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iPad Air Review

anandtech.com

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Re: iPad Air Review

#51

Post by swombat »

wozniacki wrote: post #38
programminggeek wrote: post #13

"The iPad Air is the most significant upgrade to the 9.7-inch iPad in its history." I would actually say the iPad to iPad 2 transition was a bigger jump, but maybe just because it's so easy to forget how much bigger and bulkier the original iPad was. The iPad came out what 3 and a half years ago and it's faster, lighter, better resolution, and has gone from a "who would ever buy that" to one of the most popular compu…

I would actually say the iPad to iPad 2 transition was a bigger jump, but maybe just because it's so easy to forget how much bigger and bulkier the original iPad was. Are you trolling or are you simply a moron? The dimensions and weight comparison table ( right smack on the first page [1] ) shows the iPad Air is a good 181 grams lighter than the previous version, the iPad 4. The second generation iPad at 601 grams is…

Are you trolling or are you simply a moron?

If you don't learn to make your point in a more civilised manner, you'll end up hellbanned...

Re: iPad Air Review

#52

Post by acchow »

calinet6 wrote: post #19
mirsadm wrote: post #2

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'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't even available on both platforms. I'd love to s…

> As usual Anandtech has one of the best reviews. No one does reviews like Anand—even other reviewers at Anandtech. When I see him as the author, I know I'm in for a treat. I mean, down to the metal, and a full understanding and clear explanation of what it means! Just top quality, every single time, even going back ten or fifteen years to the Pentium and Athlon era. I learned so much from his clear and passionate ex…

Brian Klug is really good too. Check out the HTC One Review: http://www.anandtech.com/show/6747/

Re: iPad Air Review

#53

Post by InclinedPlane »

tedunangst wrote: post #35
blinkingled wrote: post #3

Another great review as usual from Anandtech. Wow, Apple is still skimping on RAM at the expense of user experience. It would'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. It's still tempting to upgrade from the brick that the iPad 3 now feels but I'll live with it until the…

If they ship an ipad with 2GB, developers will start to use 2GB and then apps will run like crap on older models. Then people will complain about forced obsolescence. (Source: the dozens of comments I've read from people complaining their 512MB iOS device has been rendered useless.)

Either way someone suffers, kind of a silly dichotomy. Especially when modern android smartphones, let alone tablets, have 2GB of RAM.

Also, Apple has the power to mandate that all apps have to run well on whatever old hardware Apple wants to keep supported. There's no good excuse.

Re: iPad Air Review

#54

Post by devcpp »

tedunangst wrote: post #35
blinkingled wrote: post #3

Another great review as usual from Anandtech. Wow, Apple is still skimping on RAM at the expense of user experience. It would'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. It's still tempting to upgrade from the brick that the iPad 3 now feels but I'll live with it until the…

If they ship an ipad with 2GB, developers will start to use 2GB and then apps will run like crap on older models. Then people will complain about forced obsolescence. (Source: the dozens of comments I've read from people complaining their 512MB iOS device has been rendered useless.)

I don't think so, otherwise we'd still have black and white operating systems, because colors add so much memory usage.

If Apple doesn't let its apps get more intricated, competitors will do it first...

Re: iPad Air Review

#55

Post by skc »

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

Re: iPad Air Review

#56

Post by simonh »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #53
tedunangst wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they ship an ipad with 2GB, developers will start to use 2GB and then apps will run like crap on older models. Then people will complain about forced obsolescence. (Source: the dozens of comments I've read from people complaining their 512MB iOS device has been rendered useless.)

Either way someone suffers, kind of a silly dichotomy. Especially when modern android smartphones, let alone tablets, have 2GB of RAM. Also, Apple has the power to mandate that all apps have to run well on whatever old hardware Apple wants to keep supported. There's no good excuse.

Android devices switched up to high ram co figs because they had to. A typical Android device runs a ton of stuff in the background such as Facebook uploaders, sync services, location trackers, carrier services, manufacturer UI shells and crapwear, etc you just don't get on iOS devices. To be fair, a lot of these services can do useful stuff and the freedom to run stuff like that is one of the reasons some people like Android, but the result is a much larger overall memory utilisation.

Apples approach to extending background services was to engineer a 'motion coprocessor' to handle one class of background tasks as efficiently as possible. Samsung et al just saw the memory utilisation on their devices go up from the services they're running so they jacked up the installed memory.

The second consideration is battery life. Memory uses battery power all the time, whether that memory is doing anything useful or not. Apple is fanatical about power conservation. You don't get 10 hour battery life as a standard feature on your mobile devices by accident.

Re: iPad Air Review

#57

Post by uxwtf »

teamonkey wrote: post #11
nwh wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A first generation iPad then?

The 1st-gen iPad I have has been upgraded into obsolescence. Even watching a YouTube video without the app running out of memory is almost impossible.

Easy to jailbreak and then MxTube is incredibly useful. Not only does it play any video without crashing, it can save them.

Re: iPad Air Review

#58

Post by csomar »

Segmentation wrote: post #20

I wasn't planning on buying an iPad Air, as I'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. 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. Edi…

I have to agree that 16GB is not enough (big mistake when I bought my iPad). But 32GB should do just fine.

Otherwise, I have an iPad 3 and played with the iPad 2. The difference in the retina display is enough for me.

Re: iPad Air Review

#59

Post by ohwp »

I liked to know more about the weight per size, so here a small list:

  iPad    : 680 g / 6186 cm3 = 0.1099 g / cm3
  iPad 2  : 601 g / 3944 cm3 = 0.1523 g / cm3
  iPad Air: 469 g / 3060 cm3 = 0.1532 g / cm3
  iPad 3  : 650 g / 4213 cm3 = 0.1542 g / cm3
  iPad 4  : 650 g / 4213 cm3 = 0.1542 g / cm3

Re: iPad Air Review

#60

Post by dmgd »

wozniacki wrote: post #46
Alterlife wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The perceived 'bulkiness' is more than just weight. Drawing from your own link, the original iPad is 13.4 mm thich, the iPad 2 is 8.8 mm. If I remember right the original iPad 1 had no front camera (or was it no cameras at all?). To me that's a huge upgrade.

Wrong again. Considering only the dimensions, the second generation iPad managed a meager trimmings of 4 mm, 2 mm and 4.6 mm in length, width and thickness for a total of 10.6 mm. That pales in comparison to a total of 18.9 mm in combined length + width + thickness savings, in the current iPad Air. So your elusive measure of "perceived bulkiness" falls short of explaining how iPad Air is not the greatest leap in term…

both manners and the concept of "volume" seem to have escaped you.

using figured from ohwp's response above:

  iPad    : 6186 cm3
  iPad 2  : 3944 cm3 = saving of 2242cm3
  iPad 3  : 4213 cm3
  iPad 4  : 4213 cm3
  iPad Air: 3060 cm3 = saving of 884cm3 (vs smallest other iPad, the iPad 2)
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