Meh, they might have to drop $100 off the price tag, but they will be ok. Certainly not more successful than the iPad 3 (or w/e it's being called), but ok.
But if ASUS plays their cards right, they might be able to use the thinner chassis and brighter screen to get more sales. They still won't top the iPad, but they have SOME differentiation to work with.
To be honest, I don't think Asus would want to be as successful as Apple. They want to have a sustainable market and avoid drawing too much attention to itself. Just look at the bullshit Samsung had to deal with for their tablet.
Seems to me the newest iPad launch lost a little steam since Asus announced their newest transformer. Personally when I saw the Transformer specs I thought that maybe they were overkill. So Apple's slightly higher specs just aren't all that wow. Oh they're impressive, but not wow.
I'm personally surprised that Apple thickened the iPad. I know that these products can only get so thing (especially with beefy displays), but I've come to expect the impossible with Apple's designs. But at the very least, I'm glad Apple refuses to sacrifice battery life in the name of the thickness measurement.
Still, I don't know how ASUS crammed the same sized battery in a smaller chassis with a screen that's nearly as dense. Something tells me ASUS won't be able to get their tablet out any time soon.
The higher resolution and 4-core CPU will eat battery power. The slightly thicker body is to hold the bigger battery, notice the weight went up?
As an ipad1 owner, the weight is decent. The thickness is not an issue. TOO-THIN devices are kind of the rage with Samsung.
But yeah, I'm surprised they made it slightly bigger... but it's barely noticeable and its compatible with almost all the aftermarket goodies. "new ipad" name isn't going to stick... imagine a year from now.
I disagree. The dual core Cortex A9 is plenty fast to run the OS and any of the applications but at those resolutions a fast GPU becomes much more important. Most of the things you do on an iPad are visual anyway. There is a reason Apple is focusing on powerful GPUs.
Facebook Browsing Youtube Chat Twitter Email Music Calendar Movies Angry birds
None of these are graphic intensive and is probably 95% of what people are doing on tablet. You need a little GPU power to decode 1080p h264 but the iPad2 was more than fast enough for this. On the other hand a faster CPU helps you doing all this stuff faster (faster application launch, etc.). Having a faster GPU won't play your 1080p movie faster. The only case where it helps is in 3D games. This is the same GPU used in the Playstation Vita, a gaming device.
The iPhone 4 had a slow GPU for its resolution and nobody really cared. The next iPad will have a faster CPU. GPU will probably reach a ceiling at some point, just like on PCs where most people don't care about it, and prefer saving $100 even if it mean having 10x slower graphics.
When you are talking about these screen resolutions, the GPU is *tremendously* important. And the part of that which is really REALLY important is the memory bandwidth of the GPU.
Just think: a 2048x1536 display is 12MB for a single frame buffer! When you are looking the memory bandwidth of these devices, you are talking about how many times it can touch each pixel at 60fps, and this number end up being a small integer (often very small).
So, to scroll a list in one of your non-GPU-intensive simple applications, you need to touch almost every pixel at least two times, maybe a third time to composite to the display, and add any fancy layering and you are hitting them a few more times. You quickly hit the point where you are saturating the memory buss and can't hit 60fps scrolling no matter what you do.
I hope you do know that the Infinity GPU is 12 core ( as opposed to the iPad's 4 core)
The Infinity CPU on wifi only model is 4 core, iPad is 2 core. On the face of it, there is no way iPad would outperform the Infinity. Lets wait and see though
Certainly the Infinity will be faster CPU-wise, but I wouldn't be so confident about the GPU side of the equation. Cores don't mean much when comparing different architectures. After all, a GPU can have hundreds of 'cores,' but they are not equivalent to cores found in Intel and AMD processors. It seems to me the new iPad will enjoy a sizable graphics advantage over its competition, given that Tegra 3 did not greatly outperform the iPad 2 in terms of graphics.
