March 19, 2012 - 15:52 AMT
New iPad owners complain of overly hot tablet

New iPad early-adopters are complaining of overly hot tablets, with suggestions that the third-generation model gets significantly warmer in-use than its predecessors. Apple’s support forums have swelled with feedback from new iPad buyers, with various degrees of complaint as to whether the heat involved is acceptable or uncomfortable, Slash Gear reports.

We noticed a greater degree of heat from the new iPad in our review, finding the bottom left corner of the tablet would get warmer during GPU-intensive tasks like 1080p HD video processing. LTE and 3G use has also been cited as a shortcut to a toasty tablet, as has recharging the new iPad for extended periods.

The fact that the new iPad gets warmer isn’t, though, necessarily a great surprise. Apple’s new A5X chipset introduces a quadcore GPU alongside the dualcore CPU, and the battery is considerably larger as well to sufficiently power the Retina Display and 4G connectivity. All of those thing give out heat, which the aluminum shell dissipates.