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iPad Don't buy an iPad

U

UBS28

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Oct 2, 2012
2,893
2,340
These iPad's get outdated too fast. I bought my iPad 3 about 1,5 years ago and it's too slow already. It stutters during normal operations. However it manages to run the latest games like Infinity blade III supersmooth, so it has plenty of power for normal operations like typing or scrolling. It's just Apple crippling iPad 3 with the latest OS.

Atleast on a Macbook Pro from 4 years ago, I can install Windows 8 or go back to an older OS X if Apple cripples my 4 years old MBP with a new operating system. ( many users did go back to snow leopard when Apple released OS X Lion for example)

Just buy a MBA, 13" rMBP or an ultrabook if you need something super portable since they last much longer. You think the latest iPad runs great now, just wait and see in 2 years on the latest iOS how bad it will run.
 
UBS28 said:
These iPad's get outdated too fast. I bought my iPad 3 about 1,5 years ago and it's too slow already. It stutters during normal operations. However it manages to run the latest games like Infinity blade III supersmooth, so it has plenty of power for normal operations like typing or scrolling. It's just Apple crippling iPad 3 with the latest OS.

Atleast on a Macbook Pro from 4 years ago, I can install Windows 8 or go back to an older OS X if Apple cripples my 4 years old MBP with a new operating system. ( many users did go back to snow leopard when Apple released OS X Lion for example)

Just buy a MBA, 13" rMBP or an ultrabook if you need something super portable since they last much longer. You think the latest iPad runs great now, just wait and see in 2 years on the latest iOS how bad it will run.
Click to expand...

Ios 7.1 runs much smoother on the 3rg gen. Try it with a clean install. I have 3rd gen, 4th gen, Air, mini & retina mini and 7.1 is definitely an improvement across the board. Notebooks and tablets have different use cases and very different price points. I don't think telling someone to not buy an iPad for £300 but to go and spend £999 on a notebook is very helpful to be honest.
 
Must disagree. My ipad 2 which I've had going on 3 years now runs just as well as the day I purchased it. It running ios7 and have not had a single issue with it. I've also got the new mini so I do have something to compare it to.
 
irnchriz said:
Ios 7.1 runs much smoother on the 3rg gen. Try it with a clean install. I have 3rd gen, 4th gen, Air, mini & retina mini and 7.1 is definitely an improvement across the board. Notebooks and tablets have different use cases and very different price points. I don't think telling someone to not buy an iPad for £300 but to go and spend £999 on a notebook is very helpful to be honest.
Click to expand...

Your math is horribly wrong. A MacBook Air 11" with 128Gb of PCIe based SSD is £849 and a 128Gb iPad Air is £639. That is a £210 difference. And considering the iPad Air was made at the end of a Ram cycle (1Gb), I don't see it running well in 1 or 2 OS's time (really the same with every iPad). So if you bought the iPad Air day one, you would be looking a maximum of 3 years before it is crippling (if not 2 year) . The MacBook Air on the other hand, would be looking to last quite a bit longer than than (well the 7 years old iMacs and MacBook Pros are still supported for Mavericks). It is hard to say exactly how long a MacBook Air would last seeing as the original was way underpowered, there is not a lot to go by. I would say your in for a good 4-5 year run until the thought of upgrading would even cross your mind, and you could still squeeze out another 2 years on top of that.

The phone and tablet world are moving much faster than the PC world (it's around a 2X for both CPU and GPU performance upgrades every year for the iPad)and that is most likely why iPads don't have as long a life span as MacBooks.

If you just want to do web browsing, checking emails, want something portable... Then either device is right for you, but spending £200 more for the same speced (in terms of storage) will get you so much more in terms of time.
 
I've found the longevity of iPads are like iPhones, ie much better than equivalent Android devices which become obsolete and depreciated much quicker. My iPad Mini runs iOS 7 very well and I think that has about the same tech specs as the iPad 2.
 
UBS28 said:
and it's too slow already. It stutters during normal operations. However it manages to run the latest games like Infinity blade III supersmooth, so it has plenty of power for normal operations like typing or scrolling. It's just Apple crippling iPad 3 with the latest OS.

