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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Riseofthefootclan - Thursday, March 29, 2012 - link
I entered the tablet market this year in hopes of enhancing my school experience. I was looking for a device that would do the following: reading textbooks, slides, notes, watching video etc.I too looked at the kindle, but I will tell you now that for what you want I'd avoid it.
I first purchased a Samsung galaxy tab 10.1 LTE. I wanted Internet every where I went, but soon became frustrated with the android operating system (inconsistently chunky etc).
After playing with an iPad 2 in the store, I realized it was a much better experience. Fluid and problem free.
A month later the iPad 3 (new iPad) is released. After playing with it I realized how much better the screen was, and how much that impacted the experience (especially for someone who primarily uses the device for text consumption).
So now, here I sit, with a 32b LTE iPad 3. I don't regret the purchase one bit. Armed with the Bluetooth keyboard, or just the on screen variant, I can also take notes quite competently (wrote this entire thing out with the on screen keyboard).
Best educational tool I have ever purchased. In my hands I can carry my one stop shop for web browsing, email, textbooks, fictional books, course materials, lectures and even games.
Coming from an iPad 2, I'd go so far as to say it was well worth the upgrade.
I highly recommend picking one of these up, as I believe it will fit your bill of requirements to a tee.
adityarjun - Thursday, March 29, 2012 - link
Thanks dude! And all others who replied. I guess I will be picking up a 32gb LTE version of the ipad.Do you guys know whether the ipad has international warranty? If I were to buy it from the US and import it here, would I have warranty?
And how many years of warranty does it have? Is it a replacement warranty, i.e. , if anything is broken they give a new ipad or a normal warranty?
This is another aspect the review didnt cover. A para detailing the warranty and tech support should have been there imo.
adityarjun - Thursday, March 29, 2012 - link
Oops forgot to add this in the comment above-- which keyboard are you using.. I think I will pick the Logitech one.And any good stylus?
Also, for protection I guess I will go with a Zagg shield and the smart cover. Will that be enough?
OCedHrt - Thursday, March 29, 2012 - link
How come the review starts with the 10.1-inch 1920 x 1200 Super IPS+ tablet but all the comparisons are with the 1280 x 800 tablet?adityarjun - Thursday, March 29, 2012 - link
I am not sure but I dont think that those tablets are in the market yet. That was just a comparison of specs. Later on we had a comparison with other major tablets available in the market currently.i.e ipad 2 and the transformer prime.OCedHrt - Thursday, March 29, 2012 - link
Says 40 nm on page 2 and 45 nm on page 6.g1011999 - Thursday, March 29, 2012 - link
At Page (The A5X SoC) / Table (ARM Cortex A9 Based SoC Comparison)The cell for "A5X" and "Memory Interface to the CPU" shall be "Quad channel(128bit)"
Ryan Smith - Thursday, March 29, 2012 - link
Actually that's correct as it stands. The memory interface to the CPU is 64bit on the A5X. The other two memory channels go to the GPU, rather than the CPU.g1011999 - Thursday, March 29, 2012 - link
No, Those memory controllers are multi-port AXI controller which are connected to L2 cache controller, system fabrics, GPU.L2 cache controller is connected to all those 128bit dram controller, either through direct connection (memory adapter like omap 4470) or through system AXI bus, so the cpu can access all the memory.
The A5X is a SoC coupled with 128bit quad channel DRAM regardless whether the bandwidth from CPU(L2 cache) to memory is sufficient or not.
The IPs ( CPU, video codec, display controller, GPU, CAM-IF ...) on SoC can take advantage from the 128bit memory interface with less chance of congestion.
PeteH - Friday, March 30, 2012 - link
And how do you know the internal system bus is AXI?