Sign in with
Sign up | Sign in
The Complete iPad 3 Review: Retina Display, A5X, 4G LTE, And Camera
By ,
1. The New iPad Is Heavier, But Features A Dazzling Display

Every new product launch from Apple is enveloped in hype and hoopla. Some folks look for reasons to love the new hardware, while others spend hours looking for that one flaw that'll get everyone's attention. Not surprisingly, the iPad 3 launched to a full media circus.

But not everyone's expectations were satisfied by Apple’s third-generation tablet. Looking back at how this product family has evolved, the iPad 2 advanced in a pretty clear way. It was smaller, thinner, lighter, and delivered better performance. The iPad 2 was expensive, yes. However, its improvements over the company's first-generation effort made the price tag worthwhile for a great many.

The third-generation iPad is a different beast. Rather than tackle "smaller, thinner, lighter, and faster" again, Apple bolsters this device's image quality with a significantly higher-resolution display. The HD resolution is accompanied by a more powerful graphics processor able to maintain performance, even under the load of greater pixel density.

Our LCD benchmarks allow us to accurately quantify the image quality improvements, which you may have already seen in our first look at the iPad 3. To briefly recap, we found substantially better color performance and saturation. 

To focus exclusively on the iPad's new screen is to overlook a multitude of other small changes that Apple made, though. Today, we're going back to explore all of that in a more comprehensive review of Apple's newest tablet.

ButtonsButtonsSIM Holder, Same SizeSIM Holder, Same SizeSIM CardsSIM Cards

Compared to the iPad 2, The New iPad, as Apple calls it, feels very familiar. It's virtually the same size as its predecessor, and there are almost no changes to where notable components appear. The camera, microSIM card (4G model), speakers, buttons, and docking connector are all right where someone with an iPad 2 would expect to find them.

Last year, we noted that the iPad 2's docking connector was a bit of a bother, and even this point carries over. The curved casing makes it difficult to easily dock, often resulting in the connector scratching the tablet's chassis near the port. From a usability standpoint, the curved design also makes it harder to get tactile feedback from the power, volume, and mute buttons.

BackBackThicknessThickness

Although the design isn't any different, some folks can easily distinguish between the iPad 2 and 3. If you set one down next to the other, you'll notice that The New iPad is slightly thicker (though not by much; it's just a .03-inch difference).

More notable is that the newest iPad is about 10% heavier. Even that's pretty minor, though. About 18 g separates the third-gen 4G model and the first-gen Wi-Fi model.

Specifications
iPad
iPad 3G
iPad 2
iPad 2 3G
iPad 3
iPad 3 4G LTE
Length
9.56"
9.50"
Height
7.47"
7.31"
Width
.5"
0.34"
0.37"
Weight
1.5 lb (680 g)
1.6 lb (730 g)
1.33 lb (601 g)
GSM: 1.35 lb (613 g)
CDMA: 1.34 lb (607 g)
1.44 lb (652 g)
1.46 lb (662 g)
2. Wide-Gamut Color Performance


Apple went all-out in its effort to achieve dramatic image quality improvements.
As the first tablet sporting a HD-class resolution (2048x1536), the iPad 3 also impresses with corresponding improvements in pixel density. Significant color performance enhancements are also part of the iPad 3 story, as shown our charts below.

The iPad 3 renders 66.1% of the AdobeRGB 1998 color gamut—a nearly a 35% improvement over previous iPads. A color gamut above 60% is actually quite good, and on par with most desktop monitors. Note the slightly lower LCD gamut quality score of the iPad 2 compared to the iPad in the above chart. Although we'd expect the results to be the same, Apple sourced displays for its second-gen model from both LG and Samsung, so gamut quality performance can vary.

Rendering relative to the sRGB gamut demonstrates more impressive numbers. The New iPad tops this list, and a wide gap separates it from its nearest competitor. The Galaxy Tab 10.1 is capable of rendering a respectable 76.2% of the sRGB gamut, but is still roughly 20% lower than the iPad 3.

Gamut percentages and color maps provide quick-and-dirty estimates of LCD panel performance. However, they can be misleading. It's possible for two displays that share the same gamut percentage to look completely different. This is why we examine cross-sections of a 3D gamut map in order to get the real story.

