The Apple iPad Review (2012)
by Vivek Gowri & Anand Lal Shimpi on March 28, 2012 3:14 PM ESTWiFi & GPS
The WiFi stack gets an update with the new iPad courtesy of Broadcom's 65nm BCM4330, compared to the BCM4329 used in the previous two iPads. Both 2.4GHz and 5GHz operation are supported, although as I mentioned earlier the carrier-dependent personal hotspot is only available over 2.4GHz.
As with most smartphone/tablet designs the BCM4330 only supports a single spatial stream, for a maximum link speed of 72Mbps. Similar to the iPad 2, Apple hides the WiFi antenna behind the speaker grille at the bottom of the tablet. The cellular antennas (there are now two) are at the top of the tablet, behind the plastic RF window.
| WiFi Performance Comparison | ||||||
| Distance from AP | 3 feet | 20 feet (Different Room) | 50 feet (Different Room/Floor) | 100 feet (Different Room) | ||
| ASUS TF Prime (2.4GHz) | 26.9 Mbps | 9.85 Mbps | 13.5 Mbps | 2.20 Mbps | ||
| Apple iPad 2 (2.4GHz) | 35.1 Mbps | 29.9 Mbps | 26.9 Mbps | 10.6 Mbps | ||
| Apple iPad 3 (2.4GHz) | 35.1 Mbps | 29.9 Mbps | 27.9 Mbps | 9.98 Mbps | ||
| Apple iPad 2 (5GHz) | 36.7 Mbps | 36.7 Mbps | 36.7 Mbps | 11.9 Mbps | ||
| Apple iPad 3 (5GHz) | 36.7 Mbps | 36.7 Mbps | 36.7 Mbps | 11.7 Mbps | ||
With a similar WiFi stack and similar antenna placement, it's no surprise that I noticed very similar WiFi performance to the iPad 2.
The same goes for GPS performance between the new iPad and the iPad 2. Both devices were able to lock and track me driving around in a car with comparable accuracy from what I could tell.
Airplay Support with the new Apple TV
When paired with a second or third generation Apple TV, the iPad supports wireless display mirroring or content streaming to the iPad via AirPlay. In other words, if you have an Apple TV hooked up to your HDTV, you can use your HDTV as a large, mirrored, secondary display for your iPad—wirelessly. The only requirement is that you have a 2nd or 3rd generation Apple TV and that it's on the same network as your iPad. With those requirements met, enabling AirPlay mirroring is simple—just bring up the iOS task switcher, swipe left to right until you see the brightness/playback controls and tap the AirPlay icon.
Mirroring gives you exactly what you'd expect—a complete mirror of everything you see on the local iPad screen. All sounds are also sent over and come out via your TV's speakers—the local speaker remains silent.
The frame rate isn't as high on the remote display, but there's virtually no impact to the performance of the iPad itself. There's noticeable latency of course since the display output is transcoded as a video, sent over WiFi to the Apple TV, decoded and displayed on your TV via HDMI. I measured the AirPlay latency at ms, which is reasonable for browsing the web but too high for any real-time games. If you want to use the iPad to drive your HDTV for gaming you'll need to buy the optional HDMI output dongle.
While AirPlay mirroring on the iPad works at 720p, if you're playing a 1080p movie on the new iPad and you have a 3rd generation Apple TV, the video is also displayed in 1080p rather than downscaled to 720p.
Video playback is an interesting use case for AirPlay and the iPad. If you don't have mirroring enabled, you can actually start playing a movie on the iPad, have it stream to your TV via the Apple TV, and go about using your iPad as if nothing else was happening. Most apps will allow you to stream video in the background without interrupting, however some games (e.g. GTA 3, Infinity Blade 2) and some apps (e.g. iMovie) will insist on streaming their UI to your Apple TV instead.
Although iOS and the iPad don't do a great job of promoting multi-user experiences, using AirPlay to push video to a TV wirelessly is an exception. If you frequently load your iPad up with movies you can use it to keep others entertained while you either get work done or just goof around on your iPad at the same time. It's a great fit for families where people want to do two different things. If you do put a lot of movies on your iPhone/iPad, the 3rd generation Apple TV is probably a must buy for this reason alone.
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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?