Apple “has sold 170 million iPads in just 3½ years,” Walt Mossberg writes for AllThingsD. “Now, Apple is raising the bar. On Friday, it plans to start selling its fifth-generation full-size model, called the iPad Air, and this one significantly extends the iPad’s advantages, at the same $499 base price of its predecessor. In a feat of design and engineering, Apple has slashed the iPad’s weight by 28%, made it 20% thinner and 9% narrower, while increasing its speed and retaining the brilliant, 9.7-inch Retina display.”
“The new iPad weighs just 1 pound, down from 1.4 pounds for the previous top-of-the-line model, the iPad 4,” Mossberg writes. “And it has done all this while maintaining the iPad’s industry-leading battery life. In my tests, the iPad Air far exceeded Apple’s claim of 10 hours of battery life. For over 12 hours, it played high-definition videos, nonstop, with the screen at 75% brightness, with Wi-Fi on and emails pouring in. That’s the best battery life I’ve ever recorded for any tablet.”
Mossberg writes, “I’ve been testing the iPad Air for about a week and found it a pleasure to use. This new iPad isn’t a radical rethinking of what a tablet can be, but it’s a major improvement on a successful product. It is the best tablet I’ve ever reviewed… The battery performance of the iPad Air simply blew me away… But this new iPad Air just kept going, clocking a battery life of 12 hours and 13 minutes, which exceeded Apple’s claim by more than 20%. The company says its A7 chip, combined with the fact it controls its own operating system, gives the new iPad the ability to tailor under-the-hood processes so unneeded drains on the battery can be minimized. Bottom line: If you can afford it, the new iPad Air is the tablet I recommend, hands down.”
Read more in the full article here.
Related articles:
Fox News reviews Apple’s 64-bit iPad Air: Best in class – October 29, 2013
The Independent reviews Apple’s 64-bit iPad Air: Super-light and most powerful – October 29, 2013
Mossberg is spot on. Under one pound, thinner yet more powerful than all the POS Android crap out there. No wonder the iHaters are mobilizing like never before to try and convince people otherwise. What they don’t realize is that the buying public is smarter by a factor of 10 compared to the pea brain trolls on the comment boards. 🙂
Oh yeah with T-Mobile deal, I think anyone can afford it now!
Mossberg seems more pro apple (or more honest) than when he was at WSJ.(his last WSJ article on the iPhone was the most pro apple he had written in a long time) Did WSJ force Mossy to be ‘balanced’ i.e praise Android, Msft etc as much as Apple products and to criticize apple regardless of the facts ? (Murdoch politics? Editorial or Advertising sales pressure?)
(I got that from reading his articles but also I read a line count analysis once which compared his original iPad review in the WSJ and his Xoom review and apparently he spent more percent of his iPad article on criticism vs the Xoom in spite of the fact the Xoom was clearly inferior as is proven by the results in the market place. )
When will Mossberg do a test on Microsoft surface 2? I am very interested in his comparison between the Microsoft and iPad air.
most of the reviews I’ve read on the new iPad are raves.
The Samsung ‘troll and astro turf’ manager is screaming and marshalling his forces tonight for his counter strike….
expect at in days following launch dozens of fake forum posters saying their iPad Air’s have “missing pixels, bent screens, faulty GPS , wifi problems, battery leaks or some such sh*t… “
Imagine, in a review of a car, “it’s not a radical rethinking of what a car could be, but it’s much better than the last one…”. Why do people need to write things like this? Who’s looking for a “radical rethinking of what a tablet could be”?
Perhaps he said that because, just a few years ago, Apple DID radically rethink what a tablet could be.
Kind of like the model T and the model A, both fairly radical rethinks of what an automobile should be. If anyone is going to rethink the tablet it is likely going to be Apple (again).
neither the model A or the T were “radical rethinks” of what an automobile should be (still four wheels, motor to make it go, and some way to make it stop) but if you compared them to the step up to 64 bit (not to mention M7 processor), unless you think manufacturing process is a a radical rethink…
The link I give here gives a good idea of BBC Techs particular warped view of things in the tech field. Part of the bigger picture I think.
Gotta love the contention that bunging an oversized camera in a phone deems it innovative while a reduction in depth and weight in an iPad of 20% is somewhat sneered at in another article there. The 64bit processor and its potential gets no real comment at all. ‘Momentum’ is everything but only when its Nokia from a very low base apparently while it neglects to mention profit figures from all those low/no margin phones it sells meant its survival period was about 9 months without being sold. Or that it needs to sell about 44M Lumias annually to break even in its smart device division by some estimates. So ignoring the negatives (and there are so many) about Nokia while emphasising them at Apple seems to be an inherent trait at the BBC and the tech press generally. Sadly the ‘liberal’ press seems to be the worst at this, could Gates attempts to buy his way into heaven have an influence here I wonder, who knows.
Either way sadly like so many like him Rory Cellan-Jones BBC head of techFUD is a total tool of Microsoft who abuses the BBC’s reputation for objectivity.
Just read this:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24636132
So true! On the one hand the BBC reportage is one of the most broad-ranging and objective; on the other hand, its tech dept. seems anomalistically FUBAR.
…Sad but true. I don’t trust the BBC’s faceless editorial staff at all. Channel 4 news is more trustworthy.
“..But the price”
Google has created an Android commodity like Windows before it. This is going to be interesting to see play out. This time around we have Microsft on the ropes, Apple on top and Google as the up and coming young gun.
Bottom line: If you can afford it, the new iPad Air is the tablet I recommend, hands down.”
– and that’s the rub, – if you can afford it.
Other companies with lesser products for less money can still make a business out of selling tablets. And the same is true of just about every other product you can think of.