Ars Technica reviews Apple’s 64-bit iPad Air: Very impressive

13 years ago

“You don’t need to hold an iPad Air to see that it’s very different from full-size iPads of years past. With its thinner profile and slimmer bezels, it resembles nothing so much as a big iPad mini,” Andrew Cunningham reports for Ars Technica. “If you want to summarize the new tablet for a layperson, that’s the one-sentence explainer.”

“Compared to quad-core, Snapdragon-powered Android tablets, the dual-core A7 continues to hold its own. Apple has created a very impressive architecture with Cyclone, and it stacks up well compared to Qualcomm’s quad-core Snapdragon 800,” Cunningham reports. “That being said, bear in mind one thing we noticed when we looked at the A7 in the iPhone 5S—apps need to be recompiled for 64-bit before they can realize the full extent of Cyclone’s performance improvements. 32-bit apps running on the A7 are about 50 percent faster than they are on the A6, still a reasonably impressive improvement but not as drastic as the 100 percent improvement for 64-bit apps.”

“Should you upgrade? For iPad 2 owners, it’s an easy answer: the iPad Air is a substantial step up in every aspect but battery life (which stays roughly even among the various iPad models),” Cunningham reports. “The question is a little more difficult for Retina iPad owners. I would hedge closer to ‘yes’ for third-generation iPad users, since you’re getting four times the CPU power and a little over three times the GPU power, plus a couple of iOS 7 features the third-gen iPad doesn’t support (AirDrop is one, the visual effects and transparency are others). Fourth-generation iPad owners can probably hold out for another year, unless weight is absolutely the thing you hate the most about your iPad and you can get a good price for your tablet on the second-hand market. Waiting another year likely won’t change the form factor much, but you’ll get a faster tablet that might also incorporate some extra hardware features like Touch ID or 802.11ac.”

Tons more in the full review here.