As usual with a new generation of Apple products that actually changes something compared to the predecessors, the iPad Air is getting raving reviews. We’re here to put up a round up of said reviews, listed below. They seem to be very positive and we really tried to find negative points, but it was very hard. Let’s see what we’re dealing with here!
Techcrunch: huge improvement over iPad 4
Techcrunch’s Darrell Etherington praises how thin and light the device feels, especially when compared to the iPad 4. He also likes that the battery hasn’t been sacrificed in any way. He only sees the appeal of the iPad Mini Retina as a problem for this product. The editor says that everything feels faster and more responsive thanks to the 64 bit CPU. The dual microphones on board also improve the FaceTime call quality, quite a bit.
The FaceTime HD camera now offers 1080p video calling and the battery offered the reviewer 10 hours of functioning easily.
Slashgear: the no compromise tablet
Vincent Nguyen from Slashgear likes the beautiful display, crisp design and premium build quality. He claims the battery life “defies superlatives” and decided to measure the performance of the CPU with the aid of iMovie processing. The iPad Air takes 3 minutes and a half to render an 8 minute Full HD video, which is almost half of the time the iPad 4 took. The back camera now supports HDR and there’s 3x digital zoom available. The tablet also comes with a huge support of 14 LTE bands on a single iPad Air model.
The battery was also praised for getting even half of day of moderate usage.
Engadget: most comfortable 10 inch tablet
Brad Molen from Engadget found that the GPS signal remains strong during an entire driving session. We also found out that the battery has been shrunk from 42 Whr to 32 Whr, but this doesn’t affect the battery life. In the standard video rundown test, the Air was alive for about 13 hours and 45 minutes, which is crazy good. The iPad Air also beats the iPhone 5s and iPad 4 in 3DMark Ice Storm Unlimited, scoring 14.631 points, which is 1000 more than iPhone 5s and 10k points on iPad 5.
The reviewer quotes extreme viewing angles, but the outdoor brightness is pretty much on par with other tablets. We also learn that Apple shaved 8 mm of bezel on each side.
CNET: worth getting excited about
CNET thinks that the iPad Air is something to get excited about and praises both the battery life and the performance, plus the “impossibly thin and light package”. They don’t forget to mention the evolution of the FaceTime camera, but they do regret the lack of Touch ID and call the gizmo expensive at $499 for 16 GB. CNET also has an interesting size table for comparison sake with predecessors and a price table, that compares the iPad Air with the likes of Surface 2, Nexus 10 and even the powerhouse Galaxy Note 10.1 2014.
Just like Engadget they achieved about 13 hours of functioning time with this device, so impressive yet again.
Anandtech: Apple continues to dominate 10 inch segment
Anandtech also discusses accessories, such as the new Smart Case, that feels great and protects the iPad Air properly. The leather feels all smoth and doesn’t have the same issues as the brand new iPhone 5s leather cases. Their dissection of the CPU area is impressive and we learn a lot of details about the Apple A7 and the M7 motion coprocessor, that are actually a bit different from the ones on the iPhone 5s. Two Apple Cyclone cores are still here, but the frequency has increased by 100 MHz. Apparently, the CPU can hold more instructions in flight, up to 20% more than the iPhone 5s CPU.
Another change is that the iPad Air’s A7 version has an extra thermal headroom courtesy of the bigger chassis. For those wondering, the iPad Air has the exact same camera as the iPad 4, a 5 MP F/2.4 unit, but with a wider field of view courtesy of a 3.3 mm focal length, like the iPad Mini this time.
Overall, everyone seems to be pleased with the product, so we can’t wait to get the iPad Air and test it ourselves, to see how true these claims are.
