iPad Air Review

I wasn&#x27;t planning on buying an iPad Air, as I&#x27;m still happy with my iPad 2, but that comparison chart on the first page really sold me that the iPad Air is the first real upgrade to the iPad 2.<p>My only complaint is I want high capacity, and I find it so ridiculous that to go from 16GB to 64GB I have to pay $200 extra. Two hundred dollars for 48GB. I think the last time I paid that much for 48GB was ten years ago.<p>Edit:<p>I wish Apple would put a microSD reader on the iPad. Purely for storage expansion. I realize they don&#x27;t do this because it would basically kill their storage upgrade options and they&#x27;d probably lose money. No one would feel compelled to upgrade beyond 16GB.<p>microSD readers exist on the smallest devices nowadays, so form factor or weight is certainly no excuse.

Another great review as usual from Anandtech.<p>Wow, Apple is still skimping on RAM at the expense of user experience. It would&#x27;ve been a great time to bump the RAM up to 2GB given the switch to 64-bit iOS 7 seems to be causing 20-30% higher memory consumption. It was already kind of bad on previous gen 32-bit iPads.<p>It&#x27;s still tempting to upgrade from the brick that the iPad 3 now feels but I&#x27;ll live with it until the one with finger print reader, more RAM and fully baked iOS 7.1.x are out.

&gt; It seemed like a foregone conclusion that the 10-inch tablet market was done for, with all interest and excitement shifting to smaller, but equally capable 7 or 8-inch tablets instead.<p>Did I miss something? I&#x27;ve been happy with my 10&quot; ipad for years and, especially with the 2048x1536 display, have never felt the need to go smaller. I know most of the android tablets are smaller, but I&#x27;ve been completely satisfied. I suppose I&#x27;ve never used the ipad mini, so it might be all that and a bag of chips.<p>Is this really the trend? It wouldn&#x27;t be the first to pass me by, but I&#x27;m still surprised.

As usual Anandtech has one of the best reviews. My only complaint is the CPU benchmarks are more or less useless. I understand there aren&#x27;t any good cross platform benchmarks right now but using JS benchmarks is completely inaccurate. Not only are there major variations between scores on the same device (across different browsers and versions) but the same browser isn&#x27;t even available on both platforms.<p>I&#x27;d love to see how the A7 really stacks up against the Snapdragon&#x2F;Tegra but it doesn&#x27;t seem like we&#x27;ll be seeing that any time soon.

I liked to know more about the weight per size, so here a small list:<p><pre><code> iPad : 680 g &#x2F; 6186 cm3 = 0.1099 g &#x2F; cm3 iPad 2 : 601 g &#x2F; 3944 cm3 = 0.1523 g &#x2F; cm3 iPad Air: 469 g &#x2F; 3060 cm3 = 0.1532 g &#x2F; cm3 iPad 3 : 650 g &#x2F; 4213 cm3 = 0.1542 g &#x2F; cm3 iPad 4 : 650 g &#x2F; 4213 cm3 = 0.1542 g &#x2F; cm3</code></pre>

One thing that I think gives the iPad a considerable advantage is its 4:3 aspect ratio. Despite having larger bezels on the ends than the sides, it&#x27;s an inch shorter than a Nexus 10 in its largest dimension.<p>The article mentioned 10&quot; tablets and 15&quot; laptops seeming to be on the way out. The difference in largest dimension is even more pronounced with laptops. The last 15&quot; 4:3 Thinkpad was 13.2&quot; wide. The current 15&quot; 16:9 models are 14.7&quot; wide. It&#x27;s about the same thickness and weight with less depth, but it seems like a much bigger machine because its largest dimension is bigger.

Looks like Apple hit home runs with all of their updates this cycle. Interestingly I haven&#x27;t seen this universal praise for any other Apple update cycle before. Unfortunately I am not in the market for any device right now.

The device I really wish exists is an iPad Air minus the computing power. Just a screen to stream videos to from a iPhone, a laptop or a cable box. A portable screen that&#x27;s a lot less powerful than an iPad but a bit more powerful than a digital picture frame.<p>Surprisingly this is for my parents. They watch videos all the time and watching videos on an iPhone is too small, on a laptop is too bulky and on an iPad is too expensive.

It&#x27;s always a pleasure to read something truly well written; a rare luxury in the world of iPad reviews.

&quot;The iPad Air is the most significant upgrade to the 9.7-inch iPad in its history.&quot; I would actually say the iPad to iPad 2 transition was a bigger jump, but maybe just because it&#x27;s so easy to forget how much bigger and bulkier the original iPad was.<p>The iPad came out what 3 and a half years ago and it&#x27;s faster, lighter, better resolution, and has gone from a &quot;who would ever buy that&quot; to one of the most popular computers in the world. It has completely upended PC sales and forced a radically different Windows experience on millions of users (for better or worse).<p>In all honesty, what is most remarkable about Apple is that they can take a industry leading (or defining) product like the iPad and make pretty significant improvements every year or two like clockwork and have those changes not just be superficial, but meaningful changes that make a difference to the end user.

I&#x27;m waiting for the iPad Pro. Assuming &quot;Air&quot; and &quot;Mini&quot; are hints of a mac to tablet replacement (coalescence?) strategy, an iPad that challenges the Microsoft Surface&#x27;s role as a hybrid device would be spectacular.

So I guess next iPad revision will be the TouchID version. So we know Apple will still be printing money for the next 24 months at least