Is the New iPad Too Hot to be Cool?
March 30, 2012
Can’t stand the Heat? Get out of the computer room!
There’s a whole lot of hubbub around not only the cutting edge technology packed into Apple’s new iPad, but the high levels of heat that radiates out of it. It’s nothing new for a laptop, phone, tablet, or other powerful piece of electronics to see a noticeable rise in temperature during peak usage. So why, this time around, does there seems to be a bigger outcry than usual. Are the complaints valid, or is this just a case of a couple loud voices rising above the generally happy consensus?
Surely Apple’s phenomenal new iPad sales denote that it’s not a big enough issue to stop mass adoption of their latest tablet computer, and Apple has already made a public statement to tech blog All Things D’s Peter Kafka that Apple finds iPad temperatures to be acceptable from their point of view. However, the many defenses put forth online as to why temperatures up to (and over) 100 degrees fahrenheit leave us feeling cold.
It might be warm to the touch, but it’s not dangerous. While it is comforting to know that your iPad won’t damage your fingertips, that doesn’t make it fun to use. Nobody likes to sweat while holding their device, nor do users in hot environments need yet another heat source held so close to their body.
Laptop computers get even hotter. While laptops have been running hot for years (just look at any fan-filled laptop dock or stand available at your local electronics shop for proof), there is little reason to press one directly against your body. By their nature of sitting in your lap, you likely have at least some protection from direct contact, and many laptops end up sitting on desks or tables, rather than bare skin. One thing’s for sure, you’re not walking around and holding a laptop in your hand while using it.
Even hot, it never breaks down. No matter how hot testers have measured the new iPad getting, there are no credible reports of it locking up or crashing based on heat. Even when Consumer Reports’ test units hit 116 degrees, they still functioned properly. So what if the iPad reached 200 degrees and continued to run, but was only usable when placed on a stand and touched with oven mitts? Simply because it can work at high temperatures, doesn’t mean it should.
It’s more powerful than the iPad 2, so it must be hotter too. While Apple has kept the case design of the new iPad the same as previous generations, it has packed in more components and super-charged every aspect of the device. Some Apple defenders says that more heat emitting parts means more total heat being generated, and faster processors run hotter than their slower ancestors, so what did we expect? You want the power, you take the heat! However, this argument is also to imply that the next generation iPad will be even hotter than now, and the generation after that, hotter still; as if Apple has no responsibility to revise their hardware in order to battle this escalating arms race of heat and we just need to toughen up. However, it seems impossible that future iPads will grow substantially thicker in order to accommodate more parts without combusting, and after this outcry it’s doubtful we’ll see high temperatures in future products; Apple will find a way to produce more efficient chips before all of our electronics turn to molten lava as soon as consumer demand forces them to.
It’s no hotter than competing Android/Blackberry/Windows tablets. Rather than single out the iPad, Wired Magazine’s Gadget Lab found that every tablet they tested, from the Asus Transformer Prime to the Kindle Fire, when pushed to its processing capacity by graphically intense games, reached a similar temperature in line with Apple’s tablet between 90-100 degrees. Unfortunately, this doesn’t make any of these tablets innocent or guilty, it just makes them all hot. Surely Apple would not be pleased to hear that the iPad “isn’t even all that notable when compared against the pack,” nor would they use this defense for themselves.
So what’s a user to do? Apparently, if you don’t like sweaty palms, you should look into buying a case, a stand, or a pair of driving computer gloves. But what we shouldn’t do is try to muzzle a consumer’s desire for better, more functional products. The iPad is fantastic handheld device, but can’t we agree that it’d be more fantastic if it weren’t 100 degrees?
Alexei Bochenek is a lifelong tech nerd & film buff based in Los Angeles. When he’s not playing with his phone, it’s because the movie has started. Shhhhh!
