iPad 4 (Late 2012) Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on December 6, 2012 4:40 PM ESTCamera
The iPad 4 features a 5MP rear facing iSight camera and a 1.2MP front facing FaceTime HD camera. The rear camera shoots photos at 2592 x 1936, while the front facing camera shoots photos at 1280 x 960. The aperture and focal length of the rear facing camera haven't changed compared to the 3rd generation iPad.
| Rear Facing Camera Comparison | |||||||
| Sensor | Resolution | Compressed JPEG Size | Aperture | Focal Length | |||
| Apple iPad 4 | 5MP | 2592 x 1936 | 3.4MB | f/2.4 | 4.3mm | ||
| Apple iPad 3 | 5MP | 2592 x 1936 | 3.1MB | f/2.4 | 4.3mm | ||
| Apple iPad 2,4 | 0.7MP | 960 x 720 | 344KB | f/2.4 | 2.0mm | ||
| Apple iPad mini | 5MP | 2592 x 1936 | 3.1MB | f/2.4 | 3.3mm | ||
| Apple iPhone 5 | 8MP | 3264 x 2448 | 3.1MB | f/2.4 | 4.1mm | ||
| Apple iPod Touch 5 | 5MP | 2592 x 1936 | 3.1MB | f/2.4 | 3.3mm | ||
Still image quality out of the rear camera is comparable to the 3rd generation iPad, and clearly better than the iPad mini.
The front facing camera sees the biggest improvement over the iPad 3. The difference is like night and day thanks to the increase in sensor quality and resolution.
| Front Facing Camera Comparison | |||||||
| Sensor | Resolution | Compressed JPEG Size | Aperture | Focal Length | |||
| Apple iPad 4 | 1.2MP | 1280 x 960 | 426KB | f/2.4 | 2.2mm | ||
| Apple iPad 3 | 0.3MP | 640 x 480 | 117KB | f/2.4 | 1.8mm | ||
| Apple iPad 2,4 | 0.3MP | 640 x 480 | 105KB | f/2.4 | 1.8mm | ||
| Apple iPad mini | 1.2MP | 1280 x 960 | 372KB | f/2.4 | 2.2mm | ||
| Apple iPhone 5 | 1.2MP | 1280 x 960 | 400KB | f/2.4 | 2.2mm | ||
| Apple iPod Touch 5 | 1.2MP | 1280 x 960 | 406KB | f/2.4 | 2.2mm | ||
Video
The iPad 4 shoots 1080p video from its rear camera and 720p on the front. Video shot with the rear camera is encoded using H.264 (High Profile) at an average bitrate north of 17Mbps. This puts the encode parameters similar to those of the iPhone 5 and iPad mini. The same is true for the front facing camera.
The front facing camera shoots baseline video at roughly 10.5Mbps:
Video quality is pretty good as well:
WiFi Performance
Like the iPad mini and iPhone 5, the iPad 4 uses Broadcom's BCM4334 WiFi controller. The 4334 supports dual-band 802.11n as well as fallback to 802.11b/g. On 5GHz Apple continues to support 40MHz channels for a maximum PHY rate of 150Mbps. Performance and reception both remain solid:
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darkcrayon - Friday, December 7, 2012 - link
Ok that was pretty funny. "When you need paper that gets stuff done".Most documents in existence electronically are closer to a 3:4 aspect ratio. I'm sorry, but it's true. And they will fit an iPad sized screen more conveniently. But please, feel free to show me the treasure trove of ready made documents that are 9:16 or even 10:16 long.
Also, show me the benchmarks where the Nexus 10 GPU is better than the iPad 3 - not that that disproved my point. The one in the iPad 4 is quite a bit more powerful, so it's a legitimate area where the Nexus 10 is *not* a "much better tablet". And of course don't even get us started on 10" Android tablet apps.
ltcommanderdata - Thursday, December 6, 2012 - link
Any estimate on the SGX554MP4 clock speed? Since the 16% pixel fill performance difference is supposed to be largely clock speed related and the iPad 3's SGX543MP4 was clocked at 250MHz, that works out to 290MHz. Previous Apple SoC used a 4x multiplier between CPU and GPU. If the A6X changed to a 5x multiplier, then a 1.4GHz CPU works out to a 280MHz GPU, which seems to match what is being seen here.And process improvements for SoC power and thermals don't have to wait for 20 nm. Samsung has a 28 nm process, which they claim uses the same design rules as their 32nm process allowing a quick and easy transition, while offering power or performance benefits over their 32 nm process. I'm guessing 2013 iDevices will use a combination of shrinks and new SoC on the 28 nm Samsung process, which with all the TSMC rumours, may be the last SoC Apple makes with Samsung. 2014 iDevices would then use TSMC 20 nm.
Krysto - Thursday, December 6, 2012 - link
So it seems that in terms of gaming performance (which is really what matters when you evaluate a GPU), the devices compare as it follows:Ipad 4, Nexus 4 and iPhone 5 have the same performance in games - compared as devices, running at their own native resolution.
http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph6472/51760...
As for the GPU's themselves, it seems the A6X GPU is 42% faster than Mali T604, while Mali T604 and Adreno 320 are about 10-20% faster than the A6 GPU (iPhone 5), and than the A5X GPU (iPad 3)
http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph6472/51761...
coder543 - Thursday, December 6, 2012 - link
from one perspective. Honestly, benchmarks are just benchmarks. I'd agree with that assessment as far as these benchmarks go though. I'm not sure how much it matters -- suffice it to say they're all very fast.Alucard291 - Sunday, December 9, 2012 - link
Very slow surely? As this is STILL about 10 years behind desktop gpu'sltcommanderdata - Thursday, December 6, 2012 - link
Well the Nexus 4 having the same gaming performance as the iPad 4 and iPhone 5 depends on how often people take their phone into a freezer to play games.michal1980 - Thursday, December 6, 2012 - link
amazing. Apple must be paying for this coverage, and it was a week or two ago I was told that something was coming soon.should have figured, another sligthly updated apple product
darkcrayon - Thursday, December 6, 2012 - link
Just as we should've figured you'd be in the comment section whining about it ;)vision33r - Thursday, December 6, 2012 - link
Why would Apple be interested in marketing to PC enthusiasts on a site like this? It's a waste of money if they did pay Anand.In case you ever opened a male or female fashion mag or financial magazine, Apple advertisements are everywhere. Clearly they are more interested in marketing towards rich casual computer users.
So your theory of Apple paying for this coverage as usual trolling and Apple hating. That's ok, they don't mind you hating them on a website they have little interested marketing on.
pliablemoosethebanned - Thursday, December 6, 2012 - link
Yep, Anand needs to focus more on crap products like the Surface tablet.