After Apple introduced the third generation iPad last week, it loaned review units to a few journalists to try out for a week with the instruction that they couldn't post their reviews until 9pm Eastern time Wednesday night. The embargo is now lifted, so now we have heard from people who have put the new iPad through its paces. The reviews are as glowing as any I've ever seen for any product in the history of Apple. Here are links to the full reviews, along with some choice quotes.
- Joshua Topolsky of The Verge: "Yes, this display is outrageous. It's stunning. It's incredible. I'm not being hyperbolic or exaggerative when I say it is easily the most beautiful computer display I have ever looked at. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that you hold this in your hands, or maybe it's the technology that Apple is utilizing, or maybe it's the responsiveness of iOS — but there's something almost bizarre about how good this screen is. After the launch event, I described the screen as 'surreal,' and I still think that's a pretty good fit." Topolsky wrote a similar review for The Washington Post.
- Walt Mossberg of The Wall Street Journal: "It has the most spectacular display I have ever seen in a mobile device. The company squeezed four times the pixels into the same physical space as on the iPad 2 and claims the new iPad’s screen has a million more pixels than an HDTV. All I know is that text is much sharper, and photos look richer. If you already own an iPad 2, and like it, you shouldn’t feel like you have to rush out to buy the new one. However, for those who use their iPads as their main e-readers, and those who use it frequently while away from Wi-Fi coverage, this new model could make a big difference."
- Jason Snell of Macworld: "It's not smaller or lighter, but it's got a remarkable screen, a much better rear camera, and support for cellular networking that can run at Wi-Fi speeds. It's the iPad that millions of people have embraced, only one year better. Users of the iPad 2 shouldn't fret: Their iPad investment is certainly good for another year. But they might not want to look too closely at the new iPad's screen. Once you get a load of that Retina display, it's hard to go back to anything else."
- Ed Baig of USA Today: "Examine the new screen side-by-side with one of its near-10-inch predecessors, and you'll swear you just had Lasik surgery. Text on Web pages or in books is so crisp and sharp that you don't want to go back to reading on an older iPad. Movies and photographs reveal rich detail."
- David Pogue of the New York Times: "My Verizon test unit got download speeds ranging from 6 to 29 megabits a second in San Francisco, Boston and New York — in many cases, faster than home cable-modem service. According to tests by PC Magazine and others, AT&T’s 4G network is smaller, but often faster. No doubt about it: life begins at 4G."
- John Gruber of Daring Fireball: "Reading on the big retina display is pure joy. Going back to the iPad 2 after reading for a few hours on the iPad 3 is jarring."
- MG Siegler of TechCrunch: "I never saw the point of getting the 3G version of the iPad because WiFi is available in many places, and where it’s not, you could just tether to your phone. But I will absolutely get an LTE iPad. Again, it’s faster than most WiFi networks I usually connect to."
- Vincent Nguyen of SlashGear: "Steve Jobs would have approved of the new iPad. With its focus on the holistic experience rather than individual boasts around its constituent parts, it’s the epitome of the Post-PC world the Apple founder envisaged. No lag or delay; no frustrating cloud settings or arcane minimum software requirements. Simply pick up, swipe, and you’re immersed in a joined-up ecosystem. Apple doesn’t need another revolution, it has already started one, and the new iPad brings a fresh degree of refinement to a segment in which it is undoubtedly the king."
- Shane Richmond of The Telegraph: "It's hard to overstate the significance of the new screen. Apple has packed four times as many pixels into the same space and the improvement has to be seen to be believed. The display is extraordinarily sharp. Text and photos look beautiful. Put the new iPad side-by-side with the iPad 2 and the differences are amazing. The iPad 2 suddenly looks so blurry. How have I never noticed that before? It's possible to see details on the new iPad that were just indistinct smears on the iPad 2. App icons are sharper and you can even read some of the tiny magazine covers on the Newsstand icon."
- Rich Jaroslovsky of Bloomberg: "While the Retina Display on the iPhone wasn’t an earth-shaking advance, the impact is far more evident on the iPad’s greater real estate. Even the text in an e-book is crisper, high-def video is sharper and photos are crystal clear."
- Jim Dalrymple of The Loop: "I’ve been using the iPad for a week now and I’m so impressed. From the first time I turned it on and saw the Retina display, I was in awe of how good it was. Trust me, even if you watched the introduction video, you still have no idea how good this display is. You really do have to see it to believe it. I struggled after the event to put the right words together to describe the display and a week later I’m still lost for the proper analogy. The only thing I can think of that comes close is comparing it to the first time you ever saw an HDTV. Remember how startling it was to go from one of those giant standard definition projector TVs to an HDTV? That’s what this is like."
- Clayton Morris of FOX News: "To test the experience I read hundreds of news articles and a new novel by Elmore Leonard; the text looked as though it were sitting on top of the screen, like newsprint. When I flipped through my photos, it looked as though I were holding 10-inch glossy prints in my hand. Games and graphics have never looked so good. And video? Amazing."
- David Phelan of Pocket-Lint: "As a result, text which had previously seemed perfectly readable is suddenly sharper, with a crispness that rivals print. No more jagged edges on curved lines, no matter how much you squint. It’s hard to convey what a major, but also subtle, change this is. Stare at it in the right light and it looks like it could be a printed photograph, not an electronic display."
- Jon Fortt of CNBC: "From a competitive standpoint, the new iPad has changed the terms of the tablet debate in a way that's going to make things harder for even scrappy players like Amazon. From years of HDTV shopping, consumers know how to spot a better screen in an in-store lineup."
