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iPad Should I buy an iPad third generation?

B

bladerunner616

macrumors member
Original poster
May 17, 2014
72
12
There are some good prices out there right now on the third generation iPad.

I like it for the Retina display, the rear camera and it is a bit faster than the first two generations. Plus, the price is decent right now for a refurbished unit. And if we buy it with the Amex card, we get a second year of warranty free. I also have an iPhone 4, so I am do have fair number of items to support the older style connector,

I know people will recommend buying the latest and greatest, and I respect that, but I can definitely save some major money buy going to a refurbed 3rd generation.

My question is will having the third generation unit present problems for me in areas such as future iOS upgrades or some other compatibility issue. Or will the only significant drawbacks be that it is slower and thicker.

Thanks for your help.
 
From what i've read the iPad 3 doesn't run iOS 7 as smooth as iOS 5/6. That is something to consider. So if UI smoothness is a mid to top priority I say go with the latest. My iPad 3 is still running iOS 5. :)
 
I ordered an iPad 4.

For $30 more ($300 versus $270) I got more than double the speed.

I can spend a few bucks on Lightning adapters.

Thanks for the input and for other posts on this forum, they have been helpful.
 
Last edited:
teleromeo said:
iOs 7 runs ok on my iPad 2.
Click to expand...

It does and it should as it's a lower res screen. The A5X was used just to push the extra pixels of the retina screen. The iPad 4 is the better choice.

OP, check Apple refurbs they have the iPad 4 on sale for $299. :)
 
Please no iPad 3 even if you get it for free. The whole iOS 7 experience is sub par. Things are going to get progressively worse with iOS 8.

I sold mine and now am happy with iPad Air. You can go for at least iPad 4.
 
You didn't tell us what you would be using it for. If you are going to be gaming and expecting top notch graphics performance, go for something newer. If all you do was email/ simple browsing and check the weather - the iPad 3 will do its job.
 
Rodster said:
It does and it should as it's a lower res screen. The A5X was used just to push the extra pixels of the retina screen. The iPad 4 is the better choice.

OP, check Apple refurbs they have the iPad 4 on sale for $299. :)
Click to expand...

Oh yeah baby!

That is what I got. I do have some legacy connectors for my iPhone 4 and Touch, but buying Lightning adapters .will be a pretty cheap fix.

Twice the speed of an iPad 3 for $30 more was a no-brainer.
 
i was in a similar situation,
i got a 32gb ipad 3 white for $250. it works fine on iOS 7.0 i have it jailbroken to that and im happy :)

Speedwise its alright, i havent noticed any slow downs or what.

But good job on getting an ipad 4! i hope to update to an ipad air when the next refresh of ipads come out so it will be cheaper :)
 
I think the iPad 3rd gen is a great iPad. Its not slow at all and it will get a few more iOS update. If you can get a deal on it get it.
 
It's faster than the original, sure, but not faster than the second Gen. I had a 3 and the retina screen is good, but it crawls with ios7. I would not expect any more usable ios upgrades from here.

Get a 4. If you can't afford it, wait a bit until you can.
 
Rodster said:
From what i've read the iPad 3 doesn't run iOS 7 as smooth as iOS 5/6. That is something to consider. So if UI smoothness is a mid to top priority I say go with the latest. My iPad 3 is still running iOS 5. :)
Click to expand...

I had ios 7 on my 3 when I sold it. It was fine. No choppiness or any other problems. It was slower surfing then my retina Mini was, but that was about it. I can't tell you how it will do on 8, but is should be fine.
If you are looking to have the iPad experience on minimal investment, this way should work.
 
iPad 3 isn't a great experience. I had one and it was slower than the iPad 2. There's a reason why Apple came out with the iPad 4 just a few months afterwards, and it wasn't just for the lightning connector.
 
The stuff about iOS 7 not being smooth on the iPad 3 is utterly baffling.

I've just bought the iPad Air and given my iPad 4 to my wife as an upgrade to her iPad 3. After giving her the iPad 4 I updated the iPad 3 to iOS 7 since it's been on iOS 6 due to the scaremongering amongst users on various forums.

It's not a slide show, its perfectly usable on iOS 7.1.2. In terms of UI animations the iPad 4 is a tiny bit smoother and some stock apps open a split second quicker, but the iPad 3 is no way near as bad as, for example, the iPhone 4 is on iOS 7.

I was actually pleasantly surprised and pretty shocked given what I'd read and my wife was even more annoyed because she'd been denied using iOS 7 on her iPad due to my recommendation not to update due to some of the comments on here!
 
GoingDark said:
iPad 3 isn't a great experience. I had one and it was slower than the iPad 2. There's a reason why Apple came out with the iPad 4 just a few months afterwards, and it wasn't just for the lightning connector.
Click to expand...

I agree. The 3 is kind of the black sheep of the group. It's basically a heavier version of the 2 with a retina display. It doesn't perform much better than the 2 either.
 
I think the iPad 3 is still a good choice on a budget if you are only doing lightweight tasks on it such as browsing and email etc.
 
Should I buy an iPad third generation?

I would stay away. I owned a 3 for over a year, a good bit of that time on iOS 7 and it's a bit of a dog on that OS. Considering their prices used, I'm not convinced that they're a great deal. I'd try to snag a 4th gen for a similar price, maybe locally. Then again, iOS 7 kind of sucks in general, so maybe the hardware isn't totally at fault.
 
bladerunner616 said:
I ordered an iPad 4.

