I'm probably going to wait to purchase until I can see the difference in store. I do enjoy looking at my iPhone 4S display........ but gas prices are so much!!!
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Refurbished iPad 2 or new iPad 3?
- Thread starter mitch.dunc
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Not necessarily. I use (and enjoy) my iPad 2 a lot and have probably shot 3 photos with it (2 of them in the first week). And on the rare occasion when I use it on the road I tether to my phone.
not necessary? tell me what is necessary about something you can live without in the first place?
This is a toy and shouldn't be thought of something else. People don't need an iPad. That said i like my toys the best and the screen is a huge upgrade. would you choose and iPhone 3gs screen or 4+ screen if the price was 100$ cheaper? The screen is what your looking at. So i think the screen is a huge part.
Also resale value. if you ever do plan on selling this thing down the road(you probably will) you don't want an iPad 2. in a year when the 4th gen comes out it won't be worth nearly as much.
Even though the Retina Display would be very nice, I'm leaning towards getting a refurb iPad 2 now. It's mainly because I would feel more comfortable taking it to school and places with tablet that doesn't cost as much... just in case something would happen. And I found a case for the iPad 2 that I like a lot in my price range! Linky
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
The fact that this iPad will have by far the most incredible display of any mobile device, should make you heavily favor this iPad over last years.
I don't think some people are taking in to account, that when they see this display, it'll be very hard to go back to an iPad2.
Throw in the A5X's quad core graphics and what seems to be a great camera with 1080p recording..... The 3rd iPad is by far the better investment. You're already putting down a lot of money. Might as well go with the sound investment.
I don't think some people are taking in to account, that when they see this display, it'll be very hard to go back to an iPad2.
Throw in the A5X's quad core graphics and what seems to be a great camera with 1080p recording..... The 3rd iPad is by far the better investment. You're already putting down a lot of money. Might as well go with the sound investment.
I think the display really only counts if you are going to use it for reading a lot of text. For graphics and stuff, you really don't notice it as much (least I don't. I have an iPhone 4 and I was playing with the iPad 2's at the store yesterday). But text it really is as obvious as people say.
BUt I will agree with the sentiment here if you are planning on reading a lot of text. It's worth 100 more, and having the latest tech so it stays relevant longer is surely worth the 50 dollars more than that.
You know, people were reading texts on the iPad 2 just fine a few days ago... (ie. prior to March 7th).
I certainly have not had a single issue reading text on my 13.3" MPB which has a lesser pixel density than the iPad 2!
For me it has nothing to do with text. Though, obviously that will look incredibly sharp.
With all due respect, I would have to put you in the group that just doesn't fully understand what a massive upgrade 2048X1536 is. That's on all levels. Graphics, text, games, pictures and you name it. There is NO comparison to the iPhone4, even for reading texts, books. The iPhone4 screen is so tiny, it really does not show off the retina display like a 9.7 inch display will.
In my opinion, this is the single biggest upgrade to an iPad yet....by far.
As long as the CPU/GPU are up to snuff, the display is absolutely the biggest feature any tablet, laptop or desktop could have.
Trust me, everything will look dramatically, phenomenally better.
The iPad2 display compared to many other displays now, does not look good. Very jaggy and pixelated. This is a huge upgrade.
Last edited:
Is it just me or does anyone else think the refurbished iPad prices are just too close to the full price product to even ever consider a refurbished or in this case, last year's model.
And if I buy new, there is a paltry £70 difference between the 16Gb iPad 2 and iPad 3 - that for me would be a no brainer but I wouldn't buy one here.
I am so hacked off with paying top bat for everything here on treasure island (UK) that I will wait until my next visit to Canada or the US to buy an iPad - just look at the price differentials and it's not just sales tax (VAT).
And if I buy new, there is a paltry £70 difference between the 16Gb iPad 2 and iPad 3 - that for me would be a no brainer but I wouldn't buy one here.