You think the latest iPad runs great now, just wait and see in 2 years on the latest iOS how bad it will run.
Click to expand...

I know what your problem is. You've "upgraded" the iOS, probably several times now.

Instead, what you need to do is a clean wipe and fresh install of the latest iOS. Then do a fresh install of your apps, do not restore from backup.

How do I know this? Had an iPad 3 and experienced the exact same thing you did. Exact. I even did a post on this forum stating a fresh install of 7.x is necessary on iPad 3, and a mere upgrade will perform as you describe.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1640156/
 
Velin said:
I even did a post on this forum stating a fresh install of 7.x is necessary on iPad 3, and a mere upgrade will perform as you describe.
Click to expand...

Your mileage may vary
I have an iPad 3 that I upgraded to iOS 7 without a fresh install and I have no problems at all
 
I also believe taking care of them goes a long in making them last longer and run smoother. For me, I never charge unless below 20%. I never throw it on the charger and let it charge overnight. I charge in the evening before bed and remove it once it's fully charged. And as much as a pain in the butt it is, every 6 months I set myself a reminder and I do a factory reinstall without backing up first. I just manually keep track of apps and such and put everything back on myself. I've found this tends to make things run much better. Whether my way is the right way, well I don't know. It works for me.
 
MartinAppleGuy said:
Your math is horribly wrong. A MacBook Air 11" with 128Gb of PCIe based SSD is £849 and a 128Gb iPad Air is £639. That is a £210 difference. And considering the iPad Air was made at the end of a Ram cycle (1Gb), I don't see it running well in 1 or 2 OS's time (really the same with every iPad). So if you bought the iPad Air day one, you would be looking a maximum of 3 years before it is crippling (if not 2 year) . The MacBook Air on the other hand, would be looking to last quite a bit longer than than (well the 7 years old iMacs and MacBook Pros are still supported for Mavericks). It is hard to say exactly how long a MacBook Air would last seeing as the original was way underpowered, there is not a lot to go by. I would say your in for a good 4-5 year run until the thought of upgrading would even cross your mind, and you could still squeeze out another 2 years on top of that.

The phone and tablet world are moving much faster than the PC world (it's around a 2X for both CPU and GPU performance upgrades every year for the iPad)and that is most likely why iPads don't have as long a life span as MacBooks.

If you just want to do web browsing, checking emails, want something portable... Then either device is right for you, but spending £200 more for the same speced (in terms of storage) will get you so much more in terms of time.
Click to expand...

I like how you pick the more expensive iPad to narrow the price difference. iPads start at £249, MacBook airs start at £849. Let me pick the most expensive iPad, the iPad air 4g 128gb £749. Put it against the most expensive 11" air at £1479.

My iPad 2, bought in March 2011 and now used by my in-laws is still going strong almost 3 years on, they have a couple of laptops and an iMac but the iPad is used the vast majority of the time. People have different budgets and uses for devices.
 
irnchriz said:
I like how you pick the more expensive iPad to narrow the price difference. iPads start at £249, MacBook airs start at £849. Let me pick the most expensive iPad, the iPad air 4g 128gb £749. Put it against the most expensive 11" air at £1479.

My iPad 2, bought in March 2011 and now used by my in-laws is still going strong almost 3 years on, they have a couple of laptops and an iMac but the iPad is used the vast majority of the time. People have different budgets and uses for devices.
Click to expand...

It was only fair to compare the ones with the same backing storage.
 
But iPads don't lose their value. I never keep an ipad for longer than a year because if you sell it when the new one comes out you can get realistically like 75/80% back on it. They're worth getting just not keeping
 
skillwill said:
They're worth getting just not keeping
Click to expand...


Not true. Take care of them and they are def worth keeping. I've had my 2 for almost 3 years now. I had another 2 that I bought for $500 2 1/2 years ago and just recently sold it on ebay for 325. Problem is people go nuts when apple comes out with a new device with a minimal change and gives it a new name.
 
