's required to maintain the same 10 hours of battery life while surfing the web on Wi-Fi, watching videos or listening to music and 9 hours of runtime when utilizing a cellular data network.

Three new features of the latest iPad are guilty of chugging more power than previous generations.

The new dual-core A5X SoC isn't much different from the dual-core A5 CPU-wise, but the quad-core PowerVR SGX 543MP4 graphics subsystem (the same chip used in the Sony PlayStation Vita) surely requires more energy. During their media event, Apple claimed that the GPU is twice as fast as the one found in the iPad 2 and four times faster than Nvidia's Tegra 3. This didn't sit well with Nvidia executives, who deemed the claims lifeless without benchmarks to back them up.

4G LTE connectivity has had a storied past as a battery hog and perhaps is one of the reasons we haven't yet seen Apple implement it in an iPhone. Users in the US have two options when it comes to 4G LTE connectivity: AT&T or Verizon Wireless. There's no doubt the tablet will be blazing fast over 4G with theoretical speeds rated at 73Mbps but with two antenna tuned to 12 different bands, there will be plenty of other networks to access should you be out of range of a 4G network. Apple has also paired cellular models with personal hotspot capabilities, carrier permitting of course.

We believe the new Retina display is the main culprit when it comes to battery usage. The rumor mill nailed this feature to a tee. The display on Apple's latest slate operates at 2,048 x 1,536 pixels -- higher than nearly every computer monitor under 30" and current-generation HDTVs. There are more than 3.1 million pixels in the display -- over 1 million more than the iPad 2. It's the most prominent new feature on the iPad and with good reason. Simply put, it's unlike anything you've ever seen before.

The rear camera also received an upgrade. Now referred to as the iSight camera, the 5MP shooter features a larger f/2.4 aperture, backside illumination sensor with a 5-element lens, IR filter and ISP built into the SoC. This puts the camera on par with the one found in the iPhone 4S (although with fewer MP) which is one of the best phone cameras on the market. Oh, and it shoots 1080p HD video with image stabilization as well. The front-facing VGA-quality camera remains unchanged.

Some people expected Apple to include support for Siri, but given the fact that it requires an Internet connection to talk to Apple's servers, it didn't make the cut this time around. Instead, we get dictation support. You can click the microphone icon on the keyboard, speak into the device and the iPad will translate what you said on-screen. Apple touts this as a great way to send texts, emails and search the web with only your voice.

This review is based on testing the Wi-Fi only 16GB white model and where applicable, we'll compare it with a Wi-Fi only 32GB iPad 2.

Software and Performance

The new iPad ships with iOS 5.1, a minor update that doesn't particularly warrant a full discussion. In short, Apple's mobile OS has improved audio when watching TV shows and movies on the iPad, a redesigned camera app, updated network indicators for iPhones on AT&T and adds a camera icon on the lock screen of virtually every device except the iPad.

There aren't too many applications that specifically support the new Retina display as of writing, but the handful of apps that do are pretty impressive. It's also worth noting that even if an app doesn't fully support the iPad's super high-res screen, it might still use assets designed for the iPhone's Retina display in the meantime.

Apple's robust image editing software iPhoto is available in the App Store for $4.99. The app lets you select a picture from your camera roll or other album and edit it using one of five categories: Crop & Straighten, Exposure, Color, Brushes and Effects. I left the tool tips on in each screenshot to give you a better idea of everything that is possible in this app and as you can see, there are a wealth of different options available to improve your photos.

I used iPhoto to edit some pictures snapped in Las Vegas during CES 2012 and a few others from a recent photo shoot. I experimented with different options in each scene but ultimately discovered I am partial to black and white and tilt shift effects.

iPhoto is one of my new favorite apps for the iPad. Unlike some other basic editors that only have a few effects, iPhoto offers some serious adjustments in a user-friendly interface that anyone can quickly pick up on. I wouldn't think twice about editing photos in iPhoto if I didn't have access to Photoshop on my PC. The Retina display lets you load large resolution photos and retain the same level of detail during editing.

 In addition to new apps for the third-generation iPad, several app developers have been updating existing offerings for the new Retina display. The Daily looks better than ever thanks to the crisp text and compelling images. If you haven't already guessed, it's virtually impossible to spot pixels or jagged edges on text with this new display. Even when zooming in, there's nothing but smooth lines. The iPad 2's low resolution was one of our major complaints about the device.

Apple impressed many onlookers with its Infinity Blade: Dungeons demo during the iPad press event. This Diablo III lookalike seems to really push the slate's quad-core graphics, but unfortunately the game hasn't yet been released. Instead, Chair Entertainment has updated the graphics in Infinity Blade 2 to support the Retina display.

Indeed, the revised graphics do look pretty juicy, but I feel the team could have done a better job. The gameplay is fine but menu items were seemingly untouched and appear very pixelated on the high-res screen. Surely it couldn't have been too difficult to include higher resolution renderings of these objects too? Without it, the game feels somewhat incomplete, as if it was thrown together at the last minute.