I think they might be talking about graphics performance. Apple has always placed more emphasis on graphics performance than CPU performance. Their CPU cores are always underclocked and their GPUs are always enormous, so nothing has really changed.
The Tegra3 is only about 2x as powerful as the Tegra2, in CPU only. In the browser based benchmarks, we see the iPad 2 is equivalent to the Tegra3.
There may be other benchmarks where this is not so, but for games or browser based activities the iPad2 is competitive or outclasses the Tegra3, let alone the iPad3.
No, it's not void. It shows that, at the time of benchmark, that out of the box someone with an iPad will see no disadvantage in using browser based apps, or the browser, or email.
That is not inconsequential. It also shows that in GPU heavy tasks the iPad shows an advantage over the Tegra 3.
That is extended to the new iPad by dint of a similar CPU and more GPU cores.
They're definitely all Wireless N. Wireless N is pretty much universal now - the only recent gadget I know is limited to G is the Nintendo 3DS, and they stayed on B for what seemed like forever.
iPad1 does wireless n. At 2.4 and 5GHz. Where have you been the past few years?
The real question is does it support either 40MHz bands or MIMO. No tablet that I know of does so today, so they are all limited to either 65 or 72Mbps PHY.
I was disappointed (and surprised) that as least as far as the talk goes, they support DC-HSPA but not MIMO HSPA. This is disappointing insofar as DC-HSPA gives 42Mbps PHY, sure, but at the cost of wider bandwidth --- 2x MIMO HSPA is more spectrally efficient, and we need all the spectral efficiency we can get going forward. The very fact that ATT are STILL willing to allow new non-MIMO devices on their network (and it's not like a tablet is really constrained wrt to space for two antennas) is just one more reason I take all their crying about how they need more spectrum as just so much bullshit. If you're so spectrum constrained, guys, then how about you insist on your device making better fscking use of it?
Battery capacity appears to have nearly doubled on the iPadHD/3/whatever. So while the Transformer infinity may be thinner, the iPadHD will likely get better battery life, at 9+hrs vs probably 7hrs or less on the Infinity. Unless the Tegra unCore saves enough power to make up for it, which is unlikely.
Still waiting on the ASUS Memo370T... that's the tablet for me! Since getting my free Playbook, I've been carrying it around everywhere with me... can't imagine having anything bigger.
The Transformer Infinity is receiving a 13.6% battery size increase over the Prime, presumably to have the same battery life as the Prime, so about 10 hours as well. I guess we will have to wait to see benchmarks, but I'm enjoying my Prime in the meantime.
I'm all for the resolution increases, but resolution is down the list in picture quality factors. I have zero complaints about the resolution of the Prime. Contrast, color saturation, and color accuracy are all more noticeable. Brightness and viewing angles also being other major factors that I'd hold over resolution.
As long as battery life doesn't suffer, the weight isn't ridiculously increased, graphics performance remains acceptable, and panel image quality remains high, then bring on the higher resolutions!
True. But me, I'm waiting for a Windows 8 tablet with these kind of specs, or better. That will be a game changer. Though I suspect Windows 8 for tablets will need a LOT more power than iOS. If the Windows 8 tablets are good, then I can see myself switching from Android to Windows Phone to have the whole eco system. And the MS eco system will be slightly larger due to the Xbox 360 being part of it.
How will the Xbox 360 bring any value there. The games aren't compiled for ARM or x86. They are also up to 8 GB each in size. I don't see how this will apply to Windows on any tablet format (or PC for that matter).
I suspect he means integration of XBOX live into the Metro interface and such. But yes I think Windows 8 will finally offer some real high end competition. Ultimately we all want a device that can do everything we want it to do. Full pc apps with Metro counterparts is a good thing.
I don't think there will be a 16 GB Transformer Infinity. 32 GB will probably be the smallest, just like it is the smallest capacity for the Transformer Prime.
Cameras... Expandable Storage.... USB host support.....
