It's been tempting lately to conclude that Apple doesn't have it
anymore, and tablets in particular is where Cupertino does need to
silence the prophets of doom and gloom after an iPad 4 that was more
like a 3.1 and a mini that should've had a retina display.
To begin with, they could've done a lot worse than borrow a line from
macbooks but the Air signature isn't just a PR stunt. It would be hard
to believe it's the first time an iPad Air crossed anyone's mind as a
cool name for a tablet but, by the looks of it, the iPad Air is very well the first that actually warrants it.
Just sounds right, doesn't it? And the iPad Air will definitely need
all that crowd-pleaser ring when the fresh iPad mini with Retina display
finally starts hitting the shelves. With Nexus tablets around, usual
suspects Samsung, the new Surface, and now even Nokia on the list, an
iPad has never arrived to such an unfriendly welcome. Yet, if Apple has
done its job right, the Retina-flaunting mini will likely be the biggest
threat.
Apple iPad Air
But let's not get ahead of ourselves and give the iPad Air a proper
introduction. Easily one of the hottest pieces of hardware we've seen
deserves it. Honestly, to say that a diet was all the iPad needed would
be a massive understatement - after the iPad 4, which deservedly gets
retired. But the way the iPad Air looks is a start made in heaven. The
Air is almost 2mm thinner, and has unbelievably lost near a centimeter
on each side - it's mostly screen bezel that's gone. The weight
difference is the whopping 183 grams. The screen - the same gorgeous
9.7" canvas with 2048 x 1536px resolution.
The Air's styling has been updated to bring the full-size iPad into
line with Apple's other recent designs: the iPad mini, the iPhone 5 and
5S, and the fifth-generation iPod touch. That means an anodized aluminum
body and chamfered edges, as well as boxier (but still curved) corners.
It brings a consistency to Apple's high-end iOS lineup that wasn't
there in the previous iPad's almost Mac-like design.
Changes aside, the iPad Air is still an iPad. The buttons and ports
are in the same places as they were before. It's still a big
aluminum-and-glass slab that's mostly screen. The most significant
change to the tablet is the first thing we noticed about the iPad Air in
our hands-on time with
it: its size and weight have been substantially reduced. Moving from
1.44 pounds to one pound makes the tablet easier to hold in one hand for
extended periods of time, easy to shake around in landscape mode when
you're playing a game, and easier to prop on your chest for some bedtime
Netflix viewing.
The Air is a tangible upgrade over the previous, fourth-generation
iPad, no longer in production and so banished to the annals of history.
The new iPad slots right in where its predecessor left off, priced at
$499 for a lowly 16GB, $599 for 32GB, $699 for 64GB, and $799 for the
maximum 128GB configuration. Cellular models -- with LTE and support for
AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon in the United States -- cost an
additional $130 beyond the above prices.
So, yes, it's still
very much the premium-priced choice, just as it's always been. However,
the market continues to shift, offering more and increasingly
sophisticated alternatives at far cheaper prices, tablets like the Kindle Fire HDX and Google Nexus 10. That, plus strong competition from within Apple's own ranks with the upcoming iPad Mini with Retina Display, means the iPad Air has to be better than ever. Thankfully, it is.
Design
Last year's iPad Mini introduced a fresh new design, taking cues from the latest iPod Touch
to create a high-end tablet in an impossibly slender form factor. You
could think of the iPad Air as a 20 percent scaled-up version of the
Mini, as the two tablets feature near-identical styling details, the
bigger one differing only by having more speaker holes on the bottom (80
vs. 56 on the Mini).
The iPad Air (right) has slimmer bezels than the fourth-generation iPad (left).
Impressively, though, the iPad Air isn't 20 percent thicker than the
Mini. In fact, at 7.5mm, it's only 0.3mm deeper -- a massive 1.9mm
thinner than the previous full-size iPad. Despite that, the tablet feels
just as sturdy and rigid as before, not flexing a bit even under rather
aggressive attempts at twisting. 
It's light, too, weighing just 1 pound in Wi-Fi-only guise. That's 0.4
pound lighter than the previous generation and 0.3 pound heavier than
the Mini. In other words, the iPad Air's weight is actually closer to
the Mini than to its fourth-gen predecessor. Indeed, pick up an Air and
you'll be reminded of the first time you held a Mini. It's a "wow"
moment.
