iPad Air Review

#1

Post by wittyphrasehere » Wed, Oct 30, 2013, 2:44 AM UTC

Re: iPad Air Review

#2

Post by mirsadm » Wed, Oct 30, 2013, 3:07 AM UTC

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 see how the A7 really stacks up against the Snapdragon/Tegra but it doesn't seem like we'll be seeing that any time soon.

Re: iPad Air Review

#3

Post by blinkingled » Wed, Oct 30, 2013, 3:19 AM UTC

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 one with finger print reader, more RAM and fully baked iOS 7.1.x are out.

Re: iPad Air Review

#4

Post by yalogin » Wed, Oct 30, 2013, 3:20 AM UTC

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

Re: iPad Air Review

#5

Post by nwh » Wed, Oct 30, 2013, 3:30 AM UTC

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…

iOS7 does have memory compression though.

Re: iPad Air Review

#6

Post by jason_wang » Wed, Oct 30, 2013, 3:32 AM UTC

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's a lot less powerful than an iPad but a bit more powerful than a digital picture frame.

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.

Re: iPad Air Review

#7

Post by nwh » Wed, Oct 30, 2013, 3:36 AM UTC

jason_wang wrote: post #6

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's a lot less powerful than an iPad but a bit more powerful than a digital picture frame. 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 to…

A first generation iPad then?

Re: iPad Air Review

#8

Post by mirsadm » Wed, Oct 30, 2013, 3:36 AM UTC

jason_wang wrote: post #6

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's a lot less powerful than an iPad but a bit more powerful than a digital picture frame. 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 to…

How about a cheap Android tablet? If it is just for watching videos then there are plenty of very cheap Chinese tablets that will work.

Re: iPad Air Review

#9

Post by imjoshdean » Wed, Oct 30, 2013, 3:39 AM UTC

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…

I'm not going to hold my breath on the actual RAM number until we see an iFixit teardown. Due to just the shear size, the iPad mini has always had half the ram as the regular sized iPad. I wouldn't be surprised if the Air had 2GB and the Mini had 1 GB.

Re: iPad Air Review

#10

Post by ricardobeat » Wed, Oct 30, 2013, 3:41 AM UTC

jason_wang wrote: post #6

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's a lot less powerful than an iPad but a bit more powerful than a digital picture frame. 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 to…

You're out of luck, the processor costs something like $10, taking it it out would hardly nudge the price. Get a cheap android tablet or a mini LED projector instead.