The new iPad has arrived at TNW and we will be bringing you ongoing coverage of the new Apple tablet throughout the week. There aren’t many physical differences between this year’s model and the iPad 2, but we did highlight some of them for you here. We will have an in-depth review of Apple’s latest effort, but not before we’ve spent some quality time with it.
One of the first new details that we noticed about the new iPad was its screen color temperature, which is significantly warmer than the iPad 2’s. This has the effect of making it appear slightly dimmer than the older iPad’s display, but it isn’t, just a bit more on the warm side of the tonal range. This is a nice improvement, as far as I’m concerned, as I’ve always preferred a warmer tone to my displays.
The screen is absolutely brilliant, one of the best displays ever on a handheld device. But we have seen it before, in the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S. This lessens the overall ‘wow’ factor of the screen for me, but it is nevertheless an enormous improvement in screen quality over the iPad 2, especially at close viewing distances and absolutely decimates any other tablet on the market. Here is a shot of the iPad 2’s screen, on the left, alongside the new iPad on the right.
Many of the other physical differences are harder to spot. Even in the hand, it feels very similar, although it is slightly thicker than the iPad 2. The difference, .o3 inches, isn’t perceptible until you slap them on a table and peer at them from the side. It is also slightly heavier, which is a noticeable difference if you’re holding them both, but I think it will be quickly adjusted to by most.
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The increased thickness means a slightly altered slope to the rear casing of the new iPad as well. There is a steeper slope to the bullnose of the rear panel, and the curve reaches further out onto the back of the iPad, making for a slightly different grip, but only very slightly.
As we noted previously, the new iPad also comes with a slightly updated dock connector cable, with longer stress relief and a thinner cord. A nice upgrade that should help these things stop tearing apart at the ends.
That’s just a few of the observations we’ve made so far about the new iPad, but we’ll leave you with a full gallery of images to sate your list if you haven’t picked one up already.
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