Real Racing 2 is another title that received a high-res graphics upgrade. I have no complaints here, as everything looks to be solid and fits the screen perfectly. Even non-gaming apps like Pandora have received the Retina treatment and we expect this trend to continue over the coming weeks and months as other developers migrate to Retina display support.

The new iPad is generally very fast and smooth -- especially in graphically demanding apps, courtesy of its quad-core GPU -- but apps like Mail and iPhoto could use the increased horsepower that two extra processing cores would have delivered (if the A6 processor rumors had been true).

Benchmarks

We ran a handful of benchmark tests comparing processing capabilities of the new iPad versus the iPad 2. Higher numbers is better in all tests.

Usage and Conclusion

To test the battery on the new iPad, I set the screen brightness to 70%, disabled auto-brightness and auto-lock, and loaded a 720p rip of Inception for continuous playback until the battery expired. The iPad was good for 9 hours and 38 minutes of usage.

The disclaimer from our iPad 2 review still applies: your mileage will vary depending on how heavily you use the tablet. If you are doing some heavy-duty photo editing in iPhoto, listening to Pandora in the background and have your Twitter and IM apps all open, you can expect this number to decrease significantly.

The reworked 5MP camera on the back of the iPad is a significant upgrade. Granted, you still aren't likely to carry a tablet as your primary photo snapper but it's nice to have the option if you're in a pinch. The quality is good enough to rival all but the most recent smartphones in our testing. It'll likely do just as well as a budget digital camera, although there isn't a flash. In my experience, camera phone flashes usually make things worse anyway. The front-facing camera is unchanged from the previous model.

1080p content from the iTunes store looks great on the new iPad. Even lesser quality formats like the 720p rip of Inception that was used for our battery test look really nice, albeit with both you will get black bars across the top and bottom of the screen. This is due to the 4:3 aspect ratio on the iPad, a generally uncommon format given the proliferation of widescreen devices available today.

 

There's been a lot of talk regarding how much heat the new iPad generates during use. This is actually one of the first things I noticed when restoring a backup of my iPad 2 from iCloud and updating a large number of apps. Some users claim their iPads have been overheating and entering a mandatory cool-down mode. However, most were playing with their new toy under direct sunlight when this happened. Apple told The Loop earlier this week that the new iPad operates well within their thermal specs.

Meanwhile, Consumer Reports claims the new iPad can't charge under heavy usage. Their testing showed that while playing Infinity Blade 2 for 45 minutes straight (when plugged into the charging cable), the iPad was unable to charge and in fact, the battery drained ever so slightly. I can verify this. 

I plugged the charger into the iPad at 68% battery life then fired up Infinity Blade 2 for roughly 20-25 minutes of gaming. Upon exiting to the home screen, I found the battery capacity dropped to 67%. It's not significant, but it's concerning that the iPad is using more power than the charger can supply.

In terms of audio quality, I can't discern a difference between the new iPad and the iPad 2. The single mono speaker on the back of the iPad appears unchanged. I'd like to see a stereo speaker implemented in a future revision, perhaps even on the front. It'll likely never happen but we can dream, right?

Closing Thoughts 

With the original iPad, many questioned whether there was a place in the market for such a device. Netbooks were surging, notebooks were getting faster and thinner, and smartphones finally reached a point where they were effective mobile Internet tools. With the iPad 2 and countless other clones, it started becoming clear that consumers were indeed attracted to the new tablet format. With the iPad 3 and current generation slates, there's no doubt that tablets are here to stay for the foreseeable future.

Critics hoping for a totally revamped device were likely disappointed with the new iPad and it seems the fanfare isn't as intense as previous releases, but the numbers don't lie. Apple sold three million units on the new iPad's opening weekend, making it the most successful tablet launch in history.

Critics will point to the lack of connectivity and expansion ports (USB, SD memory card, native HDMI, etc.) and there's really no getting around it: the iPad has none of these. Apple's iCloud is about as close as you can get to storage expansion. Flash support was once an ace in the hole for Android tablets though it's quickly becoming irrelevant.

Pricing, however, remains a strong point for Apple. The new iPad starts at the same $499 for a 16GB Wi-Fi only model -- the same price as last year's model and the one before it.

But, should you buy a new iPad? As always, there's really no clear-cut answer here and it all depends on what you have (or don't have) now. If you own the original iPad or similar first generation tablet, there is enough 'new' in the latest iPad to warrant an upgrade in our opinion. Unless you classify yourself as someone that needs the latest and greatest, iPad 2 (and similar) owners can likely sit tight and wait for the next generation of slates before upgrading. If you're just entering the tablet market, Apple's new iPad is, in our opinion, the best choice available today.

That's not to say that there aren't some great Android tablets available right now. Asus's Transformer Prime would be our next choice, but it's a tough sell given the new iPad's Retina display and the sheer size of Apple's app ecosystem.

Pros: Retina display resolution is unmatched. Great performance. Solid operating system and software ecosystem. 4G support. Same price.                                                                Cons: The iPad remains a closed device on many levels and that's something you must live with once you enter Apple's world.

~ Shawn Knight

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