The Apple iPad Review (2012)
by Vivek Gowri & Anand Lal Shimpi on March 28, 2012 3:14 PM ESTThe Next iPhone
Historically the iPad has been the launch vehicle for Apple's next-generation iPhone SoC. It's safe to say that the 45nm A5X we've seen here today won't be finding its way into a smartphone. Instead what we're likely to see in the next iPhone this year is a 28/32nm shrink of the A5, coupled with Qualcomm's 28nm MDM9615 instead of the 45nm MDM9600 enabling LTE support.
It'll be next year before we see the introduction of the A6 in the fourth generation iPad, which will likely bring ARM's Cortex A15 to the table as well as Imagination Technologies' PowerVR Series 6 (codename Rogue) GPU. Apple isn't done driving GPU performance. There's still a chance we'd see the introduction of a Cortex A15 based SoC late this year for the new iPhone but I still believe the timing is too aggressive for that to happen.
Haswell
In working on this review, Vivek IMed me and told me the best part of using an iPad instead of a notebook is the battery life. When the battery indicator reads only 20% left, chances are you've still got a good couple of hours of battery life left on the new iPad. On a MacBook Pro? You're lucky if you get half of that.
The question is, must this gap always exist? The MacBook Pro has much more power hungry silicon, and it's running a much more power hungry OS and application set. I won't go too far into this but one of the promises Intel is making with Haswell, its 2013 microprocessor architecture, is for a > 20x decrease in connected standby power. Intel's goal is to be able to deliver an Ultrabook in 2013 that can remain in connected standby (still receiving emails, Twitter updates, push notfications, etc...) for up to 10 days on a single charge.
What about for a lighter, more tablet like usage model? Will Haswell be able to deliver more iPad-like battery life for most tasks, but offer the horsepower and flexibility to run a traditional OS? I'm hearing very exciting things about next year...
Windows 8
A while ago I made a list of the top 10 things I did with my computer. It looked something like this:
Web Browsing
IM
Photo/Video Editing
Excel
Editing Reviews (HTML)
Publishing Reviews (FTP, CMS access)
3D Gaming
Writing
Email
Twitter
Of that list of 10, most of them could be done on a tablet, but only a couple of them delivered a better experience on a tablet than on a desktop/notebook (web browsing and email). You could argue that interacting with Twitter is also better on a tablet as well. Regardless of where you draw the line however, the fact of the matter is that for a user like me I can't replace a notebook with a tablet or vice versa. I need both. I don't like the idea of needing both, I'd rather just have one that could always deliver the best experience possible.
It's this problem I believe Microsoft is trying to address with Windows 8. Put Windows 8 on a convertible or dockable tablet (ala ASUS' Transformer Prime), with x86 hardware, and you've got a very real solution to this problem. When you want a touchscreen tablet, you've got one. When you want a more traditional workhorse notebook, you've got one there as well. I make the x86 reference because that way you don't lose out on compatibility with all of your older desktop apps that you may rely on.
For years Microsoft has failed to deliver a consumer friendly tablet by forcing a desktop UI on it. Its experience with Media Center taught us all that vastly different usage models need different user interfaces. It took Microsoft a long time to realize this, but with Windows 8 I believe it has one solution to the tablet problem. It is ironic/funny/depressing that with Windows 8 Microsoft is simply making the same mistake it made for years with tablets, in reverse. This time around the desktop experience suffers (or at best, just isn't moved forward) in order to focus more on the tablet experience. Sigh, one of these days they'll figure it out.
The point of this sidebar on Windows 8 is to talk about the iOS equivalent. Apple advocated so strongly with the iPhone for the consolidation of devices, I can't help but assume that we'll see a similar move in the MacBook Air/iPad space. iOS is far more multitasking friendly today than it was a couple of years ago. The support for multitasking gestures alone on the iPad is huge. But there clearly has to be more. I don't even know if iOS 6 is really when we'll see this intersection between tablet and ultra portable happen. Like Haswell, this may also be a 2013 thing...