You could apply this thinking to just about every electronic device. The safest way to never be obsolete is to never buy anything. There are lots of earlier gen iPads still cranking along just fine. And it's the battery that usually goes first and those can be replaced.

Buy something and enjoy it.
 
OP is partially correct. You have to know "when" in the hardware cycle to buy an iPad. The ipad2 really was the absolute best version to buy. The 4 was also good. But the 1 had horribly low RAM, which prematurely caused it to be less useful. The 3 was quickly replaced because the COU/GPU was not up to snuff. It was adequate, but not enough. The air(5) is artificially low in RAM, especially given the move to 64bit. The next version of the iPAd will have 2gigs of RAM, and will last as long as the iPad 2, where as the air will have a similar fate to the ipad1- enough to do a fair job, but horribly constrained by low RAM.

TLDRN Version - get the next iPad when it gets upgraded to 2 gigs of RAM. The air is lacking enough RAM for true longevity that the ipad2 enjoys.
 
My iPad 2 which was a certified refurb from Apple works amazingly well with iOS 7.0.4 and it's a 3 year old device. On the flip side I own the first gen Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 which is also 3 years old and it essentially is a paper weight. I use it only if I want to view something like streaming TV and that requires Flash.
 
irnchriz said:
Ios 7.1 runs much smoother on the 3rg gen. Try it with a clean install. I have 3rd gen, 4th gen, Air, mini & retina mini and 7.1 is definitely an improvement across the board. Notebooks and tablets have different use cases and very different price points. I don't think telling someone to not buy an iPad for £300 but to go and spend £999 on a notebook is very helpful to be honest.
Click to expand...

Hang on, for the average new iPad I bet people go for the 32GB one, which is far more than £300...
Then if you take the MBA, think of the investment potential in it with all it's possibilities, I think he actually has a point. I have both and I can tell you now, my MBA has had far more of the money's worth than the iPad which I can see being slow and replaced heavily within a year or so. My MBA is 3.5 years old and runs perfectly.

To pay an extra £400 for that is probably worth it and good advice. Alternatively, you have to buy another iPad within 2 years to upgrade - which I bet a lot of people here do.

----------
irnchriz said:
I like how you pick the more expensive iPad to narrow the price difference. iPads start at £249, MacBook airs start at £849. Let me pick the most expensive iPad, the iPad air 4g 128gb £749. Put it against the most expensive 11" air at £1479.

My iPad 2, bought in March 2011 and now used by my in-laws is still going strong almost 3 years on, they have a couple of laptops and an iMac but the iPad is used the vast majority of the time. People have different budgets and uses for devices.
Click to expand...

Makes no sense, you're just trying to be logical. In actual real life, most people will go for the 32GB iPad and most people will go for the low end MBA. So in fairness, he was nearly right.
 
UBS28 said:
These iPad's get outdated too fast. I bought my iPad 3 about 1,5 years ago and it's too slow already. It stutters during normal operations. However it manages to run the latest games like Infinity blade III supersmooth, so it has plenty of power for normal operations like typing or scrolling. It's just Apple crippling iPad 3 with the latest OS.

Atleast on a Macbook Pro from 4 years ago, I can install Windows 8 or go back to an older OS X if Apple cripples my 4 years old MBP with a new operating system. ( many users did go back to snow leopard when Apple released OS X Lion for example)

Just buy a MBA, 13" rMBP or an ultrabook if you need something super portable since they last much longer. You think the latest iPad runs great now, just wait and see in 2 years on the latest iOS how bad it will run.
Click to expand...

Perhaps an iPad doesn't work for your needs and the MBA does. However, that doesn't mean the iPad won't work for everyone else.

Making a blanket statement like you did, "Don't buy an iPad" isn't constructive or all-inclusive. I owned an iPad 3 and it ran well with iOS 7 for the most part. It was useable, functional and met my needs.

I now have an iPad Mini because I wanted to try the smaller screen size and I am very pleased with it.

In conclusion, perhaps your statement could have been "The iPad isn't right for me." Then it would have been more specific and subjective to you only and not everyone else.
 
