Is the "New iPad" Worth Buying?

It's been almost a month since the third generation iPad has been released and a question I get a lot is "Orestis, is the "New iPad" worth buying?". To find out read the article.

First of all let me give you a quick speck review of the new iPad. 

Processor: Apple's dual-core A5 chip clocked at 1.2 GHz

Graphics: Apple's brand new, quad-core A5X chip

Display: 9.5" with the fantastic resolution of 2048-by-1536 and Retina Display

Front facing camera: VGA camera (0.3 Mpix) , shooting low quality video at 240p

Back facing camera: All brand new iSight 5Mpix camera, with the same optics of the iPhone 4S's camera, which also records 1080p (FULL HD) video

Connectivity: WiFi, and the first Apple device which supports 4G LTE

Battery life: 10 hours normal use, 9 hours 4G LTE

Design: Same with the iPad 2's, but a bit thicker

Capacity: 16GB, 32GB, 64GB

Software: iOS 5

After the short spec review of Apple's new masterpiece, my answer to the question is, it depends. I’ll explain you now what I mean.

Let's start first of all with the whole "upgrade" thing.

If you are an iPad first generation user and you really use your tablet, then this is the upgrade for you. Whole new design, a lot better performance, Retina Display, cameras and overall the new iPad is way better than the first generation iPad. Of course this is very logical since the iPad one is a 2010 tablet, and the new iPad is a 2012 tablet.

If you are an iPad 2 user, there isn't a really huge reason to upgrade, I am just going to be honest with you. The iPad 2's performance is the same with the new ones, except in graphics, it does also have two cameras (although both are bad quality) and same screen size. The two new outstanding features on the new iPad, that the iPad 2 doesn't have are, the Retina Display and the 4G support (which if you are not a citizen of the U.S. and Canada, is useless because only 3G is supported to the rest of the world). For only those two features, i wouldn't recommend upgrading, cause don't forget iPad's price starts from 499$ up to 829$. That's a lot of money, especially with the economic crisis nowadays.

Now if you are looking to buy your first tablet, i wouldn't recommend the new iPad although I am an Apple fan. There are many Android tablets which cost less, and bring more to the user. An example is the Asus Transformer Prime, which when it's plugged in, in a keyboard dock it can easily be used as a laptop. Also many new other Android tablet will be launched the next two months will be way better than the iPad 3 and of course cheaper. The con with Android tablets is the operating system. If you are not into technology, and if you haven't a lot of experience you'll face problems using Android because it's a difficult to get used to platform. On the other hand Apple's iOS is the perfect and most family friendly OS compared to the others. It's really easy to use and it's the best mobile operating system in the world.

In case you are wondering if I upgraded, the answer is of course no. I am an iPad first generation (16Gb 3G model) user, and trust me it gets the job done for me. It's fast (generally speaking not compared to the new iPad), the screen size is the same, it runs the latest version of iOS, graphics are really good, it's the 3G model which I really use especially in holidays (4G LTE is useless for me because I leave in Europe which is not supported), and generally it's an excellent device. Also I have to say that, honestly, I don't care if it doesn't have any cameras, because first of all it's a tablet, cameras on a tablet it's not an important reason to buy it and it's not comfortable at all to use it for filming or taking pictures. The last and second reason is that, in my occasion, I own an iPhone 4S which has as main feature its amazing camera that any other Apple device have.

That was my answer for each possible case according if the “New iPad” is worth being purchased. Read yours, to decide. If you have any questions regarding the new iPad or anything related with this article, leave them in the comment section below.