iPad (3rd gen) quick thoughts

After the excruciating wait for FedEx to arrive with my new iPad, I wanted to share a few quick observations on it.

  • The screen really is as good as advertised. After seeing the retina display on my iPhone 4S,  the original iPad screen just looked awful. Reading text is much improved and applications that have been upgraded with hiDPI artwork look amazing.
  • While the new iPad gets warm, it has yet to get uncomfortable to hold. Even playing games it feels warm, unlike the original which felt cold no matter what you were doing. I wonder if the ones that are uncomfortably warm have processors that are outliers of the lot (much like some CPU’s over clock better than others).
  • Coming from an 1st gen iPad, the extra memory is a major improvement. As iOS was upgraded on the original, you could feel it becoming constrained by the 256MB in the 1st gen.

I’m already enjoying the new iPad as much as the first when I got it. Reading on it is great and I notice less eyestrain during long sessions.

For a more thorough review (and if you like reading about the more technical aspects) head over to Anandtech for their review.