We're comparing four snapshots of the iPad 3's gamut model to maps for the iPad 2 and AdobeRGB 1998 spec. Although the results look like a challenge to interpret, the idea is quite simple. Dark colors are called shadows, and they reside at a lower cross-section on the map. For example, dark blues reside at the 0-25% region. Moving up presents you with brighter colors, typically called mid-tones and highlights. You can click here to view the iPad 3's 3D gamut map.

Better Dark BluesBetter Dark BluesBetter Bright GreensBetter Bright GreensBetter Dark RedsBetter Dark Reds

Because these are 2D snapshots of a 3D model, specific points of analysis are difficult to interpret. In short, though, the new iPad delivers a huge improvement in rendering dark blue, dark magenta, dark reds, blue mid-tones, red mid-tones, and bright green. Interestingly, the iPad 2 does slightly better in cyan shadows and mid-tones.

3. Driving Higher Resolutions Requires More Power

The iPad 3's display is visually stunning. But driving more pixels using a more powerful graphics processor requires a trade-off in the form of higher power use. (If you're not familiar with the A5X or how it compares to other SoCs, read our earlier part one coverage of the iPad 3.)

Rather than using a larger panel, which would have been impractical on a tablet, Apple's Retina display occupies the same 9.7" footprint, augmenting resolution through greater pixel density. The result, however, is increased power consumption that tracks in much the same way you'd expect from 22" and 27" screens running at different resolutions. In that parallel, the 27" monitor consumes 3x to 4x more energy as it drives more pixels. Apple is unable to mitigate the increased power consumption normally associated with higher-resolution screens because it's still using panels manufactured with amorphous silicon. These displays are far less energy efficient than the Low Temperature Poly Silicon (LTPS) used on the iPhone's Retina display.

Desktop Power Consumption
Core i5-2500K, HD Graphics 3000 System
1280x720
1920x1080
Desktop Idle
49.1 W
50 W
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3
101 W
104 W


The iPad 3's high-resolution display also requires a more powerful graphics processor, which had its own impact on power use. More pixels on the screen necessitate a faster piece of silicon to draw and render, just to maintain similar performance. Although desktop PCs feature much more thermal flexibility, the chart above illustrates our point: a GPU has to work harder at higher resolutions, reflected in a power measurement. This is just as applicable on a tablet employing embedded graphics.

Fortunately, the iPad 3 features Apple's new A5X SoC. It's fundamentally the same as the iPad 2's A5, except that it has four GPU cores, effectively doubling graphics potential. The A5X powers the iPad 3's display at 2048x1536 just as smoothly as the A5 at 1024x768.

4. Battery Life: What To Expect

Enhanced image quality and correspondingly higher power draw requires a larger battery. Apple’s solution for the iPad 3 is a whopping 42.5 Wh Li-ion battery, representing a substantial change from iPad 2’s battery rated at 25 Wh. This larger battery explains the iPad 3’s added heft, but also helps explain how Apple is able to claim comparable battery life as the iPad 2, even in light of a device that incurs increased power consumption. The Retina display and GPU are both both notable energy hogs, but the 70%-larger battery pack compensates for the greater power demand.


In addition to contributing weight, a larger battery pack requires much longer to reach a full charge. At least five hours is necessary to hit 90% capacity.

Fully charging the iPad 3 takes as long as six hours (about 33% longer than both the iPad and iPad 2). That's the longest recharge time measurement that we've ever recorded, but not too bad given the iPad 3's 70%-larger battery pack.

Although you'll spend longer recharging Apple's new iPad, real-world use validates the company's claims of comparable battery life. At maximum brightness, the iPad 3 delivers about six hours of Web browsing, putting it at the top of our chart.

In the interest of full disclosure, our benchmark involves surfing sites like CNN and Wikipedia. While we also play MP3s in the background during the benchmark, we've discovered that workload really has no impact on battery life because ARM's NEON SIMD engine is incredibly efficient at decoding music files.

In previous tablet reviews, we standardized on a maximum brightness setting, neglecting to normalize display brightness. This wasn't an accidental oversight. There's a legitimate argument to be made in that most people set the highest value on their notebooks and tablets, dimming it only if they get a low-battery warning.

With that said, normalizing screen brightness to 200 nits enables a fair apples-to-apples tablet display comparison. In that environment, the iPad 3's battery life jumps to more than nine hours, a four-hour increase from the max brightness setting. Asus' Tegra 3-powered Transformer Prime comparatively gains less battery life from our standardization, enjoying about one hour extra hour of battery life with its display set to 200 nits.

