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Jewish World Review March 23, 2012 / 29 Adar, 5772 'New' iPad a stunning, paradoxical improvement By Mark Kellner
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
The reported first-weekend sales of one million units of the "new" Apple, Inc. iPad leave little doubt that this product, the third in the series, is going to be successful. (AT&T Wireless, in a nebulous one-sentence announcement, said it sold the most iPads it ever did for an opening day, but a spokesman refused to flesh out that claim.)
Perhaps the greater question is whether you should buy one now, or not. Five days into my ownership experience, I can offer a definite "maybe."
It's not that the new iPad isn't sleek and fun and fast and visually stunning - "it's all that and a bag of chips," as a friend likes to say. But if you own a 2011 iPad 2, should you bail and upgrade? Perhaps, and only perhaps.
I'll return to that question in a moment. First, just how good is this thing?
Let's start with the screen: yes, it has a million more pixels than a high-definition television set (not that your reviewer counted each one), and the quality is impressive, as good, if not better, than the HDTV for which I shelled out several thousand dollars a few years back. And while I can't carry that HDTV with me, the new iPad is quite handy.
It's my hope that the new iPad will prove its graphics-oriented "chops" when I'm next out on a road trip shooting an event or location with my digital single-lens reflex camera. Between the super-high-resolution screen and a new, iPad version of Apple's iPhoto, this could be a real game changer for professional photographers, and for photo "duffers" such as your reviewer.
I've never really been one for benchmarking tests: my contention is users buy computers and, now, tablets, to use, not to benchmark. That said, I can report the 64 GB new iPad seems faster than a similarly configured iPad 2 from a year earlier, thanks to the beefed up processor in the new model. One esoteric program a colleague and I both use would, on the old iPad, take a few seconds to load. Now, it's available in the blink of an eye. Other processes seem faster, though, again, I didn't break out a stopwatch to time these.
Sound quality is impressive, both through the tiny (but not tinny) built-in speaker and, particularly when a good pair of headphones is connected. That's important not only for movie- and TV show-watching, but also for music, of which you can put plenty on a 64 GB iPad.
What else impresses? Well, the built-in 5-megapixel iSight camera, on the rear of the device, is a bit lagging, megapixels-wise, against the 8-megapixel iSight camera built into the iPhone 4S. But it should be good enough in a pinch, and it certainly could work nicely with, say, a document scanning application for road warriors trying to ride herd on receipts, etc.
Nothing in life is perfect, of course, and there are a couple of things about the new iPad which concern me.
For a change - I've been an AT&T wireless customer for ages - I bought my new iPad with a Verizon-friendly 4G LTE data radio. Signing up (and signing on) is a bit of a hassle, but $20 off the credit card later, I had a month's worth of data service, 2 GB maximum.
That is, of course, when one could get an appropriate signal. Forget 4G, I got no "Gs" of any kind in Frederick, Maryland, nor on my way home one evening. It was even tough getting a signal around the corner from Verizon Wireless' regional office in Fulton, Maryland, and I kid you not. Move into Silver Spring, and the LTE is on and works blazingly fast.
Since Verizon advertises itself as having the best 4G network, I'm sure these are temporary problems. At least I hope so.
The more serious (for me) worry is that this unit does seem to burn through battery life rather quickly. I can't say for certain, since I'd like to go through a couple of charging/discharge cycles before making a determination. But if I were depending upon this new iPad to carry me across the Pacific, I'd find some battery options, and quickly.
Overall, I like this product; then again, I'm influenced by years of seeing some very good things come out of Cupertino. Should you buy it? If you have an original (i.e., 2010) iPad, definitely, since the speed boost and visual quality will floor you. Got an iPad 2? It's not a crucial upgrade, but sit next to me on a long flight and you might start saving your pennies.
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JWR contributor Mark Kellner has reported on technology for industry newspapers and magazines since 1983, and has been the computer columnist for The Washington Times since 1991.Comment by clicking here. © 2012, News World Communications, Inc. Reprinted with permission of The Washington Times. Visit the paper at http://www.washingtontimes.com |
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