Our iPad Air (right) is the black fronted, "space gray" backed version,
but it also comes in white and silver. The black color used in the
iPhone 5 and first-generation iPad mini has been tossed out, possibly to
reduce the visibility of scratches and chips.
We were big fans of the Mini last year, and we're big fans of how
the Air looks and feels now. The more rounded profile and chamfered
edges give it a modern presence, while the new shape means the buttons
and toggle switch situated around the upper-right corner are much easier
to find than before. 
Stereo speakers flank the Lightning connector on the bottom,
placement that makes them far less likely to be obscured by your hand
than the previous-gen iPad's famously mediocre single output. They're
also far louder. However, we can't help but wish Apple had positioned
the left channel speaker on the top, to allow for proper stereo
separation when held in portrait orientation while watching a movie. As
it is, you'll hear everything on the right.
Our only other
design complaint is the missing Touch ID. This is Apple's term for the
fingerprint scanner built into the Home button on the iPhone 5S.
It allows you to unlock your device without typing in a numeric code,
also making iTunes purchases password-free and, therefore, infinitely
less annoying.
The buttons and ports are in the same places as before, and the Air
isn't a drastic departure from past iPads. The iPad Air's main draw is
that it's much thinner and lighter than the older Retina iPads.
The screen
If you've used a Retina iPad before, you've seen this display already.
Andrew Cunningham
The display itself is more or less identical to the one Apple has
used in the first two Retina iPads. It's the same 9.7-inch size, same
2048×1536 resolution, the same 264 PPI density, and the same color,
contrast, and brightness. Side by side with our fourth-generation iPad,
whites on the iPad Air were a bit warmer, but this kind of variation is
normal between tablets based on the manufacturer of the display panel or
even different batches of panels from the same manufacturer. The Retina
iPads' screens have been eclipsed in the density war by tablets like
the Nexus 10
or the latest Galaxy Note 10.1, but the difference between an 264 PPI
screen and a 300 PPI screen is largely academic. Text and
Retina-optimized apps, icons, and images are all nice and sharp, and the
shorter 4:3 aspect ratio makes the tablet usable in portrait and
landscape modes where 16:9 and 16:10 tablets this size are better-suited
to landscape use.
Up close with the Retina iPads' 264 PPI screen. You can see individual
pixels, but they're very difficult to resolve at normal viewing
distances.
Andrew Cunningham
The 300 PPI Nexus 10 up close. The density is a little better, but
you're still looking at visible-up-close, invisible-from-a-foot-away
pixels, just like on the iPad.
Andrew Cunningham
The only really bad thing about the display is the air gap that Apple
has left between the LCD itself and the top layer of glass. This has
the side-effect of making the screen easier to repair
if that's your thing, but compared to a device with a fused LCD and
glass like the iPhone 5S or the Retina MacBook Pro the colors and
contrast are a bit more muted. The problem gets worse in direct
sunlight, which washes the iPad's screen out more drastically than the
iPhone's or the MacBook's.
The difference between a fused screen and an unfused one is more
subtle than, say, the difference between a Retina display and a
non-Retina display, or the difference between a TN LCD panel and an IPS
LCD. Still, given both Apple's push to make the full-size iPad thinner
and lighter and the company's push to fuse the LCD and glass layers in
its other products, the Air's, um, air gap is puzzling.
Sound
The iPad Air (bottom) has speakers similar to, but slightly better than, the iPad mini.
Andrew Cunningham
They certainly beat the single speaker from the fourth-generation iPad (bottom).
Andrew Cunningham
The iPad Air brings in two sound-related improvements, and they're
both about doubling what the Retina iPads had. First, like in the iPad
mini, you now have a pair of speakers on the tablet on the bottom edge
flanking the Lightning connector. There's still not much bass there, but
they produce much clearer and cleaner sound than the fourth-generation
iPad, and they're louder and less muffled-sounding than the iPad mini's
speakers or the still-pretty-good-for-a-tablet speakers of the 2013
Nexus 7. Edge-mounted speakers continue to be easy to cover up with your
hands or whatever surface you're resting the bottom of the tablet
on—there's no job that rear- or edge-mounted speakers can do that
front-facing speakers couldn't do better.
The iPad Air also gains a second microphone pinhole not far from the
first, and like the ones used in most of the Mac lineup it's supposed to
cancel out background noise to make for clearer audio. It does seem to
help for video chatting, though it doesn't improve voice dictation
accuracy much in a room with light ambient noise.