Those are the easy ones. You could also say HDMI but the iPad has that via a dongle....you could mention keyboard dock that offers the following itself: -keyboard -mouse -2nd battery -usb port -sd card reader -screen protection -acts as a stand
Cameras... Expandable Storage.... USB host support.....
Those are the easy ones. You could also say HDMI but the iPad has that via a dongle....you could mention keyboard dock that offers the following itself: -keyboard -mouse -2nd battery -usb port -sd card reader -screen protection -acts as a stand
You do realize that Apple SELL a keyboard for iPad? They also sell an SD card reader. They also sell a case/screen protector/stand.
If you feel it's vitally important to have these things all in one unit, go right ahead. But it's simply ignorant to try to imply that there is neither a keyboard nor an SD card reader for iPad. There are also, if you feel this is important, third party/external batteries.
Yes, there is no USB. There's also no serial port, no floppy disk drive slot, and no stylus. Feel free to complain about how the lack of all of these dooms it in the market.
The Asus is vaporware, current Asus tablets are cheap physically and slow. Android is just a suck tablet experience. Nobody in their right mind will buy one anyway between the 3 and cheaper 2's.
What about someone who just wants a tablet that works, and really doesn't care about "flexibility and freedom"? My mom falls into that category. So does my wife. So do most of my non-geek friends. And they all love the iPad.
Flexibility and freedom just aren't important to the average consumer, which is what the iPad is targeting.
Possibly, but right now the tablet market looks an awful lot like the mp3 player market. Once a dominant player is entrenched they are very difficult to dislodge.
Please avoid using relatives as excuses. Its tantamount to insulting them and their intelligence.
If i give you a tablet, with what we know about tablets right now and you cant use it, be it android, apple, blackberry, then it says more about you than it says about the OS.
I wasn't saying the iPad is the only tablet that they are capable of using, I was saying that so long as a tablet works non-geek consumers don't care about whether the OS provides flexibility and freedom. For them the iPad is a perfectly acceptable choice.
Bought an original Transformer over 6 months ago for $300, couldn't be happier with it. Build quality isn't quite up to the standards of Samsung/Apple's tablets, but I do prefer the textured plastic back (doesn't scratch) and the slight extra thickness is no big deal. Heck I recently bought a second one for $350 as a gift even tho the Prime's already out (it's also $150 more).
Frankly I think ASUS should've striven to price the Prime about $50-100 less across the board, because price was one of the things that set the original Transformer apart when the Galaxy Tab 10.1 was selling for the same price as the iPad.They're introducing a new model to replace the OG TF soon, but they're still pricing it at $400 instead of the $300-350 that the original TF is now selling for.
Anyway, beyond all the other things already mentioned, I'd take the 16:10 aspect ratio of these Android tablets over the iPad's 4:3 any day... Dunno why no one ever brings that up anymore, it's like the iPhone's huge bezel, the media just seems to forgive and forget because of Apple's design aesthetic.
I agree that for media the 16:9 is the way to go.. I mean you don't see many 4:3 TVs any more and I sure as hell don't see it in the cinema.
The retina display will be cropped at 2048x1152 for 16:9 playback killing off 786432 pixels. 786432 pixels sat there eating up battery life and not making one bit of difference in the media appearance of the ipad 3 video in terms of media ipad is mediocre at best.
The resampling of 1920x1080 video to 2048x1152 is another area of interest. Would you watch the video in 1920x1080 to maintain image clarity and lose 933888 pixels in total.... that's nearly a megapixel of dead screen.
Then again maybe the iPad 3 is a device that makes you not care about these issues.. I think we call them rose tinted glasses but hell people keep buying them so they must be doing something right.
I'm sure they'll upscale. After all, you wouldn't play 720p video back at native resolution on a 1080p display, would you?
As long as there's a decent upscaler in the iPad (meaning they're not just using a bilinear filter) I doubt you'd notice a difference in clarity between the unscaled and the up scaled 1080p video, especially with the small pixel size.