This could easily be replaced with "don't buy any mobile devices". You think you're in bad shape? Android tablets are nearly unusable after a year.
 
UBS28 said:
These iPad's get outdated too fast. I bought my iPad 3 about 1,5 years ago and it's too slow already. It stutters during normal operations. However it manages to run the latest games like Infinity blade III supersmooth, so it has plenty of power for normal operations like typing or scrolling. It's just Apple crippling iPad 3 with the latest OS.

Atleast on a Macbook Pro from 4 years ago, I can install Windows 8 or go back to an older OS X if Apple cripples my 4 years old MBP with a new operating system. ( many users did go back to snow leopard when Apple released OS X Lion for example)

Just buy a MBA, 13" rMBP or an ultrabook if you need something super portable since they last much longer. You think the latest iPad runs great now, just wait and see in 2 years on the latest iOS how bad it will run.
Click to expand...

In this case, nobody should ever buy any smartphone or tablet ever. I agree with your statement, but the mistake you made is telling people to not buy an iPad.

Any smartphone or tablet is going to become sluggish after 2 years or so, it's a given. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't buy them.
 
SomeGuyDude said:
This could easily be replaced with "don't buy any mobile devices". You think you're in bad shape? Android tablets are nearly unusable after a year.
Click to expand...

It depends on the Android tablet. My 1st gen Nexus 7 is actually better with key lime pie. Speed was never an issue but it also has vanilla android.
 
UBS28 said:
These iPad's get outdated too fast. I bought my iPad 3 about 1,5 years ago and it's too slow already. It stutters during normal operations. However it manages to run the latest games like Infinity blade III supersmooth, so it has plenty of power for normal operations like typing or scrolling. It's just Apple crippling iPad 3 with the latest OS.

Atleast on a Macbook Pro from 4 years ago, I can install Windows 8 or go back to an older OS X if Apple cripples my 4 years old MBP with a new operating system. ( many users did go back to snow leopard when Apple released OS X Lion for example)

Just buy a MBA, 13" rMBP or an ultrabook if you need something super portable since they last much longer. You think the latest iPad runs great now, just wait and see in 2 years on the latest iOS how bad it will run.
Click to expand...


It only needs to last two years as I buy a new one every year, give my current one to the wife and after that they are throwaways to the grand kids.

I move on. Apple love me.
 
Rodster said:
It depends on the Android tablet. My 1st gen Nexus 7 is actually better with key lime pie. Speed was never an issue but it also has vanilla android.
Click to expand...

You mean Kit Kat? I've heard that 4.4 helped wake up a lot of devices yeah, I just remember that so many of them (including the N7) were slowed to a crawl after a year.

Plus there's also Android's gnarly tendency to drop support for its devices after about a year. Apple's still pushing out updates for the 4s and that came out in 2011. You're not gonna find ANY Android phones that old still getting updates except maybe the Galaxy Nexus.

I'm no Apple apologist, I think the brand has loads of problems in their model and design, but I think between them and Android it's a better arrangement unless you're on a budget.
 
SomeGuyDude said:
You mean Kit Kat? I've heard that 4.4 helped wake up a lot of devices yeah, I just remember that so many of them (including the N7) were slowed to a crawl after a year.

Plus there's also Android's gnarly tendency to drop support for its devices after about a year. Apple's still pushing out updates for the 4s and that came out in 2011. You're not gonna find ANY Android phones that old still getting updates except maybe the Galaxy Nexus.

I'm no Apple apologist, I think the brand has loads of problems in their model and design, but I think between them and Android it's a better arrangement unless you're on a budget.
Click to expand...

I lost track lol. Yeah you're right it's kit kat. My N7 shipped with JB and was really fast and it's still fast and fluid with KK.

Oh yeah you were right about that too. It seems Google forgot to enable TRIM in the OS. When they released 4.3 it took care of that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_version_history#Android_4.3_Jelly_Bean_.28API_level_18.29

*Filesystem write performance improvement by running fstrim command while device is idle
 
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