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All iPads Is iPad Air the new iPad 3?

K

Kendo

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Apr 4, 2011
2,276
760
I remember when I first bought the iPad 3 I had thought I would never need another one for a few years since it introduced the Retina Display and an A5X. Fast forward a few months and we realized it was gimped with an underpowered GPU from the start.

I know that Apple releases a new model every year so you're never gonna get the perfect product, but some revisions last a long longer than others (iPad 2 and iPhone 4S still running strong).

Will next year's iPad Air (if it introduces Touch ID and an X GPU processor) be a better time to buy than this model? I feel they gimped it a little bit like the iPad 3 (not necessarily on purpose, it was just market conditions). For example the A6 wasn't ready and they needed a Retina Display iPad to come out quick so they made an A5X. In this case they don't have enough Touch ID sensors so they removed it from this year's models.
 
S

smiddlehurst

macrumors 65816
Jun 5, 2007
1,228
30
Except the iPad 3 is, for many people, absolutely fine. Bit underpowered for games maybe but as an everyday tablet no problems even with iOS7. I could happily use mine for at least another year, I just happen to be in a position to upgrade now but it's a luxury not necessity.

Honestly, the only way to answer this question is to ask how important 'missing' features are to you personally? Is Touch ID something you feel you won't be able to live without either in isolation or if you get it on another device and then realise you want it on iPad as well?
 
T

TommyA6

macrumors 65816
May 15, 2013
1,056
516
Kendo said:
I remember when I first bought the iPad 3 I had thought I would never need another one for a few years since it introduced the Retina Display and an A5X. Fast forward a few months and we realized it was gimped with an underpowered GPU from the start.

I know that Apple releases a new model every year so you're never gonna get the perfect product, but some revisions last a long longer than others (iPad 2 and iPhone 4S still running strong).

Will next year's iPad Air (if it introduces Touch ID and an X GPU processor) be a better time to buy than this model? I feel they gimped it a little bit like the iPad 3 (not necessarily on purpose, it was just market conditions). For example the A6 wasn't ready and they needed a Retina Display iPad to come out quick so they made an A5X. In this case they don't have enough Touch ID sensors so they removed it from this year's models.
Click to expand...

The thing is, A7 in iPad Air and mini retina is probably as powerful as the A7X would have been (It probably uses powervr 6630 instead of 6430 in iPhone 5s). They've just probably decided to drop "X" from the name. A7 in iPad Air and mini is 2X more powerful in both CPU and GPU than A6X in 4th generation iPad. A5X in 3rd generation iPad had the exact same CPU and 2X faster GPU than A5 in iPad 2, but had to push 4X as pixels as iPad 2. That's why it can be a bit slow today.

iPad Air has the same resolution as 4th gen and has much powerful CPU and GPU.
 
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