Apple iPad review: why it's a genuine leap forward

The most important part of any tablet, whatever the quad-core brigade may say, is the screen. Unlike any internal component, the screen is what you’ll still be noticing a week after your purchase, the part upon which all of your attention is focused. Upgrading it is the most effective way to improve any tablet.

We’re sure all manufacturers understand this, yet few are in a position to make such bold strides as Apple. Following the iPhone 4’s leap with its “Retina” display, the new iPad has a similarly groundbreaking 1536 x 2048 panel – that’s four times the iPad 2’s 768 x 1024 resolution in exactly the same 9.7in diagonal – and higher than many 27in LCDs. Apple calls it “resolutionary” – a word that makes us queasy, but the sentiment is spot on.

The quadrupled pixel count doesn’t quite give the same pixel density as the iPhone 4 – it’s 246ppi compared to the smaller screen’s 326ppi – but it’s way ahead of any other tablet on the market. Asus will soon release its 10in Transformer Pad Infinity, with a 1920 x 1200 resolution; that’s as close as it gets.

The biggest beneficiary is text, so sharp that you can’t see the pixels any more. The same applies to images, provided the originals are of suitable quality. In fact, the new screen acts like a magnifying glass on every medium-resolution logo or banner ad you may have hoped no-one would notice, which will have web developers desperately scrambling to update their assets.

Apple has curated a section of the App Store highlighting the first Retina-optimised apps, and those we tested did a fine job of showing off the improvement. Flight Control Rocket and Real Racing 2 HD look superb, and the updated Kindle app shows the new iPad is a capable ebook reader as well.

Colour saturation is excellent, and our subjective impressions were backed up by the figures: we measured brightness at 426cd/m2, with an excellent contrast ratio of 906:1. Put simply, the new screen is a revelation, and if you find you’ve stopped actively marvelling at it after an hour or so, a trip back to an iPad 2 will be a shock to the system – it’s like going back to a standard-definition TV after watching Full HD.

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