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IUBall22

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Sep 13, 2007
473
480
I currently have the iPad 1 and am considering upgrading to the 4. How big is the difference in speed between the two? Mainly safari...
 

Spink10

Suspended
Nov 3, 2011
4,261
1,020
Oklahoma
I have both and I will be returning the 4. Im cheap - the iPad 1 still does everything I need it to do. I will spend my money somewhere else. Use it for web browsing, email, pdfs, little bit of reading.
 

KeepCalmPeople

macrumors 65816
Sep 5, 2012
1,457
659
Los Angeles, California
The 4 is much faster. How much faster? You'll only know for sure if you try it out for yourself.
It should be noticeably faster no matter what you do. Even more obvious and impressive is the retina display.
 

zinman

macrumors member
Aug 13, 2012
46
27
Indy
I currently have the iPad 1 and am considering upgrading to the 4. How big is the difference in speed between the two? Mainly safari...

I didn't have the first iPad but now have the 4th and it's incredible! So from one Hoosier to another....do it!
 

Random 995K

macrumors 6502
Nov 3, 2012
295
0
I currently have the iPad 1 and am considering upgrading to the 4. How big is the difference in speed between the two? Mainly safari...

Well its about 4 times faster which is a massive difference. Furthermore the screen is very nice with the retina display.

The sun spider tests which measures the speeds of browsers on different devices (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_speed_test) shows that the iPad 4 would be more than 3 times faster in safari then the ipad 1 if internet was the same speed and source.

You should probably upgrade.
 

reputationZed

macrumors 65816
I can only compare the 4 to an iPad2, not sure how much of a difference there is between the 1 and 2. I'd agree there is a noticeable difference but I wouldn't say there is a massive difference. The 2-4 increase seen in benchmarks is there but not that meaningful until apps are written to take advantage of that speed. Best to do your own comparison as meaningful speed can be somewhat subjective.
 

karlth

macrumors regular
Apr 13, 2010
210
0
I currently have the iPad 1 and am considering upgrading to the 4. How big is the difference in speed between the two? Mainly safari...

I upgraded from iPad 1 to iPad 4 and improvement is considerable. You'll mostly notice it when loading heavy webpages and when switching between tabs. It is not only that rendering is much faster because the WiFI is quicker as well and with more memory everything becomes more fluid and crashes less. Then there is the display of course.

I use the iPad mostly for browsing and the upgrade was well worth it. Surfing the web on the iPad4 is just pure pleasure.
 

n54e90

macrumors newbie
Nov 14, 2012
1
0
I have the original. I spent some time in the store playing with the 4 last week. It is a HUGE difference. I have no doubt that those saying that the upgrade is well worth it are right. But even given that difference, I couldn't pull the trigger. I am going to wait one more cycle. I figure at that point the new processor will be taken advantage of and the lack of ios 6 will be meaningful.
 

Liquinn

Suspended
Apr 10, 2011
3,016
57
I have both and I will be returning the 4. Im cheap - the iPad 1 still does everything I need it to do. I will spend my money somewhere else. Use it for web browsing, email, pdfs, little bit of reading.
Yeah I know what you mean tbh. I sorta regret upgrading but it's nice to own the latest and greatest. I own the iPad 1 and and the iPad 4. There is quite a lot of difference. :)
 

maflynn

macrumors Haswell
May 3, 2009
73,489
43,414
There's a huge difference between the look, feel and operation of the iPad 4 and the 1.

I have an iPad 1 and its great but apple in redesigning the tablet in the second generation made it more hold-able. The CPU/GPU, screen camera and memory improvements in the iPad 4 make it a huge jump in performance and user experience from the first gen.
 

clyde2801

macrumors 601
Kudos to the OP for resisting the RDF and hanging onto his iP1 for so long! The shortage of ram is why I upgraded to the 2, and the double ram and retina to the 3.

I was being lured by the 4 (It has double the processing power and a better wifi antenna! Better FT camera, too!), but I think I'm going to sit this one out. I don't think I've ever had an experience with it so far that's left me wanting. Same might go for the iP5, whenever that's released. It'll have to be more than a spec increase and a case redesign to get more of my money...it'll need to have blow me out of my socks performance or features.

I seem to remember the iPad being described as an 'internet appliance' a few years back. And that's what it may end up being to most consumers: most people are unconcerned that a new coffee maker with new features is being released unless their old one quit working.

It wouldn't be surprising if we're about to reach the market saturation point soon, where everyone with the disposable income who wants an iPad already has one. Apple has to crank out new models year after year (or maybe bi-annually, who knows) and sell at least as many as they did the year before or their stock will take a beating. I almost feel sorry for them.
 

DSTOFEL

macrumors 6502a
Feb 11, 2011
982
737
I can only compare the 4 to an iPad2, not sure how much of a difference there is between the 1 and 2. I'd agree there is a noticeable difference but I wouldn't say there is a massive difference. The 2-4 increase seen in benchmarks is there but not that meaningful until apps are written to take advantage of that speed. Best to do your own comparison as meaningful speed can be somewhat subjective.