Interface
The iPad Air won't be a surprise to anyone running a current iPhone or iPad, as you've already seen a lot of what iOS 7 is all about.
We're
currently updating the iPad Air review with iOS 7.1 - check back in a
day or two to see how it changes things and whether the new software
will alter the battery and benchmark tests.
We'll
run through some of the key features and how they perform on the Air in
a moment, but the main thing to know is that the iPad Air is fast. Really fast.
We're
getting to a point where describing a smartphone or tablet as quick
under the finger is pointless – once you reach a certain point there's
not a lot more speed to be gained.
Even dual-core phones were more than acceptable, so why make a point of highlighting the speed of the new iPad?
Well,
it's just virtually flawless through all kinds of tasks. A millisecond
faster from a finger press might not seem like much, but once you do a
hundred or a thousand of them in a day, and then go back to something
like the iPad 3, you'll realise that there's a real difference in the operation.
Our
benchmarking scores saw the iPad Air narrowly eclipse the iPhone 5S,
also running the 64-bit A7 chip, in terms of overall speed - which makes
sense given it's slightly more optimised for the larger screen but
still maintains the same power output.
Like it or loathe
it, the all-new iOS 7 is still a real step forward for a company that
desperately needed to refresh its offering in the face of stiff
competition from Android.
The new flatter interface takes
away the pointless need to pretend all apps are real-life objects just
to integrate them into people's lives - users know that pressing the
Photos app will take them there, no matter the result.
Like
most popular platforms that get upgraded, there's been a large amount
of flack coming Apple's way for iOS 7, with features like the parallax
effect (no, there's no way of saying that word without thinking it
should be the name of a Marvel supervillain) being turned off by a
number of users.
Parallax
is where tilting your iPad will see your wallpaper move with the
motion, giving a 3D effect on the screen. And while this was annoyingly
unpredictable on the iPhone 5S, on the Air it's much better and we
wouldn't advise you turn it off, unlike on other Apple devices.
It doesn't even have a huge effect on battery life, which is impressive in itself.
The
rest of the interface is easy to use and makes sense for the most part.
One of the newer features of iOS 7 is the notification bar, found by
dragging from the top of the tablet. This gives access to updates,
calendar entries and missed messages. It's also one of the weaker parts
of the OS, as it always starts on the calendar, which doesn't often give
a lot of useful information.
The 'Missed' section is often also sparsely populated - we'd rather this prime space was better used by Apple.
However,
there are a lot of other areas in which the Cupertino brand has made
strides in terms of improving the user experience. For instance, swiping
upwards with all five fingers (or double tapping the home button) will
lead to the multi-tasking pane, which shows all of your apps in large
thumbnails. This is an excellent interface, although perhaps a little
large, and you can swiftly jump between apps or flick a thumbnail
upwards to end it.
On top of that, the home screen is now
updated to allow a much larger number of apps in each folder. Now you
can create collections just by dragging icons on top of one another, and
continue to do so almost ad nauseum. This prevents the need to make
loads of folders called 'Game 1' 'Game 2' and 'Why do I have this many
games that I don't play?', and allows a much less cluttered home screen.
Apple
still hasn't updated its operating system to allow users to autosort
their apps, meaning if you uninstall something (by long-pressing the
icon until everything jiggles and then tapping the 'x') then the space
won't be filled by an app from another screen. When in the edit mode you
can rearrange things, but it's not the most time-efficient way of
making everything look neat.
The new Control Center is
something worth highlighting too - drag up from the bottom of the screen
and you can control music, brightness, turn on Wi-Fi and loads more. We
would have thought that most people know all about this feature, but
the number of iOS 7 users who get their minds blown when we show them
that this exists means it's worth highlighting.
There are
tonnes of nuances to Apples UI that we'd like to laud here, but we
invite you to go and use it for yourself, as despite there being no
tutorial, there's very little here that the novice user won't be able to
pick up.
We would like to give a special mention to the
'five finger pinch' if you've not used it before on previous iPads. Make
sure it's enabled in Settings->General, and then simply pinch in
with four or five fingers in any app to return to the home screen.
You'll be doing it on your phone before you know it, such is its
simplicity.