Apple's latest tablet falls a bit shorter in movie playback. While the iPad 2 delivers more than half of a day's worth of battery life, the iPad 3 trails at 11 hours, roughly on par with the Transformer Prime.

Epic Citadel on iPad 3Epic Citadel on iPad 3

Measuring battery life while gaming is tricky business on tablets. Unlike desktop/notebook PCs, there aren't any solid synthetics able to cross platform boundaries to facilitate comparisons between devices. Further, the wide variety of available games impose different CPU/GPU loads. One of the more popular titles for iOS is Epic's Citadel because it's based on the same code used in Infinity Blade. Much like 3DMark, Citadel loops a sequence through the app's landscape. But while it delivers a decent level of graphical detail, we're not quite sure if Citadel is an ideal test because it's the same scene over and over.

Suspiciously, when we first started benchmarking the iPad 3, it consistently delivered the same battery life as Apple's iPad 2. Fortunately, we have other options for validating our results.

Riptide GP on iPad 3Riptide GP on iPad 3

Originally ported from Xbox Live to Android, Riptide GP is now also available for iOS. This is a more appropriate title for benchmarking because it's an actual game. Riptide is also capable of serving as a reliable benchmark because it automatically enters into a demo mode when it idles on the home screen. According to the developer (Vector), the textures are dynamically rendered during the demo, causing the system to be continuously stressed. Our benchmark results show this happening as well.

The iPad 3's quad-core SGX543 GPU and Retina display requires much more power than the iPad 2 that came before. Yet, Apple's new iPad still manages to serve up about five hours of battery life while gaming, which is close to the original iPad.

5. Is There A Problem With Heat? We Profile Power

Source: Consumer ReportsSource: Consumer Reports

The iPad 3 delivers respectable battery life, given its high-res display and more potent internals. However, a new controversy surrounding Apple's latest tablet underscores the importance of identifying the environments where power consumption is highest. This issue was covered by our friends at Engadget, but the loudest complaints came from Consumer Reports, which claimed the iPad 3's chassis hit a very toasty 116 degrees during gaming sessions. The result was a new controversy to keep Apple in the news.

Having played the new Infinity Blade II and the recently-updated Real Racing 2 HD, there are counterpoints to the concerns about heat. First, the high temperatures occur during games. When you're surfing the Web or listening to music, the iPad 3 never reaches a point where it's uncomfortable on the lap. The average surface temperature varies, but it's close to 90-95o F.

Second, though the iPad 3 consumes more power, increased consumption is mostly attributable to the Retina display, and power consumption measurements certainly back this up. At any given brightness level, the iPad 3 consumes ~2x more power.

In comparison, the quad-core SGX543 GPU uses very a small amount of energy. While the iPad 3's Retina display consumes at most 8 W at maximum luminance, playing a game like Riptide only adds 2 or 3 more watts to the measurement. That's a huge difference.

6. Mapping Out iPad 3's Heat: Surface Temperature

So, we've established a relationship between the Retina display, gaming, and power consumption. But there is one more thing to consider: though Apple's Retina display is the largest single largest determiner of power consumption, it's not the only culprit behind the tablet's heat. For that, we have to look to the SGX543MP4 GPU's thermal footprint.

The iPad 3 display consumes 3x more power, but heat is dissipated over a larger area. The GPU is much, much smaller. As a result, when you look at a thermal image of the iPad 3 you see a single hot spot. 

You can see how the iPad 3 GPU affects surface temperature by comparing our contour charts. After an hour of gaming at maximum brightness, the iPad 2's screen approaches 80-85o F (above), with the back of the tablet spiking as high as 90o F (below).

In comparison, the iPad 3's Retina display (below) gets as hot as 95o—that's toasty, but not hot enough to spark a controversy, considering the surface temperature of human skin is in the same range.

In the chart below we see the back of Apple's iPad 3 after an hour of gaming. It jumps as high as 105o on the rear of the case. But we have to imagine that very few folks game for more than an hour with a tablet in their hands.

Within the first five minutes of game play, the tablet's rear surface temperature is only in the 85 degree range.

Fifteen minutes in, average surface temperature is closer to 95o. At the end of the day, excessive heat shouldn't be a problem unless you're playing demanding games for extended periods of time.

