Saturday, March 17, 2012
The new iPad 3 has arrived and with a Retina display, A5X processor and iOS 5.1 preinstalled, we're expecting a lot.
Chassis
We weren't expecting much innovation from the new iPad 3's chassis, and we haven't really got much either. It looks almost identical to the iPad 2, and even dimensions are almost exactly the same. The iPad 3 weighs slightly more than the iPad 2, and is slightly thicker, but we're talking mere millimetres and grams here, but it's nothing you'll notice.
Apple has kept pretty minimalist with the design. There's just the home button below the screen, a Facetime camera on the front, above the screen and on the rear, there's the new improved camera, which looks the same as the iPad 2's camera. The finish on the back is brushed aluminium. We hope it doesn't scratch as easily as the iPad 2, but as everything else is just about the same, we'd expect it to become a victim to scrapes.
On the top, there's the same 3.5mm headphone jack and the power bottom.
On the side? Yep, you guessed it, the lock/mute button and volume keys.
Like we said, it's nothing different to what we expected. Here are some iPad 2/iPad 3 comparisons to feast your eyes on. The iPad with the pink cover is the iPad 2, the blue cover in the new iPad.
Screen
Here's where things start to get interesting. The Retina display on the new iPad is stunning and there's not a pixel in sight. Really - you notice how pixelated the iPad 2's screen is in comparison when you look really closely.
We set the iPad 2's screen to the same brightness, installed the same wallpaper and re-ordered the apps so we could perform a direct comparison. You can clearly see pixels on the iPad 2 and you can't on the iPad 3's Retina display - simple as that.
The iPad 3's screen is also brighter. Greens are more vibrant and flawless. We're in love.
Dictation
Voice dictation is one of the new features of the iPad 3 and we were a little sceptical. We've always been fans of third party apps such as Dragon Dictation, and it certainly helps if you're not a fan of a touchscreen keyboard.
So, for initial testing, we fired up the Mail application and attempted to type an email. Just tap the microphone icon at the bottom of the keyboard and you'll hear that Siri chime. Start speaking, tap the icon again and after a few seconds, your voice will be translated into typed words.
It was really accurate, even when mumbling and we can see ouselves using this feature quite frequently.
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| iPad 3 |
Another big improvement in this latest iPad is the introduction of the iSight camera.
Hardware-wise, the camera has been upped from barely 1-megapixel to 5-megapixels and been given an awful lot of new features including touch to focus, face detection and image stabilisation.
Let's get something straight here: photos can now be used for something other than Facebook.
You will look like a bit of an idiot taking photos on a tablet. In fact, the 10-inch frame makes it very hard to even find a comfortable position, but once you do, quality is high. Snaps are not comparable to a top end camera phone, but they are crisp (until you zoom in) and well balanced.
Unfortunately, when you do decide to zoom in, they are really noisy, even if you fired off the snap in the best of lighting conditions.
Internals
The iPad's processor has been refreshed, with an ARM A5X SoC. We haven't been able to properly test this out yet, with only a handful of apps installed, but first impressions seem pretty good.
There's no stuttering, photos are quick to take, from firing up the application to storing in your camera roll and homescreens are speedy to scroll through.
Everything else
The rest of the iPad is pretty much the same as the iPad 2. The iOS firmware has been updated a little, but there's nothing major to note here.
Apps have also been updated, but we'll be testing those properly over the weekend.
Overall first impressions
If you're looking to upgrade form the original iPad, do it now. The new iPad 3 has so much more to offer than Apple's first tablet. If you have the iPad 2 though, it's only the screen and the camera that can sway us. The rest is so similar to the iPad 2 (unless you're in the US and can use the 4G for speedy out-of-Wi-Fi areas), that we probably wouldn't easily shell out £400.
We'll have our full review up on Monday, so check back then to see how we feel about the iDevice after we've spent a weekend stroking its crystal clear screen.