Key features
- 9.7" LED-backlit IPS LCD touchscreen, 1536 x 2048 pixels, ~ 264 ppi; scratch-resistant, oleophobic coating
- Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n connectivity with MIMO dual antennas
- LTE connectivity (data only)
- GPS with A-GPS and GLONASS support (for the Cellular model only)
- Dual-core A7 64-bit 1.3 GHz Cyclone (ARM v8-based) chip with M7 motion coprocessor
- PowerVR G6430 quad-core GPU
- 1GB of RAM
- iOS 7.0.3 with iCloud support and activation
- 16/32/64/128GB of inbuilt storage
- Lighter at 469 grams (478 grams for the Cellular version)
- Thinner than ever at 7.5 mm
- Bluetooth 4.0
- Lightning USB port
- Stereo speakers
- Accelerometer, compass and three-axis gyro-sensor
- 5MP auto-focus camera
- 1080p video recording at 30fps
- 1.2MP 720p secondary camera capable of FaceTime HVGA calls
- Four and five-finger gestures
- Comes with premium set of free Apple apps - Pages, Garage Band, etc.
Main disadvantages
- Non expandable memory
- Price of storage climbs steeply, and storage is largely overpriced
- Tied into iTunes for uploading most of the content
- iOS 7 could've made better use of the bigger screen
- No standard USB port
- No GPS receiver in the Wi-Fi-only version
Along with the impressive loss of weight, the iPad Air has really
stepped on the optimizations. There is a smaller battery powering the
tablet but Apple promises the same 10 hours of battery life as before.
The brains behind the tablet are the same as on the iPhone 5s - a
class-leading 64-bit dual-core A7 chip that should be twice as fast as
the predecessor's. The GPU is even a little more capable than on the
iPhone, in keeping with the bigger display and higher resolution.
Apple took a big step in the right direction with this year's iPad
lineup by equaling the mini and the Air's specs, so the only thing you
need to choose is the screen size that works best for you. This puts the
iPad Air in a sticky position, as the mini's handling and portability
could be the big decider. The iPad Air, by the way, is now much more
comfortable to hold and the narrower casing does wonders for
single-handed operation but there's no avoiding the fact that the iPad
mini is the friendlier form factor.
Last season's bigger iPad at least had the luxury of being more powerful but those days are gone.
The Apple iPad Air at HQ
Yet, it might turn out in the end that it's the mini that has more to
live up to - and prove that it truly is an equal in terms of
performance. The iPad Air on the other hand seems off to a promising
start. Let's see if it can really keep it up.
New Siri does more, understands new languages
A new iOS version just can't afford to pay no attention to Siri.
After more than two years in development the assistant has finally
graduated from beta.
Just as the rest of the iOS 7, Siri now looks different. It always
launches in full-screen and has a real-time voice graph. Another UI
novelty is the option to edit your voice request with the keyboard in
case Siri didn't hear you right.
Siri supports and understands English (American, Canadian,
Australian, British), French (France, Canada, Switzerland), German
(Germany, Switzerland), Japanese, Italian (Italy, Switzerland), Spanish
(Mexico, Spain, US), Mandarin (China, Taiwan), Korean, and Cantonese
(Hong Kong) languages.
The new Siri UI
The most important Siri upgrades, of course, are under the hood. Siri
now has Wikipedia integration and it offers new voices, there is both
female and male English US for example.
Siri in action
Siri can also carry out commands affecting the iOS - it can turn
Bluetooth or Wi-Fi on/off, increase brightness, play voicemails, check
other people's social network status, play iTunes Radio stations, etc.
Siri is a really powerful voice assistant capable of POI search.
Assistance with restaurant booking is part of Siri's set of skills. It
will find you exactly the restaurant you are looking for and filter the
results based on user reviews. You can run impressively detailed
searches based on food type, location, outdoor, pool, price range,
ratings, etc. This feature is not available in every country, though.
Siri also answer slots of questions and isn't limited to game scores.
History, stats, player bios, player comparison, teams, records, etc.
Siri should be able to return most of the info right onto its own
screen, without switching over to the browser. The same applies to
movies. You will get all of your movie-related answers right inside the
Siri window - anything about actors, directors, awards, movie stats,
premieres and tickets, reviews, trailers, etc.
We're still no fans of tablet photography and perhaps Apple agrees it isn't an area worthy of focus, as the (already quite competent) 5-megapixel, rear-facing camera of the iPad Air hasn't changed.
