The rumor mill regarding Sony and Microsoft next-gen consoles will not stop before the grand unveil which is due in June E3 game exhibition or a bit earlier.
A look at what you expect from both consoles, Playstation 4, PS4 (internally referred to asOrbis) and its Microsoft rival XBox 720 (internally referred to asDurango). Both consoles will feature 8-core CPUs clocked at 1.6GHz based on the new “Jaguar†technology by AMD which is currently in development. The new technology is said to offer great power consumption and raw performance.
Orbis will sport a SoC architecture packed with the latest GPU Radeon 7970M running at 850MHz and featuring 20 of AMD’s “Graphics Core Next†compute units. This specs offer up to 1.84 teraflops metric. On the other side, Durango, will probably use Radeon HD 8770 GPU, featuring 1.23 teraflops. This gives PS4 about 50% of raw power advantage.
Orbis is also said to feature 4GB of GDDR5RAM with 512MB reserved for the operating system. While Durango is rumored to sport a set of 8GB DDR3RAM of which 3GB reserved for the OS.
Take these speculations with a bunch of salt and expect more information and leaks on the way.
Even though this screen isn’t state of the art, it’s O.K. If you’ve ever laid your eyeballs on the ultra-smooth text rendered by the Retina iPad, its text will look fuzzy by comparison, especially at teensier type sizes. But the tradeoff it presents compared to the 7-inchers — fewer pixels, but more space — is reasonable enough.
In shrinking the iconic iPad, Apple has pulled off an impressive feat. It has managed to create a tablet that’s notably thinner and lighter than the leading small competitors with 7-inch screens, while squeezing in a significantly roomier 7.9-inch display. And it has shunned the plastic construction used in its smaller rivals to retain the iPad’s sturdier aluminum and glass body.
What will surprise you is the weight. The specs already show that the iPad mini is lighter than the Kindle Fire, 308g v 395g (and 340g for the Nexus 7); even if you add on a Smart Cover, it’s still lighter than the uncovered Kindle Fire. It’s thinner too. This is a device that will be ideal for holding in one hand for reading on train rides or other commuting; or you might even forget it’s in that coat pocket.
In fact we found the brightness and color reproduction to be improved over the iPad 2, comparable to the latest Retina displays. Colors are very pleasing to the eye and viewing angles, as ever with an Apple display, do not disappoint. You can line up as many friends as you like and sit them shoulder-to-shoulder, they’ll all have a bright, clear picture. Yes, mini owners may have to make do with some resolution envy, but they at least won’t be lacking in any other regard.
And it does raise the floor here. There’s no tablet in this size range that’s as beautifully constructed, works as flawlessly, or has such an incredible software selection. Would I prefer a higher-res display? Certainly. Would I trade it for the app selection or hardware design? For the consistency and smoothness of its software, or reliability of its battery? Absolutely not. And as someone who’s been living with (and loving) Google’s Nexus 7 tablet for a few months, I don’t say that lightly.
While we’re on the subject of the screen, let’s not beat around the bush — if there is a weakness of this device, it’s the screen. But that statement comes with a very big asterisk. As someone who is used to a “retina†display on my phone, tablet, and even now computer, the downgrade to a non-retina display is quite noticeable. This goes away over time as you use the iPad mini non-stop, but if you switch back a retina screen, it’s jarring.
On the other hand, what will make some think twice about buying an iPad mini is the price. Starting at £269 for a WiFi only model, this is £100 dearer than the Kindle Fire HD or the Nexus 7, which is now available in a 16GB version for £159.
Whether it’s worth it depends on how much of a premium you put on great design and a vast ecosystem of apps. Apple will sell a lot of these little beauties, that’s for sure.
The iPad Mini is a design shift from the iPad, and perhaps the biggest one in the iPad’s entire history. Despite how popular the iPad’s been, it’s not really a device that’s very comfortable to use when not sitting down or at a desk. It’s a use-when-you-get-there device, or use-when-comfortably-seated. An iPhone or iPod Touch is truly mobile, and the iPad is only halfway there.
Apple quotes up to 10hrs of wireless browsing over Wi-Fi for the iPad mini, or up to 9hrs if you’re using the tablet’s cellular connection. In practice, with a mixture of browsing, some video playback, games, music – both locally-stored and streaming – and messaging, we comfortably exceeded Apple’s estimate. In fact, we exceeded 11hrs of use before encountering a battery warning.
Those tablets don’t have the complete experience that the iPad does. Come on: The iPad is still the gold standard for tablet computing after all. With stellar hardware and hundreds of thousands of apps, the iPad is the Kleenex of facial tissue. The Tivo of DVRs. It has all the perks of using an iOS device: AppStore, iMessages, FaceTime, etc.
In my testing, battery life seems to have remained the same despite the processor, and so have the cameras. In fact, the camera is one of the places where the impact of the A6X processor can be seen: taking pictures is an astonishingly fast and picture quality is improved thanks to the A6X’s image signal processor.
The fourth-generation iPad is the very definition of an iterative change: Apple made important things better, but neither overhauled nor revolutionized anything. If the iPad’s history is any indication, the fourth-generation iPad’s advantages over the third-gen model will be most apparent two years from now, when apps are designed for the better processor and the Lightning connector has spawned a much larger universe of accessories. Then you’ll want the extra power and the adapter-free lifestyle.
