iPad 3 or rather the "New iPad"

Congratulations Apple Fan boys! The iPad 3 has been launched. The release date is March 16th for the USA and a few other countries. As usual, Malaysians and other Asian countries will have to wait a few months before the local launch.

Apple has kept their design and have changed little aesthetically. The other changes are the expected evolution of the hardware. The only thing surprising is the break in naming convention. Unexpectedly, instead of iPad 3 it is named simply as the "New iPad". Not only is the new name bound to raise confusion, it also seems a tad uninspired.

So far, the battery life and screen size is still the same with iPad 2. The thickness has gone up from 8.8mm to 9.4mm. Weight has also increased by around 50g. The colour choices are still black and white. Also strangely, Siri is absent from the iPad 3.

Screen Size
Let's have a closer look at the interesting technical bits. The first thing a user will realize is the gorgeous new Retina display. Although the screen size is the same as the iPad 2 (9.7 inches), the resolution is an astounding 2048x1536 pixels. That is a amazing 4 times increase in resolution from the current iPad 2 screen.

The improved Retina Display with 3.1 Million pixels 

Processing Power & Graphics
The New iPad has the new A5X which runs a dual core processor and a quad core graphics processor. Apple claims that the processing power is four times that of Nvidia's Tegra 3. Which is a very bold claim indeed as the Nvidia Tegra 3 is a pure Quad Core with an additional CPU for low power operation. So the bold claim of Apple on their 4 times performance is most probably a truth stretched too far.

Camera
The New iPad still uses a VGA for the front facing camera. However the back camera has been bumped up to a 5 MP camera with auto-focus, image stabilization and face detection. This brings the capability to capture 1080p videos to the iPad. The camera is not the top of the line if compared to what is available in the current crop of Android Tablets. However the camera execution of Apple products has always been a step above the laggy interface you get with the Android.

So many lenses? Really?

Connectivity
As usual, the iPad comes with Wifi and 3G. The extra here is LTE or '4G' connectivity.

As a whole, the New iPad is an evolution of the iPad 2. It develops on its core mechanics. The excellent picture quality will bring the presentation of apps and games to a different level. High visual quality will also transfer well for movies and video streaming. And yes, Apple will sell a million of these just because they can.