I absolutely love my new iPad, and I loved the last iPad I had and the one before that. I know many of our readers are iPad users and many of you have already updated. I just wanted to give the rest of you my take on this device after having used it for a couple of weeks now.
So, the big thing. Retina display=amazing. I love the display. This one feature is what prompted me to upgrade for the third time. I mostly do reading on my iPad (I believe I’ve written about that before), and I get nearly every magazine and a good chunk of my books are on my iPad. All the magazine apps that have been upgraded to work with the higher resolution truly look amazing. It seems like the change over to the higher res has been slow going but when it happens it’s worth the wait. Games are beautiful as well, provided they’ve been upgraded. I do very little gaming on my iPad, The Old Republic takes up much of my free game time, but what I’ve seen is amazing. It wouldn’t surprise me if Apple makes a Bluetooth game controller and turns their iPad into a pseudo-gaming console soon.
There is one thing that you should keep in mind, however. Higher resolution means larger files. Don’t be surprised if your magazines take up double the space the lower resolution ones did. This also applies to all apps that are upgraded to take advantage of the display. If you were like me and had a 32GB iPad 2 and always had to finagle things (in terms of free space) to get them on the iPad, buy the largest iPad you can afford.
Next thing (and one that has been in the news): the battery. This battery has a roughly 70% larger capacity than the iPad 2 battery. It does take longer to charge than the old one, but this should make sense. Larger battery, longer charge time. In my experience when the iPad is running it takes about 10 hours to charge. I haven’t tested it with the iPad off as mine is nearly always in use.
Another change is that when the iPad hits 100%, it will stop charging the battery and let it start to drain. Then, it will start to recharge the battery—this is to protect it from overcharging. Apple’s current line of portable computers do the same thing. In the past, with the older MacBooks and MacBook Pros, if you left them plugged in for long periods you could damage the battery.
This battery protection can lead to the impression that the iPad takes longer to charge once it hits 100%. The battery size had to be increased to allow for the greater power consumption of the display and to a lesser extent the processor. You still get the same 10 hour run time, which I can attest to with my iPad. I’m hoping Apple will release a software update to make this less confusing for the user.
The other thing that’s been in the news lately is the heat generated by the iPad. Personally, I think people are blowing it out of proportion. It should be expected that this device will get warmer than its predecessor. The processor is more powerful and the display is insane compared to the old one. They draw more power, and will generate more heat. It’s the same with all electronics. The more powerful and faster you make it the more heat will be generated. Keep in mind there are no fans in this device to cool it down, so it has to use the aluminum as a heatsink. I have yet to have this iPad get so hot as to be uncomfortable. Apple could, of course, add cooling elements inside the device but then people would complain that it’s too thick.
It still doesn’t have the capability of adding an SD card, but it really doesn’t need that. It still doesn’t run Flash either, but at this point it’s irrelevant as even Adobe has dumped the mobile version. Overall, I think it’s a great device and well worth the upgrade if you use your iPad on a daily basis—and especially if you do a lot of reading.