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jjj - Wednesday, March 28, 2012 - link
Testing battery life only in web browsing ? Maybve that would be ok for a 100$ device.As it is the battery tests are prety poor,you do video playback when every SoC out there has a dedicated decode unit and that test is only representative for vid playback.Here the most important test should have been battery life when both GPU and CPU are loaded and not including that seems like an intentional omission to avoid makiing the device look bad.There are a lot of other things to say about the review,too many but one thing has to be said.
This is a plan B or plan C device.The screen is the selling point,is what had to go in,they didn't had 28/32nm in time and had to go for a heavier,thicker,hotter device with a huge chip (CPU speed is limited most likely by heat not so much power consumption,ofc both are directly related).Apple had to make way too many compromises to fit in the screen,no way this was plan A.
tipoo - Thursday, March 29, 2012 - link
I would have liked a gaming battery life test as well.PeteH - Thursday, March 29, 2012 - link
Beyond even that, I'd like to see a worst-case battery life (i.e. gaming, max brightness, LTE up, etc).Also, it'd be really interesting to see how brightness impacts battery life. Maybe the web browsing test at 20%, 40%, 60%, 80%, and 100% brightness. Of course that would probably delay the review by several days, so it might not be worth it.
Anand Lal Shimpi - Thursday, March 29, 2012 - link
We did a max brightness test, however a gaming test would be appropriate as well. I will see if I can't run some of that in the background while I work on things for next week :)Take care,
Anand
SimpleLance - Wednesday, March 28, 2012 - link
The biggest drain for the battery comes from the display. So, if the iPad will be used for hotspot only (with display turned off), you will get a lot of hours from it because it has such a huge battery.But then, using the the iPad just for a hotspot would be a waste of that gorgeous display.
Very nice review of a very nice product.
thrawn3 - Wednesday, March 28, 2012 - link
Am I the only one that feels the max brightness is more important in day to day use of a highly portable device than DPI and color accuracy?I absolutely would love to have all of these three be excellent but I think for a tablet or small laptop Max Brightness and DPI are higher priority than color accuracy. This is exactly what the ASUS Transformer Infinity is supposed to be but I would prefer it on a real laptop.
I care about color accuracy too but I am perfectly fine with needing a desktop monitor and trading brightness there since it is in a stable environment until we hit the technological level that will allow all these elements to be combined. Maybe quantum dot display technology in the future?
One thing I have to give all these new displays is that they FINALLY have gotten the wide viewing angles thing right and I will be so happy to get this into the rest of the market.
seapeople - Tuesday, April 3, 2012 - link
Would you really prefer a bright 1366x768 TN panel with 200 contrast ratio on a 15" laptop over a less bright IPS Ipad screen with much better resolution, DPI, color accuracy, and viewing angle?vision33r - Wednesday, March 28, 2012 - link
The screen is really gorgeous when you shoot raw with any DSLR and view it in iPhoto.ol1bit - Wednesday, March 28, 2012 - link
I just bought a Asus Transformer Prime, and your review was spot on with what I decided. I can not live with IOS and using Android for 3 years.Just the simple stuff was my decision:
1. Freedom of Android, file transfers, etc. No Itunes requirement.
2. MicroSD
3. Kewl keyboard
4. Live Wallpaper.
5. A real desktop, separate from my applications.
6. 32GB versus 16GB
7. Gorilla Glass (yes, true. My original droid lived in my pocket 2 years no scratches, my HTC Rezound scratches the first 2 weeks).
8. Asus (love their MBs)
9. Nivida (love their GPUs)
What I will miss:
1. Ipad 3 Display.
darkcrayon - Thursday, March 29, 2012 - link
1. iTunes is no longer ever needed for an iOS device. I consider the option of a first party desktop sync solution to be an advantage now that it's not a requirement.7. It seems likely the new iPad uses Gorilla Glass or Gorilla Glass 2...
9. Odd that you'd love nVidia's GPUs when they've been pretty much the bottom of the performance barrel for ARM device graphics, even excluding Apple's SoCs (which have lately been using the fastest GPUs in the industry by far).