iPad 3 review

When you boil down the 'point' of a tablet, the lines are still very blurred between a large smartphone and a standalone device – and the likes of the Samsung Galaxy Note, with the 5.3-inch screen, and confusing things even more.

The iPad 3 can do nearly everything the iPhone 5 brother can do, with the exception of voice calling. However, it's the layout that impresses us, as Apple has taken some time to go through and really make use of the extra screen size.

Contacts are laid out in a proper address book format: we're talking tabs at the side you can scroll down, and your own contact info all stored on the opening page. If you lose your new iPad then you'll either get a saint that knows how to contact you to return your device or a scary man who now knows where you live.

The contacts are all sadly faceless at the start – you have to manually go through and give each person a picture unless you've synchronised from Google or Exchange and have already assigned one.

It's still really annoying that you can't draw in profile pictures from Facebook and Twitter still – it would really set off the iPad's contact list and given there's already deep integration with Twitter in iOS we can only assume Apple doesn't like the quality level of the profile icons.

As we've mentioned earlier, getting contacts on your new iPad can be achieved in many ways: you can download them easily from a previous list on an iPhone or older iPad, and the sync process is jolly quick.

You can also pull them in from the likes of Exchange or Google, although the latter is harder than it should be – if you want to know how to get contacts on the new iPad from Google, you'll have to follow the linked instructions.

FaceTime

The good news here is all those phone numbers you've brought across aren't useless, as giving the string of digits a tap will result in a FaceTime call.

Of course, this is only any use of the other person a) has a compatible iPhone or iPad and b) is in a Wi-Fi zone.

The actual call quality itself isn't too bad – the front facing VGA camera does the job fine, although with the Retina Display you can't help but look pretty grainy.

However, the picture looks smooth and clear if you're calling an iPhone – just be ready for the fact if you're calling an iPad 3, you're going to have to look your best to minimise the flaws in your face.

We're still not sold on the idea of FaceTime or video calling in general – but in order to achieve 'enchantment' with the new iPad Apple mandates you have to call your partner from another country to look at a baby... so video calling is a must.

Just be aware there are other services on the App Store that can achieve the same thing but with much more flexibility.