New iPad Wins Consumer Reports' Love Despite High Temps

new iPad runs about 12 degrees hotter Consumer Reports said Monday

The new iPad’s high-resolution Retina display is described by the publication as the best it’s ever seen on a tablet. Colors look more accurate and vibrant, and the screen lacks the bluish tint some users noticed in the iPad 2.

Consumer Reports did warn that content designed for lower-resolution displays, such as the text of certain e-magazines, can look sub-par on the iPad’s 2048-by-1536 resolution screen. CNN reported last week that The New Yorker, Time, Sports Illustrated, and O: The Oprah Magazine all fell under this category. Text from these lower-res publications will have to be optimized to run on the new iPad’s ultra-pixelated display, but Consumer Reports. noted the likelihood of these updates being made shortly.

[Related: 8 Potential Drawbacks Of The New iPad ]

Overall, the new iPad display tested so well that it prompted Consumer Reports to adjust its overall standards for reviewing tablet displays. The device received an "excellent" rating (the highest attainable) in the display category, while all other tablets that previously held the honor, including the iPad 2, have been knocked down to the "very good" level.

The performance delivered with the new iPad was said by Consumer Reports to be "superb in virtually every other way." It said the five-megapixel camera took high-quality photos, and that Verizon’s 4G network was dependable and "very fast." Despite the energy-hungry Retina display, the new iPad "still has longer battery life than all other tablets," Consumer Reports said.

As for high temps, the report did confirm that the third-gen device runs warmer in its hottest spots than its predecessors and can reach up to 116 degrees Farenheit, but said the temperatures were not a "cause for concern."

Initial concerns about the new iPad’s charging patterns -- specifically, that it wouldn’t hold a wall charge when playing graphics-heavy video games -- were also dispelled.

The report said the problem can be remedied by not playing with the screen at its maximum level of brightness.

Other potential shortcomings of Apple’s latest and greatest, including not being fully charged despite displaying the 100-percent-battery mark, breaking easily, and touting a bulkier frame than its predecessors surfaced from analysts and customers alike last week, but these were not addressed by Consumer Reports.

Tablets including Toshiba’s 10-inch Excite 10LE, Pantech's new 8-inch Element, Sony’s new two-screened Tablet P, and Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 7.7 were also recommended in Monday’s report.