New iPad Release: Apple Defends Against Overheating Complaints

By Ceylan Yeginsu | March 20 2012 12:56 PM

Apple discussion forums are now up to 17 pages of complaints from users of the new iPad about an overheating problem, but the company says the device is well within thermal specifications.

Tweakers | Reuters | Tech&T

Dutch Website Tweakers.net has released an image showing how much hotter the new iPad is, compared to iPad 2. The thermal imaging showed that the temperature on the lower right corner of the new iPad was 33.6°C(92.48 F), compared to iPad 2, which was 28.3°C(82.94 F). The 5.3°C(9.54°F) difference became evident after 5 minutes loops of each tablet running the GLBenchmark. (L) Apple Store employees rev up customers waiting in line in Washington(R).

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The new tablet's owners have flocked to user forums in recent days to complain about a temperature concern in the lower left-hand corner of their tablet.

I have an iPad 64gb Wi-Fi. I've noticed it's getting overheated on right side only (when holding in portrait). Is this normal? Anyone else facing the same problem, one user wrote in the Mac Rumors Forum. In response to the post, some users said there was nothing abnormal about how much the iPad heats up, but others complained about error messages popping up, which makes the tablet unusable.

The new third-generation iPad gets up to 10°F warmer than the iPad 2, according to tests carried out by Tweakers.net. Their team ran GLBenchmark for five straight minutes on both the iPad 2 and the new iPad, then performed a thermal image comparison.

The lower left side of the new iPad measured up to 92.48°F, which Apple maintains is within normal thermal levels. The new iPad delivers a stunning Retina display, A5X chip, support for 4G LTE plus 10 hours of battery life, all while operating well within our thermal specifications. If customers have any concerns they should contact AppleCare. Apple spokeswoman Trudy Muller told The Loop.

I have been using the new iPad for almost two weeks -- a week before it was released to the public -- and I've seen no heat issues. I use my iPad every day over LTE and Wi-Fi, holding it my hand and on my lap and the device doesn't get hot, she added

The overheating has been attributed to the larger battery, which is necessary for the operation of new features such as the 2048 x 1536, 3.1 million pixel display and 4G LTE.

Some solutions to the problem have been posted online. One comes from Techno Mike, who posted the following the suggestion on a forum:

I highly suggest that once you unbox the iPad. Do not charge it; use all the battery until it reaches 0%, completely dead. Freshly charge the iPad and that should do the trick. Yesterday my iPad was massively over heated, I decided to use up all the battery (I suggest doing some hardcore gaming, takes very long to use up the battery) and recharged. Now today I am using the same applications as yesterday and so far, no sign of excessive heating issue. Just lil bit warm which is normal. I have also noticed the battery charges just a bit quicker.

The new iPad was released on Friday. Features include:

Processor: A5X quad-core processor touted as twice as fast and four times better performance than Tegra 3 chip.

Camera: 5-megapixel backside illuminated sensor on the back, 5-element lens, IR filter, and ISP built into the A5X chip.

Video: 1080p video recording.

Voice Dictation: Supports U.S. English, British, Australian, French, German and Japanese.

4G LTE: New iPad now has 21Mbps HSPA+ and DC-HSDPA at 42Mbps, with LTE taking the cake at 73Mbps. Verizon, Rogers, Bell, Telus and AT&T will be the LTE partners.

Battery Life: 10 hours of battery life still! 9 hours on 4G

Size: 9.4mm thin, weighing 1.4lbs.

Price: $499 for 16GB! 32GB is $599 and 64GB for $699.

Release Date: In stores March 16.