I am so hacked off with paying top bat for everything here on treasure island (UK) that I will wait until my next visit to Canada or the US to buy an iPad - just look at the price differentials and it's not just sales tax (VAT).
First off right now I'm rocking an early 2009 Mac mini and 2.26 Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro right now and a couple iPods at least as old as my mini or older. So, it's not like I'm on the cutting edge of things right now. And secondly ... this would be my first iPad ...
With that in my mind I'm sort of leaning towards a used/refurb iPad 2 16GB. I would like to use it for my farm business (farmers markets, blogging, etc.), but I think I should use one for a while to see if is really a tool I can use. Plus, since I live in the middle of nowhere and can only have 10GB of down/up on the internet I'm not going to be streaming a lot of things and I'm very rarely near wifi other than in my house.
But, if I could use it for the business and tether it to my phone at the market ... well then maybe next year I can upgrade to the new model. Then my "practice" iPad could be used for homeschooling.
Just my thoughts ...
With that in my mind I'm sort of leaning towards a used/refurb iPad 2 16GB. I would like to use it for my farm business (farmers markets, blogging, etc.), but I think I should use one for a while to see if is really a tool I can use. Plus, since I live in the middle of nowhere and can only have 10GB of down/up on the internet I'm not going to be streaming a lot of things and I'm very rarely near wifi other than in my house.
But, if I could use it for the business and tether it to my phone at the market ... well then maybe next year I can upgrade to the new model. Then my "practice" iPad could be used for homeschooling.
Just my thoughts ...
Yeah, but it is still nicer to read text on a good resolution screen. You get used to going back honestly (at least while I was playing on the 2 I got used to it after a while) but I would say it's still worth the extra for the nicer resolution if you can afford the ipad in the first place and just debating on whether to spend the extra. I will admit I am betting it is going to bug me anytime I go to reading my ipad from my iphone 4 (but for me it's a question of at least 500 more since I'm going from having none to getting a free one thanks to my mom who is handing me down her ipad 2 since she's getting the new one <- and she doesn't want me selling it cause she engraved it with an email address she doesn't want getting out, heh. I am not complaining though, free ipad. On my budget that's awesome cause I can't really justify getting an ipad at all. Between my laptop and phone I can cover any functionality an ipad would give me. It's just a nice extra and now I have my ebook reader that does extra and works in apple's ecosystem).
The price difference ($160) is significant to me. 32% difference. In the end, it's all a matter of preference. The value will be different for each user, based on their use of the tablet and their available funds. I personally thing the iPad 2 is phenomenal (not that the new iPad isn't by any means) and saving 1/3 of the cost was a major decision point.
iPad 2 refurb = $366.80
iPad 3 new = $526.94
For me, the difference is actually even bigger. A new iPad 3 16gb is app. 625USD/400GBP here in Denmark. If (hopefully when) DigiGood gets more stock, I can get a refurbished 16gb iPad 2 on eBay for 390USD/250GBP. That's a huge difference, and I've yet to decide if the retina is worth this much to me.
Last edited:
I just saw that the refurb. iPad 2 will be available at the Apple store starting the 16th! This is great because if I decide that I really would prefer to save money and go with the 2, I could pick it up when I'm looking at the "new iPad" in the store.
If you really want to save money and buy the iPad 2, DON'T look or go near the new iPad. Otherwise, you'll be buying the new one.
Different people say the new iPad is a better investment and that it will have better resale value...However, the trade in prices on the iPad 2 aren't even half what the full cost was the prior year. I don't see why next year it will be any different.
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)
After selling say through eBay I usually get about 120 125 or so less than what I paid retail I'd say that's not bad. That's what I usually pay to upgrade be it the iPhone or iPad.
johnothy said:
After selling say through eBay I usually get about 120 125 or so less than what I paid retail I'd say that's not bad. That's what I usually pay to upgrade be it the iPhone or iPad.