Overall I was a little disappointed by the "new iPad". With all that cash and resources I would have expected better speakers and Senseg integration electric haptic feedback. THAT would have gotten my wallet out even though I overwhelmingly favor android based products.
And the "new iPad?" Available on in the SAME colors as the iPad 2? With no distinguishing physical features? I honestly can't believe that was the consensus of the Apple juggernaut's marketing department.
The big question for me, where the rubber meats the road, is how does the new iPad render webpages/photos/videos/games that don't (almost all won't) exist natively at a resolution that would be big enough to view comfortably on a 2048X1536 screen. This is where I look forward to Anand's analysis. Does the new iPad simply pixel double some elements? Does it try to soften or antiailias edges in pictures or webpages?
I may get one just to play with but I feel pretty sure right now that it'll hit ebay as soon as the infinity or A700 or something comparable comes out. If Samsung ever comes out with a 10.1" tab with a super amoled+ I'm sold, take my money now.
How something is rendered will probably vary by what it is.
I would bet non-native apps will be handled the same way iPhone apps were handled on the first iPad: the user could choose to use the app at its native resolution or upscaled. The quality of the upscaling will be the more interesting question. Do they use high quality scaling to make the app look good, or do they use poor quality scaling, either for simplicity or to "encourage" developers to update their apps?
I'm less sure about photos, but I think giving the user the option of seeing them at native resolution or scaled to fit (via a high quality scaler) is the most likely scenario.
Video could be handled this way too, but I think it's far more likely that video would be scaled to fit since that's how video is typically handled (for example, watching DVDs on a 1080p display).
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quiksilvr - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
And make one model: 64GB for $499.ImSpartacus - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
Meh, they might have to drop $100 off the price tag, but they will be ok. Certainly not more successful than the iPad 3 (or w/e it's being called), but ok.But if ASUS plays their cards right, they might be able to use the thinner chassis and brighter screen to get more sales. They still won't top the iPad, but they have SOME differentiation to work with.
quiksilvr - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
To be honest, I don't think Asus would want to be as successful as Apple. They want to have a sustainable market and avoid drawing too much attention to itself. Just look at the bullshit Samsung had to deal with for their tablet.harbourcoat - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
I am sorry but how can a company not want to make loads of money..... hahaBPB - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
Seems to me the newest iPad launch lost a little steam since Asus announced their newest transformer. Personally when I saw the Transformer specs I thought that maybe they were overkill. So Apple's slightly higher specs just aren't all that wow. Oh they're impressive, but not wow.ImSpartacus - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
I'm personally surprised that Apple thickened the iPad. I know that these products can only get so thing (especially with beefy displays), but I've come to expect the impossible with Apple's designs. But at the very least, I'm glad Apple refuses to sacrifice battery life in the name of the thickness measurement.Still, I don't know how ASUS crammed the same sized battery in a smaller chassis with a screen that's nearly as dense. Something tells me ASUS won't be able to get their tablet out any time soon.
Belard - Thursday, March 8, 2012 - link
The higher resolution and 4-core CPU will eat battery power. The slightly thicker body is to hold the bigger battery, notice the weight went up?As an ipad1 owner, the weight is decent. The thickness is not an issue. TOO-THIN devices are kind of the rage with Samsung.
But yeah, I'm surprised they made it slightly bigger... but it's barely noticeable and its compatible with almost all the aftermarket goodies. "new ipad" name isn't going to stick... imagine a year from now.