The front-facing, 1.2-megapixel FaceTime HD camera has, however, seen an upgrade, and a noticeable one. Yes, that's the same megapixel count as last year's if you're keeping score at home, but it's a new sensor with backside illumination and bigger pixels. The result is far better low-light performance, which is important if you don't want to look like you're FaceTiming from a dungeon.
With the iPad Air, Apple has stepped up to a dual-antenna configuration for Wi-Fi. Called MIMO (multiple-input, multiple-output), it theoretically doubles the maximum throughput of data able to be transmitted to or from your tablet, up to 300Mbps with a compatible router. This is far from new (Amazon's second-generation Kindle Fire offered the same last year), but its presence is certainly welcome here.
However, the absence of 802.11ac is disappointing. Like the iPhone 5S, the latest iPad tops out at 802.11n. Given the lack of adoption elsewhere in Apple's lineup, it's not surprising to see ac missing here, and the relative lack of compatible routers and access points means there's little demand for it now. However, those still using their Airs a few years down the road may find themselves wishing Apple had found room for it this time around.
Those who pay $130 more than the Wi-Fi-only models will have full
cellular connectivity built in, including a comprehensive swath of bands
and frequencies. Whether you're connecting over EDGE, HSPA+, CDMA, or
LTE, the iPad Air has you covered. And, since there's just one Air model
worldwide, you can change from carrier to carrier on a whim and rest
assured that, regardless of where you travel, you'll be able to get
connected. Assuming they have nano-SIMs available.
Finally, all
iPad Air models include Bluetooth 4.0 connectivity, just like they did
last year. This means you can quickly and easily connect everything from
keyboards to speakers, and do so without killing your battery life.
Hands On Photo
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Source
Engadget Apple iPad Air Reviews (Critic Reviews 8.9/10, User Reviews 9.4/10)
GSM Arena Apple iPad Air Reviews (Design 6.5/10, Features 6.2/10, Performance 6.5/10)
Techradar Apple iPad Air Reviews (Design 5/5, Features 4.5/5, Performance 5/5, Usability 5/5, Value 4.5/5)
The good
- Thinner, smaller, and lighter body makes for a much more usable 10-inch tablet
- The A7's CPU performance continues to impress, delivering on Apple's claims of doubled performance
- Retina display, while unchanged, is still crisp and bright
- Great battery life and reduced charge times
- Improved sound input and output thanks to the dual mics and speakers
- Better Wi-Fi performance, even if it isn't 802.11ac
- Cost is more or less competitive with other tablets in its size and performance class
- iOS 7's extensive tablet app and media ecosystems are difficult to argue with
The bad
- The GPU can rarely actually double the performance of the A6X, counter to Apple's claims
- 16GB of storage is getting to be a bit small for an entry-level iPad, especially once you've downloaded all your free iLife and iWork apps
- Air gap between glass and LCD panel might be good for repairability, but it makes for inferior color, contrast, and outdoor visibility
- Whither Touch ID?
The ugly
- 1GB of RAM may prove to be a liability, especially as 64-bit apps become more common
CNET Apple iPad Air Review (CNET Editor's Rating 4.5/5, Average User Rating 4.5/5)
The Good The iPad Air
delivers more performance and comparable battery life in an attractive
and impossibly thin-and-light package. An improved front-facing camera
makes FaceTiming look better, and the Retina Display still looks great.
The Bad The
Touch ID fingerprint scanner, introduced on the iPhone 5S, is sadly
absent here, meaning you’ll still have to type in a passcode with every
unlock and a password with every purchase. Starting at $499 for 16GB,
it’s still expensive compared with the competition.
The Bottom Line Functionally,
the iPad Air is nearly identical to last year’s model, offering only
faster performance and better video chatting. But factor in design and
aesthetics, and the iPad Air is on another planet. It’s the best
full-size consumer tablet on the market.
Where to Buy
$539.50 - $948.50 Negri Electronics Apple iPad Air Wi-Fi
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$469.00 Ebay Apple iPad Air 16GB, Wi-Fi, 9.7in - SPACE GRAY (Latest Model) BRAND NEW IN BOX!!*free shipping
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$499.99 Toysrus Apple iPad Air 16GB - Space Gray*free shipping
$481.94 Amazon Apple iPad Air MD785LL/A (16GB, Wi-Fi, Black with Space Gray) NEWEST VERSION*free shipping
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