Apple's iPad 3, Part 1: The Complete Retina Display And A5X Review

By Alan Dang, Andrew Ku
published

Apple's third-generation iPad hit the market last week, and we're impressed. Sporting a new 9.7" Retina display, the iPad 3 sports the most gorgeous display that we've seen on a tablet. Join us for the first part of our iPad 3 coverage.

Better Color And Adobe RGB Performance

Most people will find that the Retina display delivers more spectacular colors, as it renders nearly 66% of the Adobe RGB1998 color gamut—nearly a 35% improvement over the iPad 2. Just by looking at the 2D LUV color map, we can see that the improvement is most noticeable in images containing rich reds and blues. (Updated: Here's a more detailed gamut map including Galaxy Tab 10.1.)

The iPad 3’s Retina display matches the brightness of other spectacular screens, such as the Transfomer Prime's SuperIPS, but is capable of rendering more colors. Apple clearly puts the iPad 3’s image quality on center stage, and the results speak for themselves.

The 2.4 gamma is remarkably close to the ideal 2.2, which means photographers should be pleased that mid-tones appear “just right” (not too pale, not too bright).

Swipe to scroll horizontally
Header Cell - Column 0 iPad 2iPad 3Galaxy Tab 10.1Transformer Prime (SuperIPS Off)
Gamut of Adobe RGB 199849.9%66%62.8%40.2%
Gamma2.342.41.821.76
Max. Brightness (nits)379.1403.6360.4409.9
Color Temperature7100 K6800 K8900 K6500 K
Resolution1024x7682048x15361280x8001280x800
Pixels per inch132264149149
Contrast Ratio758.21009.51122.9819.8
Alan Dang
68 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Would an alternate browser affect image display at all?
    Reply
  • tomfreak
    the requirement to use adapter to use usb and sd card = minus 50% score for any tablet. Period.
    Reply
  • joytech22
    On the CPU and GPU performance page, there's a typo.

    When comparing the three iPads, the iPad 2 and iPad 3 are both said to be using PowerVR SGX545 GPUs (core-count is correct) while the table below it comparing SoCs the models are completely different and listed as SGX543.

    I smell something fishy, dinner must almost be ready! :D
    Reply
  • acerace
    love apple ..................... crap android *** copy tabs and phones

    Fail troll.
    Reply
  • Tc17
    I have a bridge to sell you if you believe this retina nonsense, on a tiny 10" screen.
    Reply
  • amk-aka-Phantom
    Tomfreakthe requirement to use adapter to use usb and sd card = minus 50% score for any tablet. Period.
    My thoughts exactly. I don't care that it outputs 3x FPS over Transformer Prime; the latter can actually integrate into my devices' ecosystem and that's what matters. I'm not buying any tablet or phone without inbuilt memory card reader.
    Reply
  • amk-aka-Phantom
    Though, of course, it's really sad that Apple is beating Asus on the graphics front. Really, really sad.
    Reply
  • amk-aka-Phantom
    tc17I have a bridge to sell you if you believe this retina nonsense, on a tiny 10" screen.
    After playing around with most hi-end Android devices AND iPhone 4S/iPad 2, I happen to believe this "nonsense". Everything looks so much more hi-res... but that's only Android's fault. When are they going to fix the menu animation lag and make everything more hi-res? ICS kind of did a good job on it, though, and now it actually looks NOTHING like iOS and is beautiful.

    Of course, the menu animation lag and low-res icons can't make me shift to Apple, especially now that I run ICS on my netbook (try that, Apple... oh wait, your toy MacOS IS already like a tablet OS, lol) - same way that MacOS's ability to take screenshots of a selected area of the screen can't make me shift from Windows/Ubuntu. It's just not nearly enough to compensate for the important features I'll lose. Sure enough, there're tons of people to whom all of them don't matter and they'll just go with the most hyped thing out there, but I prefer to know what I'm paying for. It's a habit that pays off on the long run.
    Reply
  • killerchickens
    I wish toms would stop using the bs retina display term considering the ipad 3's display isn't even close to the original standard.
    Reply
  • bernardv
    2048x1536 on a 10" screen? This is a joke, 0 value to 99.9% of end users. A fanboy excuse for throwing money away.

    The author comments it is suitable for watching movies. Which movie is even available in such a resolution??? For watching movies in your lap on 10", 720p is more than enough.
    Reply