“I recently wrote about my hesitation as to whether I would buy an iPad Air or an iPad mini with retina display,” Kirk McElhearn writes for Kirkville.
“I went to my local Apple dealer (Stormfront, York, an Apple premium reseller), and tried out the iPad Air,” McElhearn writes. “When I picked it up, I knew that I was going to switch back to a bigger screen. It’s heavier than the mini, but not enough to make a difference.”
McElhearn writes, “So if you’ve been hesitating, check out the iPad Air. You may find, as I did, that it’s not that much heavier than the iPad mini. If you want the bigger display, then it’s a good choice.”
Full article here.
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Bloomberg News reviews Apple’s 64-bit iPad Air: Hands-down the best tablet on the market – October 30, 2013
Bloomberg News reviews Apple’s 64-bit iPad Air: Hands-down the best tablet on the market – October 30, 2013
CNET reviews Apple’s 64-bit iPad Air: The best full-size tablet, Editors’ Choice – October 30, 2013
AnandTech reviews Apple’s 64-bit iPad Air: In a completely different league – October 30, 2013
USA Today’s Baig reviews Apple’s 64-bit iPad Air: Best of breed, superior to each and every rival – October 30, 2013
Mossberg reviews Apple’s 64-bit iPad Air: ‘The best tablet I’ve ever reviewed’ – October 29, 2013
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
So this guy makes a decision on what personal computer device to use based on whether he has to carry a 1 pound device or a .7 pound device? All the iPads are small and very easy to carry. Even the biggest.
I think that is the point he is making.
Yes it is always a compromise and one of those is weight so the balance changes for him, perfectly logical to me. In fact the main ones would surely be weight over convenience as the deciding factor for many people now that they both have Retina.
No, his choice was between a 1.4 pound device (assuming Apple could not not make the iPad any lighter) and a .7 pound device. Given that choice his decision would have been the .7 pound device.
But when given the choice between 1.0 pound with full screen and .7 pounds with a smaller screen, the screen became more important than did the weight.
Interest for the iPad Air here in Switzerland is huge.
Hi from Oklahoma City. 🙂
Having just bought an iPhone 5C, and liking it a lot, I would like to upgrade to the new iPad Air, but unfortunately my wallet is light as air after the iPhone purchase.
As far as weight goes- my iPad 1 at 1.6lbs 780g vs iPad Air at 1.05lbs 480g doesn’t at all feel “heavy.” I just spent 4 hours last night reading with it. It still works fine after 3 years 7 months including well over 10 hours battery life. 🙂
I’ve always treated the iPad 1 as an expensive hard backed book, and I’ve had no trouble with it.
I’m with you. I don’t understand all the fuss about weight. None of the iPads are heavy. It doesn’t say much for someone who becomes fatigued holding an iPad.
Maybe the weight is too much for senior citizens or pre-schoolers to manage over longer periods of time. I wonder if the iPad aluminum cases make up most of the weight. Apple could experiment with cardboard cases or carbon fiber cases to lessen the weight for wimps.
I too have the original iPad and was comparing it to an iPad 4 earlier today in a phone store while waiting for service. The iPad Mini was noticeably lighter than both, and if the iPad Air is more comparable to a Mini than the older iPads then it may be time to upgrade my old Road Warrior. This isn’t just based on weight, but the RD, the better Bluetooth, accelerometer, more RAM, LTE, faster WiFi and so on.
I like how Apple opened the door in its naming convention for a new version – namely the iPad Pro (to go along with it’s MacBook Air and Pro line-up).
What’s an iPad Pro get? Bigger battery, SD card slot, USB port (maybe – I’d actually like to see Lightning used for both output and input for accessories – imagine having a Lightning male-male cable for ports in your cameras, phones and other devices that still don’t use Bluetooth or Wifi). And an Apple-designed keyboard/trackpad cover and improved stylus sensitivity – these things have already been rumored at various times, and would make sense in an iPad Pro designed for stronger content creation, without sullying the pure touch experience of the iPad Air.
Of course, then Microsoft will counter with the new Surface 3 with an optical drive. /s
I agree that none of the iPads were “heavy” — I am hanging onto my third generation iPad and its still glorious retina display.
But, this .4 pounds is a big deal. I use an 11-inch MBA as my mobile OS X machine and I absolutely despise using my wife’s MacBook Pro that’s a few generations old. Because it’s a bad machine? No, it’s great. It’s just that once you’ve had better performance out of a much lighter computer there is no going back.
My advice? If you don’t want to spend the money on the iPad Air right now DO NOT play around with some else’s . . . . because your device is just fine . . . until it isn’t.
What a fantastic piece of journalism.
I’m still on the fence, only because I haven’t gone down and held them in my hands yet.
Last month I took my wife (who has a couple generations old MacBook Pro 17″) down to an Apple store and watch her as she looked at current MacBook Air. You should have seen her eyes grow wide open when she lifted it.
Yea, she’s getting one for Christmas.
MBA is a fine machine. But you might want her to check out the MBP 13″ retina, too. The display might very well make the difference in price worthwhile.
I bought a 16GB model to check out. I’m keeping my 128GB iPad 4, as I’m not all that impressed with the iPad Air. It’s nice, but not that much lighter in comparison…
Care to sell your 16 GB iPad Air? It sounds like you don’t want it or need it…