For $30 more ($300 versus $270) I got more than double the speed.

I can spend a few bucks on Lightning adapters.

Thanks for the input and for other posts on this forum, they have been helpful.
Click to expand...

Excellent! This is what I was going to suggest, no pint in getting the 3 when the 4 is more powerful, has new connector and available for very little more in terms of price.

Congrats man, enjoy it! :)

The iPad 4 is built like a tank, still very fast and smooth with iOS 7, huge battery and has lots of life left in it in terms of software updates. I'm loving mine.
 
RebornProphet said:
The stuff about iOS 7 not being smooth on the iPad 3 is utterly baffling.

I've just bought the iPad Air and given my iPad 4 to my wife as an upgrade to her iPad 3. After giving her the iPad 4 I updated the iPad 3 to iOS 7 since it's been on iOS 6 due to the scaremongering amongst users on various forums.

It's not a slide show, its perfectly usable on iOS 7.1.2. In terms of UI animations the iPad 4 is a tiny bit smoother and some stock apps open a split second quicker, but the iPad 3 is no way near as bad as, for example, the iPhone 4 is on iOS 7.

I was actually pleasantly surprised and pretty shocked given what I'd read and my wife was even more annoyed because she'd been denied using iOS 7 on her iPad due to my recommendation not to update due to some of the comments on here!
Click to expand...
You must be new here. Not all iOS devices perform the same with the same version of iOS. It is common for one iPad 3 to handle iOS 7 differently than another iPad 3 with the same specs.

Glad to hear that things worked out for you, but your personal anecdote does not invalidate the personal anecdotes of others who had a less successful experience.
 
I can't vouch for the ipad4 but can speak from experience that my iPad3 on iOS7 is abysmal. Same as others' my husband has my old ipad2 and that sails compared to mine.

Load up photosmith and start flicking through photos to rate them and it'll crawl... Task switching then becomes incredibly laggy and Safari just can't cope either.

It's fast becoming time to upgrade. Seriously considering selling on ebay given the prices they are fetching and upgrading with an edu discount and the back to school £30-odd app voucher... The only thing is I'll need another case as the Air is obviously a different size...
 
Knowing what I know now I wish I would have saved a buck and got the iPad 2 instead of the 3.

I think getting the 4 was the right choice.
 
sracer said:
You must be new here. Not all iOS devices perform the same with the same version of iOS. It is common for one iPad 3 to handle iOS 7 differently than another iPad 3 with the same specs.

Glad to hear that things worked out for you, but your personal anecdote does not invalidate the personal anecdotes of others who had a less successful experience.
Click to expand...

First. Don't patronise me. I've been using Apple products since the iMac G5 and second generation. So no, I'm not "new here".

The only thing that may cause one iPad 3 to "run differently" to another is if one of the iPads has too much content on it and is running at 99% of its capacity, denying it "breathing space" or the user may impact load times and performance due to their choice of apps being run.

The iPad 3 specs are locked, they all come off the assembly line the same. The iOS 7 ipsw is the same for all iPad 3 users, there's no anomalies.

I'm a bit of a perfectionist, I hate dropped frames in iOS, and I found the iPad 3 to be perfectly usable in regard to UI navigation and performance. If you read my post you'll notice that I said I upgraded the iPad 3 to iOS 7, which was my wife's, because it is going to my Mother in Law after my wife got my iPad 4 since I just bought the iPad Air.

So you see, it's not a "personal anecdote", it was a just general observation of a device no longer in the household, updated out of curiosity to see how it performed before it went. And the fact is that before erasing it, this iPad 3 with only 4GB of its 64GB (well 56GB) ran iOS 7 perfectly well and far better than I expected after reading some comments here. My wife used the 3 for a few days on iOS 7 before I bought my Air and gave her my 4 and not once did she complain (you should have heard her when she used her iPhone 4 before I bought her the 5s). Her main activities on iPad are web browsing, social media, games, and watching videos, fairly mixed although some would call it "lightweight".

It's no iPad Air, but it's nowhere near as bad as the iPhone 4 experience.
 
Last edited:
RebornProphet said:
The iPad 3 specs are locked, they all come off the assembly line the same. The iOS 7 ipsw is the same for all iPad 3 users, there's no anomalies.
Click to expand...
Although the specs are set to a fixed set, Apple sets tolerances in manufacturing. Not every component is built exactly identical. That is the goal but it doesn't happen. There are slight variations. A manufacturing tolerance is an established range of measurements that can differ that the engineers have deemed acceptable.

This is why identically spec'ed iPad 3's running identical version of iOS 7 can end up performing differently.

Hope this helps.
 
The third generation iPad is the worst so far, is quite slower than iPad 2 in everyday usage and for some task is really too slow. I have one at home (it was a present) and one at office.
iPad 3 is my ultimate benchmark when I'm about to release an app, if it runs smoothly there I'm sure is fast on iPad 2, iPad 3 and iPad Air.
The display of course is good as the one on iPad3 but the SoC in slower. I think iPad 3 was released too soon, the SoC wasn't fast enough for the retina display.

I didn't try iOS8 beta on my iPad 3 but I don't see how it could be better than 7.1 on the same hardware. I'm going to replace my iPad3 with a Mini retina as soon as the second generation will hit the shelves
 
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