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New iPad and iPad 2: The Quadruple Pixel Difference

The new iPad has four times as many pixels as the iPad 2. To really show how this matters, we had to get really, really close to both, but the results are impressive.

March 20, 2012

The Retina display on the is one of its biggest advances over the , but to really make this clear you have to get very close to the tablet.

With a resolution of 2,048 by 1,536 pixels, the new iPad has four times the pixels of the iPad 2 and packs more resolution into 10 inches than any HDTV on the market several times its size. It stands between 1080p resolution, which modern HDTVs use, and 4K resolution, which high-end cinema projectors use (and which won't find any significant use in homes for several years).

The new iPad's screen is genuinely impressive. For perspective, and to better explain the resolution issue, every pixel in the iPad 2 is occupied by four pixels on the new iPad. We used a macro lens and got up close to the two tablets to compare the screens. If you can't already tell, the new iPad is shown on the left and the iPad 2 is shown on the right.

A close-up of the Safari icon shows just how much more resolution is packed into the screen. At this magnification, the individual pixels are bright and clear on the iPad 2, but are still too small to be individually identified on the iPad. The icons you see every day on the iPad look so sharp you can't see the pixels without looking very, very close. It's a marked difference over the iPad 2, which was rightfully praised for having a bright, crisp screen. The new iPad just looks that much better at that distance.

Text is less notable, but is still smoother. If you use your iPad as an ebook reader or Web browser, you're going to be staring at a lot of text. With the iPad 18 inches away from your face, the new iPad and iPad 2 look clear and readable. At just an inch away, the letters are as different as calligraphy and Lego blocks. This close, the angle of the 'x' looks slightly fuzzy at most on the new iPad, but shows clear pixel stairs on the iPad 2. For reference, the red line is one inch.

There's also the issue of zooming out. It's not as important as zooming in to see things more clearly, but it is the best example of the new iPad beating the iPad 2 in resolution. The Ziff Davis logo in the corner of the page has been zoomed out until it's a fraction of an inch. The new iPad shows the logo as the Ziff Davis logo. The iPad 2 shows the logo and the text around it as a cluster of pixels too large to display the information.

You don't get up close to see the individual pixels of your monitor, but they do matter. A long time ago, 320 by 240 was a high resolution. Then VGA (640 by 480). Then SVGA (800 by 600). Now monitors exceed resolutions of 1,600 by 900. We might not notice the changes at first, but when the upgrade is made it becomes clear. The jump from the iPad 2 to the new iPad is the same jump we took from standard definition TV to high-definition television. TV was great years ago, but HDTV has improved the experience so much that the old screens just look fuzzy. The iPad 2 is still a great tablet on its own, but when you compare it to the new iPad it just looks fuzzy.