For now, if you’re within your return window you should probably swap for the newest iPad, but if not? Rest assured you’re not really missing that much. Not yet, at least.
If you were going to get an iPad before, obviously, you’ll want to get this one now. In fact, you don’t even have a choice — Apple has discontinued the third-generation model. The prices remain the same across the board as do all of the other features (WiFi/LTE, Retina display, etc).
Yes, it is kind of lame for those of us who bought third-generation models that Apple updated the line so quickly, but well, that’s Apple. To me, the fourth-generation leap doesn’t seem to be nearly as big as the leap from the first to second generation or from the second to third generation, so perhaps take some solace in that.
The third-generation iPad arguably didn’t need refreshing; in fact, if Apple hadn’t opted to change to Lightning, it could realistically have held off changing its largest tablet until early 2013, as per its typical yearly refresh cycle. That makes for a reasonably straightforward upgrade decision if you’re a 3rd-gen iPad owner. Unless you’re desperate for Lightning – perhaps you’ve also got an iPhone 5, and want to use all the same accessories rather than buy the adapter dongle – then we’re yet to see apps that really demand the potent A6X chipset.
And the early reviews for Microsoft’s new Surface tablet have begun stacked up, giving us a glimpse of whats Microsoft has its up sleeves in the tablet business. Judging by the hands-on, it seems the Surface is not going well for Microsoft primarily with the obvious lack of apps, buggy software and other awkwardness:
My 48-year-old eyeballs have no trouble telling the difference between iPad Retina text and the Surface’s ClearType — but overall, the Surface’s screen is one of the best I’ve seen on a tablet.
The screen, incidentally, is 16:9, an aspect ratio designed with Windows 8′s panoramic interface in mind. It lets you see more apps without panning, and is well suited to the feature that allows you to snap a widget-like version of one app on the side of the primary program you’re using. Microsoft thinks Surface buyers will use the tablet mostly in landscape mode; it works in portrait orientation too, although the aspect ratio leaves it looking like a small-but-tall magazine.
Yes, keyboard. You know Apple’s magnetically hinged iPad cover? Microsoft’s Touch Cover is the same idea — same magnet hinge — except that on the inside, there are key shapes, and even a trackpad, formed from slightly raised, fuzzy material. Flip the cover open, flip out the kickstand and boom: you have what amounts to a 1.5-pound PC that sets up anywhere.
This is nothing like those Bluetooth keyboard cases for the iPad. First, the Touch Cover is much, much thinner, 0.13 inches, cardboard thin. Second, it’s not Bluetooth; there’s no setup and no battery hit. The magnet clicks, and keyboard is ready for typing. Third, when you want just a tablet, the keyboard flips around against the back. The Surface automatically disables its keys and displays the on-screen keyboard when it’s time to type.
It does the job of a tablet and the job of a laptop half as well as other devices on the market, and it often makes that job harder, not easier. Instead of being a no-compromise device, it often feels like a more-compromise one.
There may be a time in the future when all the bugs have been fixed, the third-party app support has arrived, and some very smart engineers in Redmond have ironed out the physical kinks in this type of product which prevent it from being all that it can be. But that time isn’t right now — and unfortunately for Microsoft, the clock is ticking.
Imagine booting up an iPad for the first time, seeing the OS X desktop exactly as it appears on a MacBook, and then finding out you cannot run any OS X software on the device. As odd as that scenario sounds, that is exactly the situation Microsoft is facing with the next-generation Windows OS…
…At 1.5 pounds, the Surface’s weight falls very close to that of Apple’s iPad despite the tablet’s larger display, and Microsoft says that the 10.6-inch display size is perfect for a device that is as much about content creation as it is content consumption.
In the end though, this is nothing more than Microsoft’s tablet. And a buggy, at times broken one, at that, whose “ecosystem†feels more like a tundra. There’s no Twitter or Facebook app, and the most popular 3rd party client breaks often. The Kindle app is completely unusable. There’s no image editing software. A People app is supposed to give you all the social media access you’d ever need, but It’s impossible to write on someone’s Facebook wall through the People app, Surface’s social hub; the only workaround is to load Internet Explorer. Blech. Something as simple as loading a video requires a jumbled process of USB importing, dipping in and out of the stripped-down desktop mode, opening a Video app, importing, going back into the Video app, and then playing. What.
The Surface RT’s 1.4GHz quad-core Tegra 3 processor and 2GB of system memory handle their workloads without drama. Gesturing through the OS itself is fast and fluid. Ditto browsing in Internet Explorer. Websites load extremely quickly, and when you scroll rapidly down pages, screen redraws have no trouble keeping up…
…Regardless, performance in hard-core applications probably won’t even matter, because the Windows RT desktop is locked down: You will never be able to install Photoshop, traditional PC games, or any other code we typically define as “PC software.â€
I’ve been waiting a long time for somebody to produce tablets and phones that are lock, stock and barrel better than what Apple’s been making since the first iPhone. Every year, somebody gets closer. Surface doesn’t get close enough. The thing is, Surface is supposed to be so much more than just Microsoft’s iPad alternative, the Other Tablet. It may very well be one day. It has everything it needs to be that. But today it’s just another tablet. And not one you should buy.
