In a newly-published review, TechCrunch calls Apple’s new iPad Air “one of the better overall values in any computing device from Apple in some time.”
Offered in five gorgeous finishes, iPad Air features an all-screen design with a larger 10.9-inch Liquid Retina display, camera and audio upgrades, a new integrated Touch ID sensor in the top button, and the powerful A14 Bionic for a massive boost in performance, making this by far the most powerful and capable iPad Air ever made.
Matthew Panzarino for TechCrunch:
[The new iPad Air] is a device that shares the design philosophy of the iPad Pro and inherits some of its best features while simultaneously leaping ahead of it in raw compute power. This makes the Air one of the better overall values in any computing device from Apple in some time. In fact, it’s become obvious that this is my top choice to recommend as a casual, portable computer from Apple’s entire lineup, including the MacBooks.
One thing that I love a lot about the Air is that it lives up to its name and clocks in at the lightest weight of any of Apple’s portables at 1.0lb flat. This, plus the Magic Keyboard, is just such a killer portable writing machine it’s wild.
The iPad Air has 4GB of RAM where the iPad Pro 2020 has 6GB. It has a Liquid Retina display, but no ProMotion 120hz refresh. The lack of ProMotion is unfortunate but understandable. It requires another whole layer of display technology that is quite a bit more expensive. Having gotten used to it now I would say that on a larger screen like this it’s easily the best excuse for spending the extra $150-200 to bump up to the 11” Pro model. It’s just really damn nice. If you’ve never had one, you’ll be a lot less likely to miss this, obviously.
But it also has an A14 Bionic chip where the iPad Pro 2020 models are still on the A12Z. Because that “Z” is related to the fact that it has an extended number of graphics cores (8-core CPU/8-core GPU), the performance gap isn’t as big as you’d think.
Though the iPad Air edges out the iPad Pro in single-core performance, the multi-core numbers are essentially on parity. This speaks to the iPad Pro being tuned to handle multiple processes in simultaneous threads for processing images and video. If you’re running Photoshop or Premiere Rush or LumaFusion on an iPad, you want the Pro. For most other uses, you’re gonna be just fine with the Air.
MacDailyNews Take: There is much more in the full TechCrunch review, so if you’re on the fence deciding between an iPad Air and another iPad model, definitely give it a read.
Not related to the new Air – but I so hope that Apple bring this design ethic and style to the iPad Mini. From using my iPad Pro and iPhone I am really loving the thinner bezels. When I go back to the Mini, the first thing I notice is all this extra space which (for the first time) makes the screen look really small (although the screen size itself is fine).
Fingers crossed.
I agree with Hal … bring on that updated iPad mini, keep
Better even than a crunchpad?!!
Originally it was “good value”.
Over time it became “a good value”.
Now it’s “one of the better overall values”.
Grammar is dead.