iPad 4 -> iPad 2017 really is a significant upgrade

[GusSmed]

I've been using an iPad 4 for gaming for 4+ years now, and while games always run, I've had issues. Mostly memory related, where games would abruptly stop because they ran out of RAM and the iPad didn't unload enough apps. Re-loading the game was almost always stable, but it was still annoying.

The recent Best Buy sale on the 9.7" iPad Pro had me thinking about upgrading to a model with 2 GB of memory. I decided that even on sale the Pro didn't make sense for me, so I went with the iPad 2017, or iPad 5, or iPad 7, depending on how you decide to assign the numbers Apple doesn't want to.

I felt a bit apprehensive when I went through with the purchase, wondering if I was being foolish. Once I finished dealing with iTunes (arrrgh) and got everything transferred and running, my doubts evaporated. Not only is it far more stable, my primary goal, it's faster. A lot faster. Hugely faster. I had no idea exactly how poor the response of my old iPad was until I started using the 2017.

Fallout Shelter was by far the most dramatic change. Maybe not the deepest game to use an example, but it is very demanding of the hardware compared to most. I was used to a significant period when the Vault was loading when everything moved slowly. That went away. Scrolling was now smooth, and there was no lag when picking up a Dweller to move somewhere else.

The benchmarks said it was about 3.5x faster, but benchmarks don't always translate to actual game performance. This time it certainly did.

More, I can now load Lords of Waterdeep, play a few turns, and then fire up Fallout Shelter and Fallout Shelter is still in memory. No need to go through the loading slides and load saved game dialog, it's just there.

I'm sharing this mainly in case someone else has been wondering if it's worth upgrading just for the performance benefits. I'd say it is.

 

[Yuriman]

My biggest gripe with Apple hardware is that they almost always shortchange you on RAM, which inevitably becomes a problem. I had 2GB of RAM in my phone in 2013, and it wasn't even a particularly high-end phone. Most mobile devices today ship with 4GB minimum, so seeing only 2GB in a new tablet is criminal.

 

[GusSmed]

That's a fair point. You'd think they'd put 4G into the 9.7" Pro, since the earlier 12.9" version has 4G. But they don't.

 

[Commodus]

My biggest gripe with Apple hardware is that they almost always shortchange you on RAM, which inevitably becomes a problem. I had 2GB of RAM in my phone in 2013, and it wasn't even a particularly high-end phone. Most mobile devices today ship with 4GB minimum, so seeing only 2GB in a new tablet is criminal.

Keep in mind, of course, that 2GB in iOS isn't the same as 2GB in Android. Google's platform chews up much, much more memory, so a lot of RAM is practically mandatory. A 2GB iPhone 7 is as good or better at keeping apps in memory as a 4GB Galaxy S8.

 

[zerogear]

While true, there is also absolutely no reason not to include 4GB of RAM.

 

[darkswordsman17]

Sorry to be a d!ck, but I have no idea why you're so surprised to find that your new computer is much faster than your 4 year old one. I would say Apple is definitely underrated on how much they've pushed performance in phones/tablets though.

 

[GusSmed]

I have no idea why you're so surprised to find that your new computer is much faster than your 4 year old one.

Because this isn't the 1980's, and I no longer take significant improvements in CPU (rather than GPU) performance for granted, and I'm aware that benchmarks are often misleading and don't necessarily reflect real world performance improvements.

Or to look at it another way, iOS games don't generally push the performance envelope the way PC games do. It's like the low-end indie PC market, where many newly released games will run just as well on ancient hardware as on a bleeding edge rig. Not all games are a as CPU-bound as Fallout Shelter turned out to be. Lords of Waterdeep runs pretty much the same on my old iPad as it does on the new one.