7. Taking An Infrared Camera To The iPad 3

Our Kintrex IRT0421 laser-targeting thermometer lets us measure surface temperature, but we can do even better with an infrared camera, which detects infrared energy and converts it into an electronic signal.

On the previous page, we created each heat map by taking nine samples on the front and back of the tablets. But those samples only represent individual pin points. The Flir i7 lets us visualize the entire device at 140x140 resolution, and with plus or minus two-degree accuracy.

We probably won't be using the i7 much moving forward, since its focus is fixed. However, the images themselves tell the story here. Apple's A5X is responsible for the hotspot observed during gaming sessions. (Link to view full thermal camera image gallery of the iPad 3.)

Look what happens when brightness is increased, below. The whole tablet's temperature (measured at the front and back) jumps by a significant margin. Though it's a worst-case scenario, this situation illustrates that concerns about heat are largely limited to 3D workloads with the screen's brightness cranked up as high as it'll go. On it's own, the Retina display is about as hot as human skin, whereas the iPad 2 is comparatively cool.

8. 4G LTE Performance: Verizon Versus AT&T

One of the new iPad's biggest selling points is 4G LTE mobile broadband networking. The great news is that iPad 3 supports the Verizon and AT&T mobile networks. Both companies operate in the same band. Verizon mostly uses 746-787 MHz, while AT&T primarily uses 704-746 MHz. Apple can accommodate customers from the two providers with a single baseband modem (Qualcomm's Gobi MDM9600) by simply swapping SIM cards.

iPad 3 4G LTE Verizon: Switching To AT&T

Based on our own tinkering, Apple doesn't appear to have locked its iPads, at least the tablets shipping with Verizon's service preinstalled. As shown in the video above, we can remove the AT&T microSIM from one iPad 3 and use it in another purchased with a Verizon microSIM. This is great news for anyone who owns an iPad 2 and wants to switch carriers. 

For example, if you own an iPad 2 with an AT&T microSIM, you can buy a Verizon iPad 3, use the microSIM from your iPad 2 in your iPad 3, and still get 4G LTE mobile broadband networking. To be clear, LTE isn't available everywhere, and you'll have to fall back to 3G+ or 4G in some areas. Further, choosing a different carrier on your iPad 3 doesn't allow backwards compatibility. You can't use a Verizon SIM card on your AT&T iPad 2 because they use an entirely different cellular band and standard. Oddly, we couldn't get the SIM card from our Verizon iPad 3 to work in our AT&T iPad 3.

Data Plan
AT&T (map)Verizon (map)
250 MB per month
$14.99
-
1 GB per month
-
$20.00
2 GB per month-
$30.00
3 GB per month$30.00
5 GB per month
$50.00
10 GB per month
-
$80.00


Mobile broadband subscription plans have not changed much within the United States. However, Verizon-flavored iPad 3s have a distinct advantage over their AT&T competition in that they're able to operate as wireless hotspots—a superior option to MiFi mobile Wi-Fi hotspots for travelers. Battery life is simply unbelievable; we were able to squeeze about 23.5 hours out of the iPad 3 while it was operating as a hotspot.

9. HDMI Output Disappoints; Camera Quality Impresses

HDMI Output

The iPad 3's native image quality shines, but it isn't able to translate that to video output quality. All of the issues we complained about a year ago on the iPad 2 remain.

The iPad 3 still offers no dongle-based wireless video output option, forcing us to pack Apple’s Digital AV Adapter to business meetings. (Airplay allows you to wirelessly mirror but it requires Apple TV.) Qualcomm's Wireless Display demo at MWC 2012 gives us hope that a power-friendly solution is on the horizon, but it may be another year before we see the technology emerge on next-generation tablets.

Output to PC MonitorOutput to PC MonitorOutput to HDTVOutput to HDTV

The iPad 3’s hard-wired video display output implementation grapples with mirroring issues tied to its 4:3 aspect ratio.

Keyboard CloningKeyboard CloningH.264 movieH.264 movie

Apple’s Digital AV Adapter allows only HDMI-connected video output from the iPad 3. Restricting video output to 1080p resolution, HDMI video output delivers a mirrored 4:3 image upscaled to 1080p. What's missing is an option to disable mirroring and enable native 1080p output to an external display.

