iPad 4 (Late 2012) Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on December 6, 2012 4:40 PM ESTFinal Words
The 4th generation iPad is a good evolution over the 3rd generation model. It doesn't fundamentally change the device or its function, it just makes it better. Battery life and performance are both improved over the iPad 3, and on the graphics side we finally have an SoC capable of driving good looking games at the iPad's native resolution. I don't know that there's substantial enough of a change to warrant an upgrade from the iPad 3 (unless you happen to be a game developer), but if you've been considering the iPad the 4th gen is a definite improvement over its predecessor.
If you're torn between the big and mini iPads, I've been recommending the mini for those who plan on traveling a lot with their tablet and the iPad 4 for those who will mostly use it at home. The exception to the travel stipulation is if you're a photographer and plan on using your tablet to show your portfolio/proofs/etc, in which case the color accuracy of the iPad 4 trumps the mini's portability.
It's interesting to me that the chassis and thermals haven't really changed since the iPad 3. Given the short cycle time between the 3rd and 4th generation iPads, I suspect there's not a whole lot of time to implement any major changes. I do almost wonder however if we won't see this chassis stick around for one more generation. I just don't know that there's room to shrink the design any further without substantial improvements in display efficiency.
Long term I do wonder what the future holds in store for the big iPad. The iPad is very similar in footprint to the 11-inch MacBook Air, and once the 11-inch MBA gets Haswell/Broadwell we may even see similar idle power battery life. The 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina Display is pretty much the 13-inch rMBA that everyone wanted, I wonder if a future 9.7-inch iPad may be the same thing for the 11-inch MBA. Ultimately this brings convergence to mind, which itself leads to a lot of questions about form factor, OS and ISA. Apple has been quick to dismiss Microsoft's attempts to bring touch to notebooks, but there's a lot of history around Apple laughing at something only to bring forth its own take later on.
Taking a step back and looking at the market as a whole, there is competition the iPad has today that it didn't previously. Google's Nexus 10 surpasses the iPad 4 in pixel density, although it loses out in color accuracy. I can't stress enough that the competition really has to focus on calibrating its displays in addition to spending money on delivering a good panel. The Nexus 10 is priced more aggressively at $399 and ships with a faster CPU as well. The latter is interesting, especially given how recently Apple introduced its Swift CPU architecture. I wonder if we'll see Apple stick with the holiday launch schedule or move to a different release cadence once again, in order to continue to remain at the forefront of silicon technology.
When choosing between the iPad 4 and Nexus 10 decision boils down to, as is often the case, whether or not you feel more at home in Android or iOS. I've viewed the divide there as a line separating a computing device from an appliance. There's overlap in capabilities, but the overall experience tends to fall along those lines for me. You need to ask yourself what type of device you're more interested in when it comes to a tablet. I suspect Apple's success in the mainstream market with the iPad is due, in no small part, to just how appliance-like the iOS experience can be. It's not for everyone but I can see how it has resonated well among some audiences. Google's $100 price advantage isn't insignificant, and similar to our Nexus 7 vs. iPad mini recommendation, if what you want is a tablet and not necessarily a tablet that runs iOS, the Nexus 10 takes the cake.
Microsoft is now in the mix with Surface RT and Windows RT/8 tablets from its partners. These offerings are pursuing a slightly different user who wants convergence between a tablet and notebook. Conceptually I like the idea. I'd love to be able to only carry around a single device that serves as a wonderful tablet and productive notebook at the same time. I don't believe any of those devices are quite there yet, which makes tablet/notebook convergence still a fantasy for me.
