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t76turbo

macrumors 6502
Sep 20, 2012
299
707
I'm glad I didn't buy the 4. I own a 3 and was going to pass it along to my wife and get the 4 but decided to wait since the model change happened so quickly.

Guess I will wait to see the final specs on the 5 to see if it is worth buying. If not, I will wait for the 6. Will still pass the 3 on to my wife. Even if the 3 is a few models old. She will not know the difference with what she plans to use it for.
 

jojoba

macrumors 68000
Dec 9, 2011
1,584
21
I didn't go crazy when the 4 came out, and skipped it without much consideration. I'm totally happy with my 3gen, and won't upgrade until there's something that offers a considerable improvement to my current work flow.
 

barkomatic

macrumors 601
Aug 8, 2008
4,521
2,827
Manhattan
I remember when the iPad 4 came out, all of the 3 owners went stir crazy. Now fast forward a few months and those that withstood the temptation to upgrade are in a great position. We can look forward to the iPad 5 which will be a complete redesign. Not only that but our iPad still works great with the A5X processor.

Around this time we would be faced with selling our current iPad for the newest one, but since the iPad 4 release delayed the schedule, we can maximize our use with the 3 for longer than the usual 1 year cycle.

I'm sure the fifth generation iPad will be great, but its too expensive (for me) to take losses on selling my old hardware to purchase new on a yearly basis.
 

Samtb

macrumors 65816
Jan 6, 2013
1,490
32
Is it just me or does the 3 have better quality control than the 4? I don't know if its a coincidence but I see more threads with problems about the 4 than the 3.
 

xti

macrumors newbie
Mar 2, 2008
9
0
Owned the original iPad and went from it to the 11" Macbook Air. Miss the iPad and am thinking of getting another. With the 5 on the horizon it may be an excellent time to look for a used or refurbished iPad 3 with Retina. That is unless the 5 offers something so amazing it is hard to resist.

----------

Is it just me or does the 3 have better quality control than the 4? I don't know if its a coincidence but I see more threads with problems about the 4 than the 3.

The same could be said about the iPhones, my 4 is rock solid while I know many people that have had issues with the 4S and 5. The original iPad was flawless and the person I sold it to has not had a single issue. Hope this is not a trend we are seeing in Apple.
 

Samtb

macrumors 65816
Jan 6, 2013
1,490
32
Owned the original iPad and went from it to the 11" Macbook Air. Miss the iPad and am thinking of getting another. With the 5 on the horizon it may be an excellent time to look for a used or refurbished iPad 3 with Retina. That is unless the 5 offers something so amazing it is hard to resist.

----------



The same could be said about the iPhones, my 4 is rock solid while I know many people that have had issues with the 4S and 5. The original iPad was flawless and the person I sold it to has not had a single issue. Hope this is not a trend we are seeing in Apple.

I suppose quality control becomes more difficult the more you produce, and im guessing the numbers Apple produce have only gone up.
 

thadoggfather

macrumors P6
Oct 1, 2007
15,551
16,286
Is it just me or does the 3 have better quality control than the 4? I don't know if its a coincidence but I see more threads with problems about the 4 than the 3.

This is why I returned to iPad 3.

4 didn't feel as solidly built and both of the ones I tried had inferior screens.

One more obvious than the other. 3 had a lot of bad screens I just happened to finally get a good one. And I'll be holding onto it, lesson learned.
 

darngooddesign

macrumors P6
Jul 4, 2007
17,990
9,575
Atlanta, GA
Is it just me or does the 3 have better quality control than the 4? I don't know if its a coincidence but I see more threads with problems about the 4 than the 3.

All I remember from the iPad3 launch were countless threads about lightbleed, bad pixels, and nicks on the casing. So I do not agree with you.
 

Commy1

macrumors 6502a
Feb 25, 2013
728
73
As with any iDevice, it's rare that Apple does any redesign now a days, when they do most people say "woohoo can't afford it" or "maybe later". What we all REALLY want is iOS updates.
 

hovscorpion12

macrumors 68030
Sep 12, 2011
2,606
2,542
USA
I got my iPad since release day and have not looked back. I went from the first gen iPad to the third so it was defiantly an impressive leap. The iPad 4 does no impress. Most likely the iPad 3 will keep until 2015. Amazing battery life (11,500mAh), (jailbroken :D:D) and it has a 1Ghz processor with 1GB of RAM.
 

Redrum509

macrumors regular
Feb 20, 2012
141
0
I sold my iPad 3 16 gb about a month ago for $400.00. I ended up getting a iPad 4 and there's no looking back. Faster that's for sure.screen just as good as iPad 3.
 

RenoG

macrumors 65816
Oct 7, 2010
1,275
59
Naaahh not me, ipad 3 is just fine, a spec bump was not enough for me to switch.
 

Medic311

macrumors 68000
Jul 30, 2011
1,659
58
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 1/2-1 sec 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 way 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 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 due to downward pricing pressure from Apple.com iPad 4 refurbs. 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 an 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
 

Han Solo 1

macrumors 6502
Mar 12, 2013
495
11
I was unhappy with the small 16gb storage option I got in the 3 so I bought the 16gb iPad 4 and now it's like I have a 32gb iPad!
 

thadoggfather

macrumors P6
Oct 1, 2007
15,551
16,286
I definitely agree with medic311 after using iPad 3 for a year now and iPad 4 for a little over a week (on 6.1.2), A6x doesn't even seem 100% retina ready even though it is better than the 3 (sometimes flicking to spotlight and back to the home screen, it hiccups just like on the 3, and sometimes there is wayyyy too long of a pause to open Settings app with A6x, just like on A5x). It benchmarks significantly better, but in day to day, I don't notice that much of a difference. The A5x holds up surprisingly well... Then again, I'm not a big gamer. But I did load Dead Trigger on iPad 4 before returning it, and it is beyond silky smooth.
 

shopboy0301

macrumors member
Dec 4, 2011
41
0
New York
Love my ipad 3

Ipad 3 still functions great,only problem is its 64gb.Will upgrade to ipad5,when it comes out.and yes 128gb storage,can't wait and yes will hold to ipad 3.:D
 

thadoggfather

macrumors P6
Oct 1, 2007
15,551
16,286
I think regardless of if I buy a mini 2 or iPad 5 or any after that, I'm going to keep my iPad3 "in the collection" as well.

It was such a frustrating swap journey, and then after getting a good one, almost a year of non-stop bliss. The screen is perfect, and I am emotionally attached to its non-IR, uniform, bright white screen with perfect detail in dark scenes. It's still a marvel to look at compared to the two iPad 4's I tried. I am picky, though I must admit. It's also great not to have to deal with dynamic contrast issue inherent on seemingly all iPad4's.

And after getting the Ultraslim Logitech keyboard (the best thing ever, it really is like the other 1/2 of iPad experience and I just cranked it up a notch. With jailbreak, it's a cracked out netbook. With my next iPad I'll likely want a keyboard as well for that and it's definitely going to be a different shape/form factor

I'm just so happy with it.
 

neutrino23

macrumors 68000
Feb 14, 2003
1,881
391
SF Bay area
I have the iPad 3 and was tempted by the 4 after trying it at the Apple store. The faster processor seemed to really help render PDFs much more quickly. I decided to hold off and wait for the iPad 5.
 
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