Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) pulled back the curtain on its next generation iPad, which features a higher-resolution display, a new processor, and support for high-speed 4G LTE data networks.

Although the third generation iPad has impressive features, it doesn't come with the Siri, the intelligent personal assistant that helped the iPhone 4S gain record sales. The new iPad though has Voice Dictation, which recognizes English, French, German and Japanese.

After Asus unveiled last year the Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime, the world's first Android tablet with a quad-core processor (a 1.4 GHz quad-core NVIDIA Tegra 3), fanboys have been hoping that Apple would install quad-core chips in the next iPad and iPhone.

Apple SVP of marketing Phil Schiller says that the new iPad's A5X processor runs four times NVIDIA's Tegra 3 processor. But note that the new iPad doesn't have quad-core processor -- instead it has a dual-core processor with a quad-core graphics processing unit.

Do the new features merit an upgrade from the iPad 2 to the iPad 3?

Pricing-wise the new iPad starts at $499 although you need to pay $629 to get the basic Wi-Fi + 4G model. The iPad 2 though gets a price cut, now at $399 the Apple Store.

The new iPad has an A5X chip that offers twice the graphics punch of the iPad2's A5 chip. The new iPad boasts a higher-resolution 2,048-by-1,536-pixel display, which is four times the number of pixels as the 1024-by-768 resolution of the iPad and iPad 2. The new device has a 5-MP camera, capable of 1080p HD video recording (compared with only 720p for the previous model), and utilizes the optics system found in the iPhone 4S.

The iPad is slightly heavier -- just about two ounces -- and slightly thicker than the iPad 2. The Wi-Fi only new iPad weighs 652 grams, compared to the 601-gram iPad 2. Height and width have steadied at 241.2 mm and 7.31 mm, respectively, but the new iPad now has a depth of 9.4 mm, compared with 8.8 mm for the previous model.

Apple has detailed specs-to-specs comparison between and iPad 3 and iPad in its Web site.

Does the new iPad live up to the hype? Tell us what you think.