I agree. I had the iPad 1 and when my wife got the 2, I noticed an enormous difference in just about everything except the display quality. With the 2, I felt like they really got it right (sans display)! I've had the 4 now for 2 weeks. Performance wise....I'm not seeing a huge difference from the 2. Both the 2 & 4 do everything well. Wifi performance is one exception......I'm finding much improved over both 1 & 2. The display quality of course was a huge improvement.

Maybe when apps are written to take advantage of the 4's power.....I'll notice a bigger difference. All in all.....the upgrade from 1 to 4 was huge....as would going from the 1 to "anything" would have been.
 

GoCubsGo

macrumors Nehalem
Feb 19, 2005
35,741
153
I went from the 1 to the 3 and it was a big jump for me. After getting the 4S, my iPad 1 seemed to just feel very sluggish. It was all in my head of course. I really enjoyed the jump so I can only imagine how awesome it would be going from the 1 to the 4.
 

ThatsMeRight

macrumors 68020
Sep 12, 2009
2,294
263
The iPad 4 is in raw CPU performance about four times faster. Take into account that you'll also be able to run iOS 6 which has even more improvements and you'll see drastic speed improvements - especially in Safari.

When looking into the GPU performance it's 36 times faster. If you, however, take the Retina display into account the iPad 4 is 9x faster than the first-gen iPad (the iPad 2 is, relatively, also 9x faster while the iPad 3 is only 4.5 faster than the first-gen iPad).
 

BenTrovato

macrumors 68040
Jun 29, 2012
3,035
2,198
Canada
The new ones are almost always better. It just becomes a question if you need it, or if you want the newer technology. If you don't need it, and don't really want it, then it won't be appealing to upgrade. Some people get satisfaction out of selling the previous model for a good price because they kept in good condition and pick up the new model for the difference in price.

IMO, the iPad 1 is really slow. The 2 is great if you don't care about retina. If I was in the market right now I would buy a refurb 3 if I had the iPhone 4/4S or if my phone was the 5, I would get the iPad4 so all the cables would be in unison. Honestly technology is just a game, it'll keep digging at your heels if you let it. Enjoy what you have and stop looking at the newer prettier woman who keeps luring you to go after her. Sorry I meant device, not women! :D
 

tyche

macrumors 6502
Jul 30, 2010
413
65
I went from a 1 to a 3 last summer. In a lot of ways the iPad 1 is just fine and you won't see much difference in usage (ignoring options on the 4 that didn't exist like cameras) for a lot of things.

But the 4 will have subtle changes that you will come to appreciate. It will load apps faster, web viewing will be smoother. The retina display will look sharp. With more memory, more apps will remain in memory for switching.

Don't expect some mind blowing upgrade. A lot of software is frame locked anyway and the 1 is pretty capable. So while the specs are impressive, for basic usage and web browsing or games like Angry Birds, it's not so drastic.
 

zhenya

macrumors 604
Jan 6, 2005
6,929
3,677
I just moved from an iPad 1 to an iPad 4 and the difference was dramatic. I'll admit I'm a bit of a power user, so I expect things to work pretty quickly, but the iPad 1 had started to fall out of regular usage for me because it was just too slow - slow to load pages, slow to reload tabs every time you changed pages or switched between programs, slow to open programs when trying to multi-task. All of those little slowdowns and waits really started to sour the experience for me.

The 4 is nearly everything I've wanted the iPad to be. The retina screen makes reading in portrait mode a joy. Web pages load nearly as fast as on my iMac. There is very little reloading of pages or programs due to lack of RAM.

The last things that I'd really like to see would be a change in iOS so that pages are preserved on the drive even if they have to be dumped out of RAM so that you don't lose what you are doing there, and more programs that can be returned to through multi-tasking without the (now very short) reloading of the data. I'd also like to see some provision for viewing two items at once - say a chat window and the browser. At that point, it'd be a near complete non-work computer for me.
 

jterp7

macrumors 65816
Oct 26, 2011
1,257
137
I have both and I will be returning the 4. Im cheap - the iPad 1 still does everything I need it to do. I will spend my money somewhere else. Use it for web browsing, email, pdfs, little bit of reading.

consider yourself lucky that you find yourself satisfied with the 1.:)

Might as well wait for the 5 at this point which should use the new "mini" construction if I were to guess, plus thinner glass?
 

MrXiro

macrumors 68040
Nov 2, 2007
3,850
599
Los Angeles
I currently have the iPad 1 and am considering upgrading to the 4. How big is the difference in speed between the two? Mainly safari...

You ever use a 4 year old computer? That's pretty much what it the difference is.

Speedy and able to run multiple apps vs slower with a paltry amount of RAM so even Safari crashed all the time.
 

IUBall22

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Sep 13, 2007
473
480
You ever use a 4 year old computer? That's pretty much what it the difference is.

Speedy and able to run multiple apps vs slower with a paltry amount of RAM so even Safari crashed all the time.

Well I'm still using my white MacBook from 2008
 

Cdumitru78

macrumors member
May 7, 2008
54
8
I have the iPad 1 and I ended up with the iPad Mini. It feels WAY faster than the original iPad in all aspects, absolutely no comparison, so the new 4 should feel even faster. Its mainly the little things that will be faster all around, web browsing, scrolling, switching between web pages. I also haven't seen the mini crashing or freezing once when loading heavy wen content either, thats definitely a plus.
 
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