Apple iPad 3 Release: Positive and Negative Aspects of the Tablet

The New iPad is here and, with the launch of this iPad, Apple is all set to reaffirm its role as the leading tablet maker. But despite the fact that the latest gadget is beautiful, the question is - was it the device the tablet fans had been waiting for?

What are the winning aspects of the device? And what will prove to be detrimental in its way of winning the best tablet title in the coming days?

Plus Points

1. A Genuinely Beautiful Display - The Retina display is indeed Apple's ace card. The futuristic and unprecedented screen resolution of 2048 x 1536 pixels can give any device starting from laptop to desktop computer and even 1080p TV run for their money.

The 9.7-inch device that's is now being known as Resolutionary, comes with a pixel density of 264ppi, which is considerably lower than the 326ppi the iPhone 4S and also less than what the Apple fans expected (300ppi) for the Retina moniker.

Even then, when you hold the tab in your hand, you will know how spectacular the display is. And unlike the earlier devices, the latest Apple one maintains its viewing spectrums broad enough to ensure that your tab can be clearly viewed from even the other side of the couch!

While making a comment about the display of the New iPad, M.G. Siegler wrote on TechCrunch, Perhaps it's unfair to say the older iPad screens look 'blurry' compared to the new iPad. It's more along the lines of 'fuzzy'. After using the new iPad for an extended period of time [and] then switching back to an iPad 2 (or 1, for that matter), you'll cringe at the pixelated cloud that appears to surround every app icon. Text will look murky. Colors will look muted.

2. A5X Chipset and a Powerful Processor - Apple's new slate runs on the A5X dual-core Cortex A9-based processor. Apple has packed in a quad-core graphics engine. As a result, we get a reasonably powerful graphics muscle and impressive overall performance. Integration of this processor helps Apple to much ahead of any of its competitor in the race.

3. Better Camera - Apple has to address the issues with iPad 2 cameras, which users say pretty bad and, they are indeed. And, good that Apple too has finally realized and raised the megapixels of the rear snapper and made it 5MP and gave it a new name iSight camera. The camera comes with five-element lens system and the photo quality is exceptional for a tablet. But unfortunately the front-facing is still a VGA FaceTime camera.

Vincent Nguyen of Slashgear reviewed the camera and gave his verdict saying, Apple says it has borrowed the camera technology and optics from the iPhone 4S for the new iPad, though still the 5-megapixel images the tablet is capable of do lag behind the 8-megapixel examples from the smartphone. There's more visible noise and chromatic aberrations at full zoom, though the quality is far, far better than any stills the iPad 2 can achieve.

4. Voice Dictation - Apple has not provided Siri support in its iPad. It is indeed an odd omission as even iPhone 4S has Siri, which became one of the USPs behind the success of the iPhone. However, the Cupertino tech giant does add integrated built-in speech recognition, powered by Nuance. The addition of voice dictation, however, is a welcome feature and the same can prove to be very useful for composing quick emails and bypassing the touch-screen keyboard.

5. 4G LTE - The new iPad is not the first device to support the 4G LTE technology, but incredibly fast download and upload speeds over LTE.

Minus Points

1. Same Design with a Thicker and Weightier Body - The new tablet has a remarkable resemblance with its predecessor but Apple broke with tradition this time as the company has not made this iPad thinner and lighter than the iPad 2.

The third-generation Wi-Fi-only version of iPad weighs 1.44 pounds and 1.46 pounds for the 4G version. It's a slight but noticeable increase compared to iPad 2.

The reason for the increased girth of the new iPad may be to accommodate the new iPad's bigger battery, its 4G radio (on those models), and the Retina display. But the weight is on the higher side when compared to its competitors, including the iPad 2, which weighs 1.33 pounds for the non-3G version and 1.35 pounds for the 3G version and the lightest of the 10-inch-class Androids, such as the 1.12-pound Toshiba Excite 10 LE (this one is also the slimmest tablet available) and 1.29-pound Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime. However, experts believe its best-in-class display will trump any apprehension over the weight and thickness issue.

2. Warming Up - Reportedly, Apple's latest gadget is found to heat up in the lower left corner after a prolonged use. The reason may be battery or the LTE functionality.

3. App Size and Storage Issue - The enhanced apps are eating up the storage up to three times as of the iPad's storage space thanks to the HD screen. MacWorld's review notes that while Apple's own apps ran smoothly, several third-party apps had glitches, including unresponsive interfaces and stuttering scrolling.

In his review, MG Siegler mentioned that the enhanced apps and high-definition movies will take up precious iPad storage space. On the iPad I'm testing out, I have three pages of apps, a few hundred photos, one HD movie, and one music album. It's really not that much stuff, but it takes up over 20 GB of storage. The apps alone are over 10 GB of that, he says.

And, according to a great number of reviewers, while the enhanced apps and HD movies look stunning on the iPad's Retina display, the standard goes down for the non-HD content.

4. FaceTime Does Not Work with LTE - FaceTime works only on the Wi-Fi and not over 4G, which according to the Verge's Dieter Bohn annoying keeping in mind the fact that when the user turns the Verizon iPad into an LTE hotspot it allows FaceTime on other devices but not on the iPad acting as the hotspot.

[A]ttempting to initiate a FaceTime call over LTE fails out with a message exhorting you to connect to a Wi-Fi network, Bohn states.

TechCrunch's MG Siegler also reported the same issue despite the fact that the LTE networks are so much faster (faster than my WiFi even), Apple says that FaceTime will still be WiFi-only for now.

5. Connection Costs - Anybody would want the LTE connectivity but the carriers' pricing is steep. Though Verizon and AT&T's LTE tariff plans are structured differently, yet the plans cost average of around $10-$20 a gigabyte.