Nexus 10 vs iPad 4

We take a look at how the new Nexus 10, made by Samsung, stacks up against its sworn rival, Apple’s iPad 4.

Form

iPad 4 - 241.2x185.7x9.4mm, 652g

Nexus 10 - 263.8x177.8x8.9mm, 603g

Of course it’s stating the obvious, but the fourth generation iPad still looks like an iPad. It’s the same externally in terms of aesthetic design as the iPad 3, which in turn is the same as the iPad 2, save for a few insignificant millimetres of thickness and grams of weight which are utterly unnoticeable.

Again it’s perhaps overly-simplifying the situation, but if you already like Apple’s design format you’ll be quite happy with the iPad 4’s looks.

The curved corners are still there along with the evenly spaced bezel around a 9.7-inch display and it still sports an aluminium back panel. Build quality, as usual, is superb.

Even for Apple’s detractors, there’s no denying the innate attractiveness of the iPad, it’s still a remarkably slick and futuristic-looking device which simply doesn’t date.

The Nexus 10, being a 10-inch device, has fairly similar proportions but is a little bit larger. The screen bezel is also evenly proportioned and the slate has rounded corners but overall the shape is softer as each edge also has a curvature to it.

That curvature has allegedly been designed to make the device more comfortable to grip, along with a plastic unibody design with a ‘soft-touch’ coating.

The back panel sports the Samsung and Nexus logos, along with a mesh grille panel along the top side, which also houses the camera.

The device is 8.9mm thick and 603g making it thinner and lighter than the iPad’s 9.4mm thickness and weight of 662g.

In our view, the iPad is more visually appealing and the materials are a bit more premium, making it our choice here despite the slightly heavier and bulkier frame which is, nonetheless, still quite easy to use in the hand.

Winner- iPad 4

Display

For a long while, Apple’s Retina display technology has been one of its leading USPs and when it introduced that capability to the iPad it became king of tablet displays.

To recap on what that display is like: the iPad 4 features a 9.7-inch IPS LCD multitouch capacitive screen with a 2048x1536 pixel resolution and a pixel density of 264 pixels-per-inch (ppi).

This delivers stunning visual clarity by tablet standards, along with strong, vibrant colours and good brightness levels.

However, Apple appears to have been schooled by Samsung in this instance as the Nexus 10 sports a slightly larger 10.1-inch ‘Super PLS’ LCD with a 2560x1600 pixel resolution and a pixel density of 300ppi.

On a display of this scale that is pretty staggering and ensures that the Nexus 10 is now supreme ruler of tablet displays.

Winner – Nexus 10

Storage

Storage is pretty standard across the board here.

The iPad has its usual run of 16GB, 32GB or 64GB options while the Nexus 10 has both 16GB and 32GB variants to choose from. Neither device has MicroSD capability.

While the iPad technically wins here by offering a higher-end option, in any case most user needs are catered for by either tablet. On that note we’re calling it a draw instead.

Winner – Draw

Hardware, Software and Performance

The iPad 4 has a new version of Apple’s A-series processor chip, dubbed the A6X, which is dual core, clocked at 1.4GHz and is, according to Apple, around twice as fast as its predecessor, the A5X.

It also has 1GB of RAM, 32 nanometre (nm) semiconductor tech and a PowerVR SGX543MP4 quad core graphic processing unit which Apple claims is also twice as fast as the equivalent found in the iPad 3.

However, all that additional speed and power is only really going to be visible when doing things like video editing, watching HD video and playing high-end games.

The rest of the time it’s the same story of Apple’s iOS 6 software being extraordinarily well-optimised and, as a result, a slick and rewarding experience for the end user.

Well, if you like iOS in the first place that is.