Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Poll: Retina Display or Battery Life

Which iPad would you prefer?

  • Retina Display and 10 hours of battery life

    Votes: 204 88.3%

  • Old display and 20 hours of battery life

    Votes: 27 11.7%
  • Total voters
    231
S

seetheforest

macrumors regular
Original poster
Dec 24, 2010
104
12
So with all other things constant would you rather have the retina display on the iPad with 10 hours of battery life or the old display with 20 hours of battery life in the device?
 
Considering I plug it in every night, retina display.

After a "heavy" usage day I am at worst at around 50% left. If I forget to plug it in then I still can use it the next day normally.

Not that I wouldn't want twenty hours of battery life, just it would't be as useful to me compared to the readability of the retina display.
 
20 hours? On a iPad 2? I don't think so.

Edit:
I see what you did. Same larger battery but old display. I got it.
 
The battery life was also 10hrs on ipad2 so having the same amount w a retina display is a bonus. 10 hours is more than enough. Charging every night is not bothersome as I'm used to charging my iPhone every night also.
 
I haven't seen the retina display iPad's yet. But based not the poll results I take it that the change is fairly stark?

----------
iHeartsteve said:
The battery life was also 10hrs on ipad2 so having the same amount w a retina display is a bonus. 10 hours is more than enough. Charging every night is not bothersome as I'm used to charging my iPhone every night also.
Click to expand...

I am assuming that all things are the same. So the battery would still be much larger on the iPad 3 and would result in quite a bump in battery life since it wouldn't have to power 4 times the pixels (maybe not doubling the battery life, but I was trying to keep things simple) ...
 
The new display is awesome.

This poll makes no sense. Old display with 10 hours or new display w/ 10 hrs. What the difference? Who wouldn't pick the best of both worlds??
 
seetheforest said:
I haven't seen the retina display iPad's yet. But based not the poll results I take it that the change is fairly stark?

----------



I am assuming that all things are the same. So the battery would still be much larger on the iPad 3 and would result in quite a bump in battery life since it wouldn't have to power 4 times the pixels (maybe not doubling the battery life, but I was trying to keep things simple) ...
Click to expand...

Right even though the battery is larger, is has to power the upgraded screen. So battery life remains equal to the iPad 2
 
Man I really don't know, using foreflight on a couple of long flights with gps and connected to cellular for sure doesn't last 10 hrs more like 4 to 6 so If I do a couple of long flights in one day it would be nice to have the 20 hrs. But the display is to nice so I got to go with the display and 10 hrs. Eventually the battery time will go up with the retna display.
 
Retina. No contest. I would even choose retina even if the battery life was 5 hours.
 
If I am always mobile and need 24/7 access to my tablet for work then battery life would be the primary concern, but for home use and it being on a charger whenever I want battery life is a non issue, so retina it is.
 
Dkorda said:
The new display is awesome.

This poll makes no sense. Old display with 10 hours or new display w/ 10 hrs. What the difference? Who wouldn't pick the best of both worlds??
Click to expand...

Old display + iPad 3 internals = ~20 hours of battery life. The retina display requires more juice to power all of those pixels, so if you swapped out the retina display for a lower-res iPad display you would see a big bump in battery life. Makes sense to me.
 
Retina for sure. It's why I got the new iPad. If it didn't have retina and instead had 20 hours battery life I would have just been "that's cool" and then not gotten it.
 
The retina display really is amazing. I got my new iPad yesterday and reading my pdfs on it is a joy. As long as the battery lasts me a full work day, I'm good.
 
I'm in school in seven hours, the rest is at home or other places. Lets say that i'm going to use it that day until the battery is 1 %, 10 hours would be perfect until it's time for me to sleep and charge it under the night.
 
Personally, having seen the new 2012 display in comparison to the previous one, I would go for a 20 hour battery in my iPad 2. Providing it can take as many charge cycles, that effectively doubles battery lifespan. Would be a pretty amazing device to be honest.
 
Going back to a non-retina display is like pouring battery acid into your eyes
 
I still switch between an iPad 2 and iPad 3 with no issues so I consider all this overly dramatic "I see dead pixels" people to be overboard by bragging about "floating text" or "crystal clear icons". Obviously retina makes things better but with ipad2 brightness cranked beyond normal levels and a well produced video to demo then you'll get the same jaw drop (from BOTH sides of the snob fence) because the source material makes a bigger difference than screen res.

(BTW, In the last month I bought 4 iPad3s for the family so don't take that as hate)
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back