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cheinonen - Thursday, December 6, 2012 - link
Color quality has always been a target, just not one that was possible for us to easily measure before. Now that we can, it's in almost every review. If that seems to favor Apple, that's only because other vendors refuse to care about it, and they aren't going to start caring until consumers understand and demand better.ltcommanderdata - Thursday, December 6, 2012 - link
It's not that pixel density is no longer important. It's that Apple has already satisfied people's needs for high pixel density. Most people already won't notice individual pixels on the iPad's 264 dpi display. So either Apple continues to improve pixel density for very little actual benefit, stops improving displays altogether, or they find another aspect of displays to improve. I think most people will be happy Apple choose the latter option and are improving color gamut and calibration.bplewis24 - Thursday, December 6, 2012 - link
I'm glad somebody else notices this. Taking a page straight out of Apple's Marketing dept.teiglin - Thursday, December 6, 2012 - link
Does Apple actually market their products this way? It's not like he's harping on it, but the S.S. Pixel Density set sail a year ago and all the high-end tablets are sufficient for most people (even the TF700, in my opinion--the steps from that to the iPad 4, then to the Nexus 10, are fairly incremental). Apple continues to differentiate its displays with proper calibration, and Anand is just pointing that out. As displays get better, it requires more attention to find the differences.The color accuracy on the Nexus 10 is objectively bad. I say this as someone who wants Google to step it up in this area--I have a Samsung tablet and my primary phone is HTC and have never owned an iPad or a Mac. Superior color accuracy isn't going to make me buy an iPad, but a dE over 8 on the Nexus 10 does make me think it's worth waiting for the generation of Google tablet.
bplewis24 - Thursday, December 6, 2012 - link
Check out their marketing materials and yes, even some of their commercials. When the coined the term "retina display" they immediately began publishing PPI measurements (and comparisons) in their marketing materials. The reason why this is significant is because other displays eventually caught up and surpassed in sheer resolution, but because the iPhone was smaller, the PPI measurement still stayed on top...even though, ironically, the benefits of such a high PPI and a much smaller display are harder to benefit from.cheinonen - Thursday, December 6, 2012 - link
The value of PPI has nothing to do with screen size, but distance relative to PPI. Just like an 84" 4K LCD has benefits if you sit 5' from it but no benefit if you are 25' from it compared to a same size 1080p display. The half-inch viewfinder of the camera I just bought has a 2.4 million dot OLED display. If that used the same PPI as a retina iPhone, with 3 dots per pixel, then that viewfinder would only have 0.2 million pixels and would certainly not be as sharp.However, as my eye is literally right next to that, a resolution way beyond 300 PPI is useful, despite the incredibly small size of the display. It's all about the distance relative to the PPI, not the size of the screen.
teiglin - Thursday, December 6, 2012 - link
I wasn't asking if they market PPI; I know that's the theme of the whole "retina" marketing. I was asking if they market the color accuracy and how their calibration is better than the competitors'. I've seem them mention the iPad's gamut (albeit briefly) but never its accuracy or calibration.EnzoFX - Thursday, December 6, 2012 - link
That's called avancement. The basis of technological progress. There Should always be something better to pursue. That is good for everyone. No matter how much your bias against Apple is.cheinonen - Thursday, December 6, 2012 - link
One more note on this. CalMAN 5 is used for measuring smartphones and tablets (and likely monitors in the future) since it supports measuring grayscale, gamut, saturations, and Gretag Macbeth charts, at any targets that we want, and with manual patterns instead of only internal pattern generators. Most solutions only allow for internal generators, which is why previous tablet and smartphone reviews (many of which were done well before Apple made a deal out of this) lack these charts as those programs don't run on an iOS or Android device.CalMAN 5 wasn't even released until September of this year, making most of these measurements impossible to do before then. So you can enjoy the conspiracy theories, but had these measurements been possible for me to do 18 months ago, I'd have done them 18 months ago.
JarredWalton - Friday, December 7, 2012 - link
On a related note, we've been discussing the importance of color accuracy on our LCD and laptop reviews for... oh, let's see... May of 2007.http://www.anandtech.com/show/2237
You'll notice that of all the laptop manufacturers, only Apple is consistently getting the display quality right (or at least, more right than others) for the MacBook Pro. And even that took a few years after my rant.