iPad Refurbished iPad 3 ($379) vs iPad 4 (Black Friday $458)

The higher resale value of the 4 makes it worth it alone. Not to mention twice the speed for just $80, seems pretty obvious to me.

You got yourself a very good deal. The heat problem alone should allow you to make your decision which to keep.

Question for you. Which screen/display is the more pleasing? Any yellowing that others have mentioned on either the 3 or the 4? Whites nice and white? If both are good, I'd go with the 4, absolutely!

Don't forget the ipad 4 has better battery life than the 3. I'm getting 1-2 more hours of usage. I had the 3 then returned it for the 3 refurb then got the 4. I don't regret getting the 4. It's a much better device. Will last you longer, get updates for longer, higher resale value. Wifi is much faster and I love the screen made by LG.

So for $79 you get a faster CPU, faster GPU, HD FaceTime camera, better rear cam pics (from the DSP in the A6X), better WiFi ... and personally, I think the Lightening connector is a very nice improvement.

Seems like a no-brainer.

D.T. said:

So for $79 you get a faster CPU, faster GPU, HD FaceTime camera, better rear cam pics (from the DSP in the A6X), better WiFi ... and personally, I think the Lightening connector is a very nice improvement.

Seems like a no-brainer.

Click to expand...

Plus the resale value of the 4 will be higher then the 3.

dazz87 said:

Plus the resale value of the 4 will be higher then the 3.

Click to expand...

Yeah, another good point, heck, the resale difference [in the shorter term] is probably close to the price difference of those two iPads.

So there you go ... buy a 4th Gen

FWIW, I upgraded my 3 to a 4 for twice the upgrade cost the OP indicated and have +zero+ regret.

i used to have an iPad 3, which i bought for full price on October 3. apple allowed me to return it and pre-order the iPad 4, which i did. i got the iPad 4 and in all honesty the difference was not very significant. app folders opened up a split second more quickly and web pages loaded maybe 1-2 seconds more quickly. games played exactly the same (Metal Storm) and despite the A6X being twice as fast as the A5X, the A5 on a non-retina display still plays Metal Storm more fluidly. that Retina screen truly is a beast and i still feel that the A6X isn't fully adequate for the Retina. but i digress...that's a topic of discussion for another forum.

i saw that the iPad 3 refurbs substantially dropped in price right when the iPad 4 was announced. the iPad 3/4 64GB LTE that originally was $829 brand new was now $679... talk about a steep price drop ($150). i returned the iPad 4 and bought the iPad 3 version for $679. before i did this though, i thought about what my intentions were with this iPad 3. was i intending to hold onto it for 3 years or am i buying it to use for a year and then flip when the redesigned iPad 5 comes out? most likely it will be the latter. thus i concluded that going with the iPad 3 was the better was to go. an analogy to this situation would be trying to decide to buy a used car or a brand new car if you knew you would be selling it soon. most logical people would buy the used vehicle since after 1 year of ownership it will not have depreciated as much from the purchase price as much as the brand new one. going back to the iPad, the $679 iPad 3 64GB LTE iPad a year from now when the iPad 5 comes out, will probably have a resale dip to $600. the iPad 4 64GB LTE on the other hand, will likely drop from $829 down to the $679 price that the refurb iPad 3 used to be at. in my situation, after doing the simple math, the iPad 3 is the better way to go. however, not everyone's situation is the same as mine as they might not be planning to upgrade to the iPad 5. this scenario also doesn't end up being as extreme if you are comparing base model 16GB wifi models and you throw in Black Friday pricing too. that gap ends up being more narrow and then i might say just go with the iPad 4.


moving onto the other new features of the iPad 4. i have an iPhone 4S and i've owned iPods since 2005 so to be honest i won't miss the Lightning port - i'm too entrenched in 30-pin cables and accessories for the benefits of the new port (reversible) to negate the inconveniences. i have about a dozen 30-pin cables - several throughout the house, car, office, several at the lake house, briefcase, backpack, etc just to name a few. while wifi sync is great, it's not ideal for transferring 15GB of Season 2 of Game of Thrones to my iPad. i know eventually the Lightning cables will be generic, but they're not now and they won't be $0.99 probably for 2 more years. again like i said above, i am thinking about the now and for the next year.

not having a Facetime HD camera in the iPad 3 is OK - it's not like 720p will make my face more attractive. if anything it'll make it uglier lol. my girlfriend has the Mini so i at least get to see her in 720p when we occasionally Facetime which is maybe once every 2 months when i am on a business trip. if i was in a long distance relationship though, then i could see the 720p Facetime HD camera being a must.



so yeah, that's pretty much my reasoning why i went from and iPad 3, to and iPad 4, back to and iPad 3. i'm sure many will disagree with my logic and that's OK - that's why we're consumers...we each have our own opinion

welcome to the Retina Screen Lottery - while your chances of winning are better than the Powerball, expect to lose a few times.

i got lucky with the iPad 4 - the screen was just as perfect as the 2nd exchanged iPad 3

dazz87 said:

Plus the resale value of the 4 will be higher then the 3.

Click to expand...

The resale difference may not be that much more than $80.

I had problems with the 3, so I returned it and bought the 4 and loooooove it! The only problem I have is what case to buy for it. Lol

I'd go with the 4th gen. It is worth it for the little price difference and not refurbished which I personally would not care for regardless of its condition.

I got a nice screen so no complaints but if the screen was poor I would definitely return it. I find the screens identical but the performance is noteworthy. I've yet to really feel heat in the same way the 3 would heat up and the battery seems to last longer on the 4. Web pages load much faster to me. Some apps load faster, some don't. I get the feeling iOS isn't super optimized for the 4 the way it is on the 2 & 3.

In your situation choosing the 4 seems like a no brainer. Honestly if $79 mattered that much I wouldn't even get an iPad.

I was in the same boat thinking bout getting the Refurbished Ipad 3 when the 4 was release, the diff in price was $120.00 Thank god I waited for the bestbuy deal and amex deal. $564.00 out the door including tax for 32gb. Diff is only around 60 bucks....

JesseJamez said:

Ill definitely exchange it if I decide to keep it. Yeah 79 isn't really a lot but I like to save where i can. Dazz87, is the Amex deal still going on? I did not hear about that one!

Click to expand...

dont know if I could post the info but I send you a pm. Its still alive for the amex deal.

In Canada, we had a great deal on Black Friday, Staples was offering the iPad 4's starting at $469 and offering a $50 coupon on top of that. Some people were lucky to get the price matched with Future Shop's 454.99 bringing the cost to $404.99 for the 16gb iPad 4.

so $26 difference for me, I'm leaning towards keeping my iPad 4 and hope I got a decent screen.