"The iPad 3 is newer than the New iPad"
Perhaps iPad2 Super iPad2-R
joed14 - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
they say its 4 times faster than tegra 3 ...tegra 3 =4xA9 and a5x=2xA9.....are they dumb..tayb - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
They are talking about graphics power which is much more important for this kind of device in my opinion. The 4 times is probably an exaggeration.zorxd - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
Graphics are much less important unless you want to run 3D games. Just like on PC. Most people don't need the latest Nvidia or AMD graphics.tayb - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
I disagree. The dual core Cortex A9 is plenty fast to run the OS and any of the applications but at those resolutions a fast GPU becomes much more important. Most of the things you do on an iPad are visual anyway. There is a reason Apple is focusing on powerful GPUs.zorxd - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
Let see...Facebook
Browsing
Youtube
Chat
Twitter
Email
Music
Calendar
Movies
Angry birds
None of these are graphic intensive and is probably 95% of what people are doing on tablet. You need a little GPU power to decode 1080p h264 but the iPad2 was more than fast enough for this. On the other hand a faster CPU helps you doing all this stuff faster (faster application launch, etc.). Having a faster GPU won't play your 1080p movie faster. The only case where it helps is in 3D games. This is the same GPU used in the Playstation Vita, a gaming device.
The iPhone 4 had a slow GPU for its resolution and nobody really cared. The next iPad will have a faster CPU.
GPU will probably reach a ceiling at some point, just like on PCs where most people don't care about it, and prefer saving $100 even if it mean having 10x slower graphics.
hackbod - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
When you are talking about these screen resolutions, the GPU is *tremendously* important. And the part of that which is really REALLY important is the memory bandwidth of the GPU.Just think: a 2048x1536 display is 12MB for a single frame buffer! When you are looking the memory bandwidth of these devices, you are talking about how many times it can touch each pixel at 60fps, and this number end up being a small integer (often very small).
So, to scroll a list in one of your non-GPU-intensive simple applications, you need to touch almost every pixel at least two times, maybe a third time to composite to the display, and add any fancy layering and you are hitting them a few more times. You quickly hit the point where you are saturating the memory buss and can't hit 60fps scrolling no matter what you do.
hackbod - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
Btw, the more limited GPU of the original iPad is why it updated the display at 30fps.harbourcoat - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
well the iPad3 has to shift >1mpx more on screen than the infinity. so that 4x advantage is diluted in the wash.stktheft - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
I hope you do know that the Infinity GPU is 12 core ( as opposed to the iPad's 4 core)The Infinity CPU on wifi only model is 4 core, iPad is 2 core. On the face of it, there is no way iPad would outperform the Infinity. Lets wait and see though
Greg512 - Thursday, March 8, 2012 - link
Certainly the Infinity will be faster CPU-wise, but I wouldn't be so confident about the GPU side of the equation. Cores don't mean much when comparing different architectures. After all, a GPU can have hundreds of 'cores,' but they are not equivalent to cores found in Intel and AMD processors. It seems to me the new iPad will enjoy a sizable graphics advantage over its competition, given that Tegra 3 did not greatly outperform the iPad 2 in terms of graphics.ImSpartacus - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
I think they might be talking about graphics performance. Apple has always placed more emphasis on graphics performance than CPU performance. Their CPU cores are always underclocked and their GPUs are always enormous, so nothing has really changed.zorxd - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
What has changed is that Apple now puts even more emphasis on the GPU.Also the iPhone 4 had a relatively weak GPU for the time.
michael2k - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
Anand has already published numbers showing the Tegra 3 is roughly equivalent to last year's A5 CPU.If they added 4 GPUs per core (for 8 cores), then it probably is 4 times faster, at least with regards to the GPU.
menting - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
"Tegra 3 is roughly equivalent to last year's A5 CPU", ONLY in the video aspect.in CPU numbers the Tegra 3 blows A5 away.
michael2k - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5163/asus-eee-pad-tr...The Tegra3 is only about 2x as powerful as the Tegra2, in CPU only. In the browser based benchmarks, we see the iPad 2 is equivalent to the Tegra3.
