iPad 3 Day

The new iPad, more commonly referred to as the iPad 3, has just been delivered to the Codger’s door. The Net Codger now has an iPad 2 and an iPad 3 side by side on his desk. Here’s the low down.

The iPad 3 is a fraction thicker than the iPad 2. But, it’s barely noticeable at all. Even with them touching together on a flat surface as in the picture, one does not notice the difference in thickness. The iPad2 is on the left, but who could tell?

Reading the specification sheets on Apple’s website, I see that the iPad 3 is a fraction heavier than the iPad 2. I can’t feel the difference at all. For all intents and purposes, the iPad2 and iPad 3 are physically the same, if not identical, in appearance

The screen does look different and its necessarily all good. Above the iPad 2 is on the left and the iPad 3 is on the right. True, everything does look “smoother”. The black lines between the pixels, visible on the iPad2, are invisible on the iPad3. It gives images a smoother appearance that is also a bit brighter and seemingly lower contrast than the screen right next to it. But, the image rendering on the higher resolution screen actually creates jaggies in some cases where none exist on the ipad 2. You’ll only see this with lower resolution stuff like wallpapers or apps with images scaled to the iPad 2 resolution. Looking at higher resolution images like those taken with the camera, the screen quality is great. Looking at text like icon labels you get the false impression that the iPad 2 is the sharper display because the lines between the pixels lend a sense of crispness where the IPad 3’s smoothing gives a sense of blurring to the text.

Repeatedly, when I present the two iPads to people side by side and ask which is a better picture, the majority choose the iPad 2!

There is no noticeable difference in performance, at least on the surface. The experience is a little different in a heavy app but bouncing from app to app and using Safari is identical on both of these WiFi connected iPads.

If you’ve got an iPad2 and are wondering if an upgrade is worth it, I would say that it depends. If you have need for 4G LTE, a higher resolution camera or the ability to dictate your texts and emails, then an iPad 3 might be worth the $500 or more to you. But, if you already have an iPad 2, spending another $500 plus dollars for an iPAd3 will be disappointing. Even if you watch a lot of movies on the iPad2 and think that the higher resolution screen is what you need, it would still be hard to justify the $500 or more to upgrade from an iPad 2.

If you have an iPad 1 or no iPad at all, you will LOVE the iPad 3. If you have an iPad 2, you’ll probably want to keep your money.