The current mirroring implementation also needs an overhaul. With the iPad 3, mirroring is disabled only if you watch a full-screen 16:9 movie. Everything else is viewed in 4:3 format, eliminating the advantage of a 16:9 display entirely. Further, Apple's solution puts the iOS keyboard on both screens simultaneously. Ideally, it should be displayed only on the tablet when docked, facilitating a cleaner full-screen image on the external screen.

Camera Quality

As a device for viewing high-resolution digital photographs, the iPad 3 is fantastic. And the tablet’s upgraded rear-facing sensor rivals some standalone point-and-shoot cameras.

The front-facing sensor is still a fairly weak .3 MP. However, the iPad 2's grainy and fuzzy .7 MP rear-facing camera is gone, replaced by a 5 MP Omnivision OV5650, which was used on the iPhone 4. Improved though the camera may be, though, we still can't help but chuckle when we see someone holding an iPad out in front of them, snapping pictures.

Omnivision's sensor received a detailed analysis when we compared the iPhone 4 to the iPhone 4S. Seen in the close-up macro shots above, the 5 MP sensor generates excellent images of well-lit stationary subjects. Image quality suffers in low light conditions, blurring is evident from moving subjects, and lens flare occurs if you shoot toward a light source. But those caveats also apply to a majority of point-and-shoot cameras, too.

10. The New iPad: Making Life Hard For The Competition, Again

A new, more powerful graphics processor, the high-res Retina display, a better rear-facing camera, and 4G LTE mobile broadband networking beef up what The New iPad can do. Apple chose to more aggressively pile on features instead of chasing after something smaller, thinner, lighter, or faster.

Despite nit-picking aspects of design, criticizing certain functionality trade-offs, and admonishing the lack of Apple cleverness in video output, we have to acknowledge the iPad 3's impact. It once again alters expectations of all other tablets that emerge from here on out. Why? A fabulous high-resolution display facilitates the visual impact needed further the purpose of a touch-sensitive personal computing device. All other tablet vendors will unquestionably scramble, now, to catch up.

Typically, you're looking at a tablet from less than a foot away. At that distance, the iPad 3's improved color fidelity and higher resolution present a significant usability advantage. Its incredible detail and gamut performance simply blow away the competition. Rendering 66% of the AdobeRGB 1998 and 94% of the sRGB gamut, Apple's latest tablet unquestionably helps shape the future of tablets.

Manufacturers working on Android-based tablets need to reconsider their positions. Price and a flexible operating system are both still important differentiators. However, models geared toward the premium space need to put a more significant emphasis on image quality. Moving forward, we think that Samsung is the vendor to watch. Already a leader in creating innovative display technology, the company has the contract to manufacture Apple's Retina displays.

Last year, Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 debuted to much fanfare. However, only a few enthusiasts understood that Samsung’s SuperPLS panel played a key role in what came to be known as one of the best-looking tablets. Revisiting our benchmarks, SuperPLS is what enabled the Galaxy Tab 10.1 to render 76% of the sRGB gamut (~63% of AdobeRGB 1998). The Galaxy Tab 10.1 was good enough to supplant the iPad 2 with a 10% lead in image quality—and Samsung didn't have to increase pixel density to do it. Even today, the Galaxy Tab's display remains the top competition for iPad 3. Although Samsung's tablet offers one-third as many pixels, it only falls behind 23% in sRGB performance (5% in AdobeRGB 1998). For now.

Does all of that make Apple's new iPad the world’s ultimate tablet? Yes—and no. The rear-facing camera upgrade yields great results, and 4G LTE is a clear benefit. But very few of us purchase tablets specifically for those features (though the Verizon-flavored iPad 3 comes highly recommended if you need wireless hotspot capabilities).

Our chief complaint about the iPad 3, if we had to pick one, is its weight, necessarily greater as a result of a larger battery that services more power-hungry hardware. Apple was forced to boost the iPad 3's battery pack capacity by 70%, making the finished product 10% heavier than its predecessor. By no means does the extra heft counteract the iPad 3's advances, but it does remind us a little of the first-gen iPad when we hold it in our hands.

In many ways, the iPad 3 is two steps forward and one back. Apple's image quality gains are impressive, as are the other feature additions. If you own an iPad or iPad 2, you have to decide if you want to pay the "Apple tax" yet again for an improved model that weighs more than its predecessor. If not, then the weight issue might not be an issue at all, and you can enjoy the most advanced tablet available without worrying about what came before.