There may be other benchmarks where this is not so, but for games or browser based activities the iPad2 is competitive or outclasses the Tegra3, let alone the iPad3.
harbourcoat - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
are those browser benchmarks based on the same browser on each platform?if not then benchmark is void.
michael2k - Thursday, March 8, 2012 - link
No, it's not void. It shows that, at the time of benchmark, that out of the box someone with an iPad will see no disadvantage in using browser based apps, or the browser, or email.That is not inconsequential. It also shows that in GPU heavy tasks the iPad shows an advantage over the Tegra 3.
That is extended to the new iPad by dint of a similar CPU and more GPU cores.
tipoo - Sunday, March 11, 2012 - link
It isn't 4 GPUs per core, its 4 GPU cores period.MrSparkle404 - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
Should I assume all 3 can do Wireless N? N has been around a while, but many phones don't support it, and these are almost phones...ericloewe - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
They're definitely all Wireless N. Wireless N is pretty much universal now - the only recent gadget I know is limited to G is the Nintendo 3DS, and they stayed on B for what seemed like forever.name99 - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
iPad1 does wireless n. At 2.4 and 5GHz. Where have you been the past few years?The real question is does it support either 40MHz bands or MIMO. No tablet that I know of does so today, so they are all limited to either 65 or 72Mbps PHY.
I was disappointed (and surprised) that as least as far as the talk goes, they support DC-HSPA but not MIMO HSPA. This is disappointing insofar as DC-HSPA gives 42Mbps PHY, sure, but at the cost of wider bandwidth --- 2x MIMO HSPA is more spectrally efficient, and we need all the spectral efficiency we can get going forward. The very fact that ATT are STILL willing to allow new non-MIMO devices on their network (and it's not like a tablet is really constrained wrt to space for two antennas) is just one more reason I take all their crying about how they need more spectrum as just so much bullshit. If you're so spectrum constrained, guys, then how about you insist on your device making better fscking use of it?
gorash - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
So ASUS has made the Infinity thinner than iPad 2, but Apple made iPad 3 thicker... hmm...c4v3man - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
Battery capacity appears to have nearly doubled on the iPadHD/3/whatever. So while the Transformer infinity may be thinner, the iPadHD will likely get better battery life, at 9+hrs vs probably 7hrs or less on the Infinity. Unless the Tegra unCore saves enough power to make up for it, which is unlikely.Still waiting on the ASUS Memo370T... that's the tablet for me! Since getting my free Playbook, I've been carrying it around everywhere with me... can't imagine having anything bigger.
3DoubleD - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
The Transformer Infinity is receiving a 13.6% battery size increase over the Prime, presumably to have the same battery life as the Prime, so about 10 hours as well. I guess we will have to wait to see benchmarks, but I'm enjoying my Prime in the meantime.I'm all for the resolution increases, but resolution is down the list in picture quality factors. I have zero complaints about the resolution of the Prime. Contrast, color saturation, and color accuracy are all more noticeable. Brightness and viewing angles also being other major factors that I'd hold over resolution.
As long as battery life doesn't suffer, the weight isn't ridiculously increased, graphics performance remains acceptable, and panel image quality remains high, then bring on the higher resolutions!
