I went to the Apple Store this morning to check out the iPad Mini (no lines, no madness). I absolutely loved the look, feel, design, build, size and everything about the little tablet - except for one thing. The display. Pixel density and slightly jagged fonts aside, it was just dull and not very vibrant (very much like the iPad 2 display, which I've always hated). The floor manager agreed as he confessed that he is a picky display snob like me.
So, I headed over to the iPad 4's to see what this upgrade was all about. I immediately noticed the speed difference when launching apps as well as the peppier Safari browsing experience while using the store's WiFi. So, since my iPad 3 has issues (a display only a Jailbreak calibration app could remedy, takes forever to charge, overheating, burning hot back, losing charge rapidly while sleeping, etc.), I decided to 'upgrade' and take my chances.
Imagine my surprise when I got home and took the iPad 4 out of the box to find that the display was gorgeous, vibrant, color-rich and evenly lit without the need for a calibration app. The contrast and color saturation is so much better than my iPad 3 (uncalibrated). Not sure who the LCD supplier is in this particular iPad, but it's definitely not a supplier who was making panels during the iPad 3 display lottery. Or, maybe it was and and I just didn't receive a panel from this supplier when I was playing the iPad 3 exchange game.
Aside from the speed (app launching and WiFi browsing - not placebo since my iPad 3 is sitting right next to it), I also noticed that the iPad 4 runs VERY cool. This thing never gets hot! It's always cool to the touch and at worst, only very slightly warm (while charging and or gaming). I loaded 20GBs of music, 12GBs of movies, 175 apps and several hundred pictures and the device was cool to the touch when the content was done loading. Something an iPad 3 user is not used to (at least I wasn't).
So Apple is clearly using a faster, more powerful processor that actually runs cooler than the processor in the iPad 3. For me, this alone justifies upgrading. Also, when you plug it in it actually charges like it's supposed to without getting hot and taking forever to fill up.
So for me, the iPad 4 has a much improved display (even though they are probably using the same display suppliers and I just got lucky this time), is much faster, has faster WiFi, charges quicker and runs VERY cool without any heating up at all.
I had no intentions of getting the iPad 4 today, but I am so glad that I went to the Apple Store and decided to check out this 'small upgrade'. I can't help but think that the iPad 4 is probably what the iPad 3 should have been when it was first released, but the technology just wasn't there yet.
This iPad 4 will hold me over nicely until Apple releases the iPad Mini Retina with more ram and processing power (that is, if they ever release such a device). I hope they do, that little tablet would be amazing with a retina-like display.