The folks at Consumer Reports sounded alarm bells when their tests suggested that the new iPad tends to run hotter than its predecessor, but — despite those initial concerns —those consumer watchdogs are recommending the third-generation Apple tablet.
According to a post by Consumer Reports' Donna Tapellini, the "high-resolution screen of the new iPad establishes a new benchmark in excellence, providing the best rendering of detail and color accuracy [Consumer Reports has] ever seen on a tablet display." Tapellini also calls attention to the iPad's impressive general performance, the quality of its 4G LTE connectivity (on Verizon's network), and its rather solid battery life. She explains that the device tops the publication's tablet ratings.
There's no getting around the elephant in the room, of course, and Tapellini doesn't even bother trying. "Responding to consumer comments on the new device, and to coverage from other reviewers, we also carried out further tests that confirmed the new iPad is warmer in its hottest spots than the iPad 2," she explains:
But we didn't find those temperatures to be cause for concern. In addition, further tests of observations we made that the new iPad was not recharging when playing a demanding, intense video game, showed that the problem was limited to times when the device was playing a demanding game with the screen fully bright. Our high overall judgment of the new iPad was not affected by the results of either battery of tests.
Tests conducted by other publications — who struggled to replicate the heat levels initially observed by Consumer Reports — came to this very same conclusion.
Various tests, including several which re-created the very conditions of Consumer Reports' tests, concluded that the third-generation iPad's heat levels tend to be on par with those of similar devices — and that even when they're on the higher side of things, they're not overly hot.
Want more tech news, silly puns, or amusing links? You'll get plenty of all three if you keep up with Rosa Golijan, the writer of this post, by following her on Twitter, subscribing to her Facebook posts, or circling her on Google+.