Aqua1ung - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
How about adding a dpi/ppi row to the table...?solipsism - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
I agree. Plus there are some errors in the pricing that need to be fixed.harbourcoat - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
you can see it has a higher pitch because the screen size is smaller and the resolution is higherssj4kevin - Friday, March 9, 2012 - link
They have the resolution and screen sizes there. Just do the basic math...Transformer:
sqrt(1920^2 + 1200^2)/10.1 = 224ppi = 672dpi
iPad:
sqrt(2048^2 + 1536^2)/9.7 = 264ppi = 792dpi
vision33r - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
No Infinity blade, Real Racing 2, and just not that many Tegra optimized games in general. New iPad wins.BPB - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
True. But me, I'm waiting for a Windows 8 tablet with these kind of specs, or better. That will be a game changer. Though I suspect Windows 8 for tablets will need a LOT more power than iOS. If the Windows 8 tablets are good, then I can see myself switching from Android to Windows Phone to have the whole eco system. And the MS eco system will be slightly larger due to the Xbox 360 being part of it.3DoubleD - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
How will the Xbox 360 bring any value there. The games aren't compiled for ARM or x86. They are also up to 8 GB each in size. I don't see how this will apply to Windows on any tablet format (or PC for that matter).harbourcoat - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
I suspect he means integration of XBOX live into the Metro interface and such. But yes I think Windows 8 will finally offer some real high end competition. Ultimately we all want a device that can do everything we want it to do. Full pc apps with Metro counterparts is a good thing.3DoubleD - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
I don't think there will be a 16 GB Transformer Infinity. 32 GB will probably be the smallest, just like it is the smallest capacity for the Transformer Prime.scook9 - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
Cameras...Expandable Storage....
USB host support.....
Those are the easy ones. You could also say HDMI but the iPad has that via a dongle....you could mention keyboard dock that offers the following itself:
-keyboard
-mouse
-2nd battery
-usb port
-sd card reader
-screen protection
-acts as a stand
scook9 - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
Cameras...Expandable Storage....
USB host support.....
Those are the easy ones. You could also say HDMI but the iPad has that via a dongle....you could mention keyboard dock that offers the following itself:
-keyboard
-mouse
-2nd battery
-usb port
-sd card reader
-screen protection
-acts as a stand
name99 - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
You do realize that Apple SELL a keyboard for iPad?They also sell an SD card reader.
They also sell a case/screen protector/stand.
If you feel it's vitally important to have these things all in one unit, go right ahead. But it's simply ignorant to try to imply that there is neither a keyboard nor an SD card reader for iPad. There are also, if you feel this is important, third party/external batteries.
Yes, there is no USB. There's also no serial port, no floppy disk drive slot, and no stylus. Feel free to complain about how the lack of all of these dooms it in the market.
harbourcoat - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
the lack of these actually keeps it in the market. simple machines for simple people.darwinosx - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
The Asus is vaporware, current Asus tablets are cheap physically and slow. Android is just a suck tablet experience. Nobody in their right mind will buy one anyway between the 3 and cheaper 2's.Chloiber - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
That's just wrong. You never had a Asus Transformer Prime in your hands.menting - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
and iOS is just a suck OS experience in terms of flexibility and freedom.Nobody in their right mind will buy an iOS device anyway.
PeteH - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
What about someone who just wants a tablet that works, and really doesn't care about "flexibility and freedom"? My mom falls into that category. So does my wife. So do most of my non-geek friends. And they all love the iPad.Flexibility and freedom just aren't important to the average consumer, which is what the iPad is targeting.
harbourcoat - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
WINDOWS 8 will kill ipad. even your mom can see that.PeteH - Thursday, March 8, 2012 - link
Possibly, but right now the tablet market looks an awful lot like the mp3 player market. Once a dominant player is entrenched they are very difficult to dislodge.stktheft - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
Please avoid using relatives as excuses. Its tantamount to insulting them and their intelligence.If i give you a tablet, with what we know about tablets right now and you cant use it, be it android, apple, blackberry, then it says more about you than it says about the OS.
PeteH - Thursday, March 8, 2012 - link
I wasn't saying the iPad is the only tablet that they are capable of using, I was saying that so long as a tablet works non-geek consumers don't care about whether the OS provides flexibility and freedom. For them the iPad is a perfectly acceptable choice.Impulses - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
Bought an original Transformer over 6 months ago for $300, couldn't be happier with it. Build quality isn't quite up to the standards of Samsung/Apple's tablets, but I do prefer the textured plastic back (doesn't scratch) and the slight extra thickness is no big deal. Heck I recently bought a second one for $350 as a gift even tho the Prime's already out (it's also $150 more).Frankly I think ASUS should've striven to price the Prime about $50-100 less across the board, because price was one of the things that set the original Transformer apart when the Galaxy Tab 10.1 was selling for the same price as the iPad.They're introducing a new model to replace the OG TF soon, but they're still pricing it at $400 instead of the $300-350 that the original TF is now selling for.
