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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vol7ron - Thursday, March 29, 2012 - link
Think you meant "except" :)adityarjun - Friday, March 30, 2012 - link
No, you aren'tsiddharth7 - Friday, March 30, 2012 - link
Yeah! Kind of a typo :). Also forgot the question mark. :-)Wanted to edit it, but was not able to after posting. :)
Xyraxx - Thursday, March 29, 2012 - link
Ok, gaming clearly the TF came out ahead. Why the backhanded commentary in that section? I don't see that for the sections that the iPad clearly won. TF takes the overall top spot for its gaming performance. But instead of commentary on that, we get aggressive talk about how they should be pushing even further ahead, and how they are failing at it.The controller compatibility is an absolute win for the Android side, but instead of talk about that, we get this "Yeah, but who says controllers will win over touch". Its like every advantage the iPad doesn't win over, gets trotted out and downplayed as if to say it doesn't mean anything, or somehow doesn't matter.
darkcrayon - Thursday, March 29, 2012 - link
Interesting. I got a different impression entirely. It seems like games specifically optimized for the Tegra 3 by nVidia were somewhat better visuallyr, but the iPad has a more extensive game library and considering the GPU is far more powerful than the Tegra 3's, it's only a matter of time before there are far better graphics to be had on iPad games.Though there is no OS level controller support in iOS, both Bluetooth and dock connector controllers are possible (hence the iControlpad iCade, and a few others). It may be that more games support them now on Android, but nothing is stopping developers from supporting them on iOS at this point.
Finally, it's pretty important that ~100% of the iPad games in the App Store will run on the new iPad, which can't be said for the TF as shown in the review, or probably for any other individual Android tablet.
mr_ripley - Thursday, March 29, 2012 - link
It seems to me that the iPad does charge when I plug it into the USB port on my Macbook Pro. In fact I was surprised to see that not only did it not say "not charging" and show the "plugged-in" icon, it also seemed pretty fast (I will have to try it again to see if it was as fast as the power charger).However, when I tried to this morning to plug it into my Lenovo laptop it showed "not charging". Does this only work when plugged into Apple products?
vol7ron - Thursday, March 29, 2012 - link
This question seems better suited for the Apple support forums.doobydoo - Sunday, April 1, 2012 - link
This reply seems better suited to the kids-r-us forum.Aenean144 - Thursday, March 29, 2012 - link
Modern Macs have special USB hubs that output 7 to 8 Watts of power (~5V at ~1.6A). Most Windows machines or non-Macs and older Macs output about 4.5 Watts max. There's a USB battery charging specification, but I'm not aware of any computers that have this implemented.So, most Mac should be able to charge an iPod, iPad, iPhone relatively quickly. A PC with the normal USB specs will typically do it a little bit slower. 40 to 50%. 4.5 Watts is basically the bare minimum. Doable on an iPad 2 with the screen off, but the 2012 iPad will be tough. If you have the screen off, turn off WiFi and Bluetooth, it'll charge ok if Apple lets it. The screen has to be off with 4 Watt power source.
mr_ripley - Thursday, March 29, 2012 - link
Ah ha! Thanks for the clarification. When I saw that I was able to charge my new ipad while using it with my Macbook pro USB, I neglected to bring along my charger to work. Seems like that was unwise.But I still have around 50% power left so should be fine for today. And yes I do use it at work.