Hardware

Ever held an iPad 2? If so, suffice to say this new iPad is a wee bit thicker and a teensy bit heavier. You now have our full blessing to skip down to the display section below, which is what you're probably truly interested in reading about.

If you didn't know any better you'd think it were completely solid.

For those looking for the full-on review effect, the new iPad is still a slinky thing. Sure, its 9.4mm thickness won't win it any awards (especially since that's .6mm thicker than the iPad 2), nor will its 652g (1.4-pound) heft (51g / .11 pounds more than before), but it feels neither big nor heavy. It instead feels substantial. Dense. It's carved from a hunk of aluminum and there's a cavity in there where the (now bigger) battery and other internals reside, but if you didn't know any better you'd think it were completely solid. There's none of the flex or the give found in cheaper slates. That solidity certainly helps explain the premium feel, but buyers will have to decide whether that feel is worth the extra space in their messenger bags, or the extra strain placed on shoulder straps. The chassis is hewn from the same matte aluminum as most of Apple's other devices, with a gentle curve on the edges tapering down to a flat back punctuated by a glossy black Apple logo. The shape of that taper is slightly different than before, a bit more rounded on account of that extra girth, but you'll be hard-pressed to notice without a side-by-side comparison. Looking at the back you'll still find the speaker in its same lower-left position, still a rather unfortunate placement. Most of the sound is therefore directed away from where you want it, namely in your ears, and we can't say as we noticed any improvement in the overall aural quality compared to this tablet's predecessor. Next to that is the dock port, still the full-sized 40-pin variety and not the slinky, next-gen connector that we've been hearing is in the works, so your accessories live on for at least one more generation of tablets. Move up to the side and you'll find the same volume rocker and mute / rotation lock as before, situated in the same place, too. Kitty-corner to that is the wide and flat power button, separated from the 3.5mm headphone jack over on the other side by the same expanse of black plastic seen on the iPad 2, making room in the metal chassis for the antennas to do their thing. WiFi-only models get by without this polycarbonate indiscretion.

Swing around to the other top corner and you'll find the door behind which rests the SIM. LTE does need a SIM, even on Verizon, and there are new iPad versions supporting LTE on both AT&T and Verizon. (Rogers, Bell and Telus in Canada, too, though Telstra LTE in Australia is sadly not compatible.) There are different devices here, one for AT&T and another for Verizon, but either offer comprehensive non-LTE wireless connectivity options, including MTS / HSPA / HSPA+ / DC-HSDPA (850, 900, 1900, 2100 MHz) and GSM / EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz). That means even if you aren't in LTE-land you can expect up to 42Mbps download speeds, which is much faster than the iPad 2. The WiFi-only models naturally lose all that, but all varieties offer 802.11a/b/g/n connectivity along with Bluetooth 4.0. Even the WiFi-only model can make use of the new voice dictation feature here, which adds a microphone button down next to the keyboard. In our testing it's impressively accurate, capturing even odd words like "Schenectady" without pause. It only works when you have an active network connection and, sadly, its no Siri, which is still not available. The new iPad will not find you directions to body hiding spots nor tell you the weather. The one final detail on the back is the slightly enlarged portal behind which the new five megapixel camera assembly peers through. It's rimmed by a bit of polished metal as on the iPad 2, so things don't look noticeably different from the outside, but as ever it's what's on the inside that counts -- and indeed you'll have to look a little deeper in this review to see how that new sensor. The biggest change of all, however, is right there on the front, though tragically for those who like to make appearances the black (or white) glass facade looks exactly the same as it did before. Turn it on, though, and everything changes.

Display

If you're disappointed Apple didn't do more with the new iPad, that's probably because you haven't seen the new Retina display yet.

If you're disappointed Apple didn't do more with the new iPad, that's probably because you haven't seen the new Retina display for yourself yet. Take more than a passing glance and you'll be a believer. Of course, a cynic would say that it's really Samsung who's been doing all the hard work here, as this is (for now, at least) a panel sourced from that company, which should be a strong indicator that Apple's strongest competition on the Android side won't be far behind in launching its own high-res wunderslate. The biggest talking point is, of course, the truly bonkers resolution. 2048 x 1536 means four times the pixels of the previous iPads and, indeed, a full million more than your average 1080p TV. On the 9.7-inch display this works out to a pixel density of 264ppi. That's considerably lower than the 326ppi the iPhone 4S manages and, indeed, below the magic 300ppi barrier Apple had earlier specified for the "Retina" moniker. But, as you're expected to hold the new iPad further from your face than your phone, the perceived pixel density is said to be comparable.

Really, though, the numbers will be quickly forgotten once you get a look at this thing. If you've previously made the leap from a lower-resolution iPhone to one packing a Retina display you have some idea of what to expect here, but the increased scale really makes the difference shine.