Anyway, beyond all the other things already mentioned, I'd take the 16:10 aspect ratio of these Android tablets over the iPad's 4:3 any day... Dunno why no one ever brings that up anymore, it's like the iPhone's huge bezel, the media just seems to forgive and forget because of Apple's design aesthetic.
harbourcoat - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
I agree that for media the 16:9 is the way to go.. I mean you don't see many 4:3 TVs any more and I sure as hell don't see it in the cinema.The retina display will be cropped at 2048x1152 for 16:9 playback killing off 786432 pixels. 786432 pixels sat there eating up battery life and not making one bit of difference in the media appearance of the ipad 3 video in terms of media ipad is mediocre at best.
The resampling of 1920x1080 video to 2048x1152 is another area of interest. Would you watch the video in 1920x1080 to maintain image clarity and lose 933888 pixels in total.... that's nearly a megapixel of dead screen.
Then again maybe the iPad 3 is a device that makes you not care about these issues.. I think we call them rose tinted glasses but hell people keep buying them so they must be doing something right.
harbourcoat - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
recalculated loss of pixels would be >1MpxPeteH - Thursday, March 8, 2012 - link
I'm sure they'll upscale. After all, you wouldn't play 720p video back at native resolution on a 1080p display, would you?As long as there's a decent upscaler in the iPad (meaning they're not just using a bilinear filter) I doubt you'd notice a difference in clarity between the unscaled and the up scaled 1080p video, especially with the small pixel size.
Belard - Thursday, March 8, 2012 - link
Or... they simply use the extra area for user controls.stktheft - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
wowstktheft - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
Is it just me who thinks 1 gb ram is too small?I have a feeling ipad3 will surprise us here.
Belard - Thursday, March 8, 2012 - link
Its just you.Its a tablet... not a desktop computer.
tipoo - Sunday, March 11, 2012 - link
Still no teardowns, but its pretty certain the iPad 3 has 1GB now.rdwade55 - Thursday, March 8, 2012 - link
Overall I was a little disappointed by the "new iPad". With all that cash and resources I would have expected better speakers and Senseg integration electric haptic feedback. THAT would have gotten my wallet out even though I overwhelmingly favor android based products.And the "new iPad?" Available on in the SAME colors as the iPad 2? With no distinguishing physical features? I honestly can't believe that was the consensus of the Apple juggernaut's marketing department.
The big question for me, where the rubber meats the road, is how does the new iPad render webpages/photos/videos/games that don't (almost all won't) exist natively at a resolution that would be big enough to view comfortably on a 2048X1536 screen. This is where I look forward to Anand's analysis. Does the new iPad simply pixel double some elements? Does it try to soften or antiailias edges in pictures or webpages?
I may get one just to play with but I feel pretty sure right now that it'll hit ebay as soon as the infinity or A700 or something comparable comes out. If Samsung ever comes out with a 10.1" tab with a super amoled+ I'm sold, take my money now.
PeteH - Thursday, March 8, 2012 - link
How something is rendered will probably vary by what it is.I would bet non-native apps will be handled the same way iPhone apps were handled on the first iPad: the user could choose to use the app at its native resolution or upscaled. The quality of the upscaling will be the more interesting question. Do they use high quality scaling to make the app look good, or do they use poor quality scaling, either for simplicity or to "encourage" developers to update their apps?
I'm less sure about photos, but I think giving the user the option of seeing them at native resolution or scaled to fit (via a high quality scaler) is the most likely scenario.
Video could be handled this way too, but I think it's far more likely that video would be scaled to fit since that's how video is typically handled (for example, watching DVDs on a 1080p display).