Announced in early March, “The new iPad” is the tablet to beat for 2012, with Apple doing its usual technology refresh and producing what should be another market leading gadget. But while people are already lining up for the third iteration of the iPad, here are some reasons you might want to stay home.
Your eyes may be incompatible with the new screen
The new iPad screen boasts an impressive 2048 x 1536 resolution screen, a pixel count that is not only higher than what you’ll find inside your TV, but also shows more pixels per inch than any other tablet. This screen is also twice the resolution of the first two iPads, making it a huge leap in quality for Apple.
What does this mean for you?
Everything will look better, including the text in books, the clarity of words in magazines, photographs, movies, and just about anything else viewed on the tablet.
But then there’s the catch.
For many of us, our eyes are the bottleneck, making it harder to see the difference in quality a screen like this will produce.
Younger generations won’t struggle at all and will easily see the difference while reading electronic books and magazines, even while checking their email, but the screen quality may not be a factor if your eyes are deteriorating.
4G isn’t 4G in Australia
While the idea of a truly high speed mobile broadband connection on a tablet may seem like a brilliant one, it is still a dream for the iPad in Australia.
Despite Apple loading this new model with a 4G connection, the new iPad is incompatible with the only 4G network on offer in Australia.
Currently, Telstra is the sole offering supporting the fourth-generation mobile broadband technology, and while we certainly have proof that the system is fast, we also know that it runs on the 1800MHz band.
The new iPad, however, only takes notice of 700 and 2100MHz, putting the Telstra 4G connections out of reach from the newly upgraded tablet model.
Optus and Vodafone – Australia’s other major telcos – have yet to launch their 4G solutions, with Optus eyeing the 700 and 1800MHz spectrums for possible activity, and Vodafone putting its 4G plans on hold for the moment.
So that means no iPad 4G connectivity locally, not unless you want to turn your 4G smartphone into a hotspot and connect it wirelessly to your iPad.
But that’s not to say a 3G connection will be slow by any means, with the new iPad supporting dual-channel 3G and providing speeds up to 10-15Mbps, faster than what most ADSL2+ connections can reach.
The iPad 2 is cheaper
Apple’s latest tablet features a new name, new features, and a new price tag, but you can still find the old tablet around, and Apple plans to keep it available for purchase for the next year.
Still considered one of the best touchscreen slates, Apple’s iPad 2 is the tablet that many manufacturers compare their iPad competitors to, and now it will be selling for $429 for the 16GB WiFi model and $569 for the 16GB WiFi/3G version.
At that price, it undercuts most of the 10.1 inch competition, offering Apple’s excellent 9.7 inch iPad 2 for less than what manufacturers of Android tablets sell for.
In fact, we’re already seeing the cost of the iPad 2 at non-Apple stores undercut the Apple price, even managing prices under $400, cheaper than the cheapest Android 10 inch tablets have been managing.
We’re also expecting that this new lower price will severely impact the resale of used iPad and iPad 2 units, potentially making second-hand iPads fetch between $100 and $300 on eBay and the like.
If you don’t need a tablet with the latest tech or a 5 megapixel camera (who does?), you might want to consider this route.
Still not sure? We’ll have a “three reasons why you want the new iPad” coming up shortly!
