Apple ’s iPad is impressive in many ways ; having seen its reactivity in demos and its brag long - biography battery claims , I was nervous to get my men on one for some real - world testing . And my results show barrage fire life that exceeds Apple ’s title and quick app performance .
Battery tests
Apple claims up to 10 hours of electric battery life history when “ surf the web , learn videos , or listening to medicine . ” I touch base the iPad to my home ’s wireless internet and transferred a movie engage from the iTunes store from my MacBook Pro to the iPad . Once the movie was charge and playing , I unplugged the fully accuse iPad and took note of the time .
Four hours and 15 minutes later on , I checked the battery level and see that it had gone down by 30 percent . I checked back every dyad of hours to restart the movie , and finally , after a full 11 hours and 25 instant , the iPad barricade the movie , briefly showed the place silver screen and then exclude down .
Usually , when a company make a claim of battery life , you expect that call to be a good - typeface scenario based on a hard - to - recreate situation that ’s nearly impossible to animate . In this typeface , it appears that Apple ’s claims were conservative , as I was able to exceed the claim by 85 minutes in a power - hungry scenario .
iPad tested with iPhone OS 3.2. The iPod touch 64GB was tested with iPhone OS 3.1.3. All other devices were tested running iPhone OS 3.1. Peggle and Star Defense were app launch times to end of initial load screen. PCalc was launch time to calculator ready. Sunspider was the time to run the WebKit Sunspider JavaScript benchmark. Page load test was amount of time it took to load nytimes.com.—Macworld testing by Jason Snell and James Galbraith
For comparison ’s saki , I launch the same test on the 2nd multiplication iPod touch ( late 2009 ) , which Apple claims is capable of up to 6 hr of video recording playback . The iPod touch , did n’t fare as well , play the motion-picture show for just 4 hours and 53 transactions before shut out down .
I also timed how long it take to recharge the iPad . It take on just timid of 4 hours to full reload the iPad under the optimal consideration — sleeping and plugged into its 10W office courser .
Macworldsenior editor Christopher Breen , in his article that bet at the iPad as a iPod , tested the iPad battery life when playing sound only . When he wrote his article , the iPad had turn tail for over 43 time of day and still had 71 percent of battery life story left .
Application performance
To line up out how the iPad ’s execution compares to other gimmick range the iPhone O , I tend the same suite of tests used in our review of the iPod touch . I updated the iPod touch ’s oxygen version to the in vogue uncommitted , iPhone OS 3.1.3 , and lade the necessary apps onto the iPad . In four of the six psychometric test , the iPad was the immobile gimmick , with the latest iPod touch and the iPhone 3GS both taking first in one test each .
In our startup trial , the iPad assume 19.3 seconds to exhibit the unlock screen , which was less than one second behind the iPod touch , which need 18.1 seconds . The iPhone 3GS took 28.5 seconds to begin up - a result 48 percent wearisome than that of the iPad .
The biggest speed difference I establish was in our Web page loading tests . The iPad took 11.1 sec to charge nytimes.com , which was 51 per centum faster than its closelipped competitor , the iPhone 3GS , which took 22.8 seconds . The iPod speck come in third , taking 24 seconds .
In our app launching tests the iPad was imposingly quicker than the iPod touch in two of the tests , taking 29 percentage less time to launchPeggleand 27 percent less time to loadStar Defense . LaunchingPCalcLite was a wash , with both equipment presenting the calculator in 1.7 sec . The iPhone 3GS was fast at cargo PCalc , adopt just 1.3 indorsement to demo the calculating machine . The iPhone 3GS was slower than the other two machine when load Peggle , taking a full irregular longer than the iPod touch and 3.4 minute longer than the iPad . The iPhone fared better in our Star Defense launching run , taking 20.6 second , a result that falls between the iPod and iPad ’s outcome .
Also telling were the iPad ’s Sunspider test results using the iPhone OS ’s provided Safari web internet browser . It took 10.1 seconds to fill in the WebKit Sunspider JavaScript bench mark , which is 35 percent faster than the Sunspider times turned in by the iPod touch and iPhone 3Gs , which both took 15.5 seconds to dispatch .
iPad speed tests
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iPad tested with iPhone group O 3.2 . The iPod touch 64 GB was tested with iPhone O 3.1.3 . All other devices were tested run iPhone OS 3.1 . Peggle and Star Defense were app launch sentence to end of initial load screen door . PCalc was plunge clip to calculator quick . Sunspider was the prison term to start the WebKit Sunspider JavaScript benchmark . Page lading test was amount of clock time it took to dilute nytimes.com.—Macworld examination by Jason Snell and James Galbraith
