The Apple iPad Review (2012)
by Vivek Gowri & Anand Lal Shimpi on March 28, 2012 3:14 PM ESTGaming Conclusion
In situations where a game is available in both the iOS app store as well as NVIDIA's Tegra Zone, NVIDIA generally delivers a comparable gaming experience to what you get on the iPad. In some cases you even get improved visual quality as well. The iPad's GPU performance advantage just isn't evident in those cases—likely because the bulk of iOS devices out there still use far weaker GPUs. That's effectively a software answer to a hardware challenge, but it's true.
NVIDIA isn't completely vindicated however. In Apple's corner you have Infinity Blade 2 and the upcoming Infinity Blade Dungeons, both of which appear to offer a significant visual advantage over the best of the best that's available on Android today. There are obvious business complexities that are the cause of this today, but if you want to play those games you need to buy an iPad.
The final point is this: Tegra 3 can deliver a good gaming experience on Android, we've already demonstrated that. But as a GPU company NVIDIA should know that it isn't about delivering the minimum acceptable experience, but rather pushing the industry forward. Just last week NVIDIA launched a $500 GPU that is overkill for the vast majority of users. But NVIDIA built the GeForce GTX 680 to move the industry forward, and it's a shame that it hasn't done so in the mobile SoC space thus far.
Controller Support: An Android Advantage
With Honeycomb and subsequent versions of Android, Google baked in wired and wireless controller support into the OS. NVIDIA worked with game developers to ensure proper support for these controllers made it into their games and as a result there are a number of titles available through Tegra Zone that offer support for external gamepads. Logitech's Wireless Gamepad F710 comes with a USB nano receiver that can be plugged into the Transformer Prime's dock. It's using this controller that I played Shadowgun, GTA 3 and Riptide. Out of the three, the ability to use a gamepad made GTA 3 much more enjoyable (and it made me much better at the game as well).
Although many casual Android/iOS games do just fine with touch, some are certainly better suited for some sort of a controller. While controller support in Android in its infancy at best, it's more than iOS currently offers. I know of an internal Apple project to bring a physical controller to market, but whether or not it will ever see the light of day remains to be seen. As smartphones and tablets come close to equalling the performance of current game consoles, I feel like the controller problem must be addressed.
There's also the chance that physical controls will lose out entirely with these devices. A friend of mine in the game industry once said that we are too quick to forget how superior input devices don't always win. The keyboard + mouse is a much more precise setup for a first person shooter, but much FPS development these days is targeted at gamepads instead. The same could eventually be true for touch based devices, but it's too early to tell. Until then I'm hoping we see continued controller support in Android and hopefully that'll put some pressure on Apple to do the same. It is an important consideration for the future of gaming on these platforms.
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ananduser - Thursday, March 29, 2012 - link
Imagination does own the fastest GPU available today. The current Tegra offerings cannot match it but nvidia goes a different way. They will start piling CUDA cores like they do on the desktop GPU front. Say you'll have in the future a better quad core from Imagination and nvidia's GPU will consist of something like 64 CUDA cores.zorxd - Thursday, March 29, 2012 - link
The problem is that you can't plug an iDevice to a computer a transfer files as you would on a USB thumb drive without iTunes. That's a major disadvantage.Also if you excluse Apple's SoC, what company makes better mobile GPU than Nvidia? The Mali 400 MP4 is good too (about on par it seems), but I wouldn't say that Tegra 3 is the bottom of the performance barrel. You seems to forget the major players of Qualcomm and TI.
darkcrayon - Thursday, March 29, 2012 - link
You can however transfer files to any number of apps via WIFI or with cloud solutions without needing iTunes though. I'd call it a "disadvantage" but not a major one.You're right the Tegra 3 isn't, I was speaking more generally considering how the Tegra 2 performed vs. the competition as well. It just seemed out of place to choose a tablet because you "love nVidia GPUs" when nVidia has not necessarily put out a spectacular GPU in any ARM SoC.
merajaan - Wednesday, March 28, 2012 - link
You guys must be commended on this review. You covered all the areas that I wanted to know about and really didn't leave one stone unturned. I applaud the depth and detail and appreciate that you didn't rush your review out for launch day like many other sites. I also appreciate the unbiased nature in which the review was written and your honest viewpoints!Anand Lal Shimpi - Thursday, March 29, 2012 - link
Thank you for the kind words :)Take care,
Anand
repoman27 - Thursday, March 29, 2012 - link
So you've gone and included a lovely example of how the AnandTech icon looks at 72 and 144 dpi... How's about including <link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="144x144" href="icon144.png"/> on this site so we can have a proper icon when we add an AnandTech web clip to our home screens?adrien - Thursday, March 29, 2012 - link
Still reading the review (and liking it), I'm wondering about thermals.What was the temperature of the room? Could you try with different room temperatures? (I'm wondering how it'll change when it gets 15°C hotter and how it'll fare with sun shining on it).
Is there CPU or GPU throttling when it starts heating? Do you know the SoC temp?
Thanks. :-)
Anand Lal Shimpi - Thursday, March 29, 2012 - link
The ambient temperature in the room was approximately 23C. An overheating condition will trigger an OS-wide warning, which I believe causes the system to shut down.I unfortunately don't have access to anything that could read the SoC temp.
Testing at different room temperatures is an interesting idea but one that would be difficult to accurately control without some serious equipment. I ran these tests side by side at the same time to avoid issues with a changing ambient temperature.
Take care,
Anand
adrien - Thursday, March 29, 2012 - link
Ok, thanks. With summer approaching (and very quickly in France), I guess we'll see real-world tests for the temperature in a few weeks anyway. ;-)scribby - Thursday, March 29, 2012 - link
Nice review :)I'm also wondering about thermals,
What was the brightness level when measuring the thermals on the new ipad?
Thank you.