iPad Air: Hands On [video]
by Anand Lal Shimpi & Brian Klug on October 22, 2013 3:02 PM ESTBrian also just finished up some hands on with the iPad Air. Check out the video below for his impressions and a comparison to the new mini.
We just played with the iPad Air, which is much thinner and lighter than the previous generation iPad. In the hands, it's shocking how much of a difference the change in profile makes, analogous somewhat to the way moving from the iPhone 4 or 4S to 5 felt. The chamfered edge and narrower profile makes it easier to grip the iPad Air in the hands, and there's still enough bezel around as well, though it is smaller.
The iPad Air feels a lot more like a larger iPad mini than it does a newer generation of the previous iPad. The iPad Air includes the same Apple A7 SoC as the iPhone 5s and also includes the M7 sensor fusion hub.
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Sm0kes - Tuesday, October 22, 2013 - link
Da fuq?tipoo - Tuesday, October 22, 2013 - link
Does the iPad Air have stereo speakers like the Mini?Fanfoot - Tuesday, October 22, 2013 - link
Yeah but which one should I buy? I moved to the Mini from the iPad 2 because it was too heavy, and avoided the later iPads because they were even heavier. Would love the Retina upgrade and suspect the 1.0lb Air is light enough that it would be the more usable of the two, and light enough. Huh. Want to hear your perspective on this--recommendations of which one for different people. Especially given the prices are closer than before.ASEdouardD - Tuesday, October 22, 2013 - link
Of course it depends on what you value most, but I'd go with the Mini. It is lighter, and you seem to value this a lot (0.73 lbs VS 1.0 lbs), cheaper by $100 and has a higher pixel density than the full size iPad.But maybe you could wait for reviews to see if there a significant differences in real user battery life or benchmarks (they'll probably go to higher clock frequencies than on the iPhone 5s, but nobody knows how much right know, to push those pixels, maybe the Mini and the Air will be clocked differently).
ASEdouardD - Tuesday, October 22, 2013 - link
''real use'' battery life.tipoo - Tuesday, October 22, 2013 - link
I'm confused. A7 just bought the iPhone to iPad 4 graphics levels with the A6X (a6X had double the GPU resources of the A6, thus the same-ish performance as the A7), but they're saying the same A7 doubled it from the iPad 4...? Yet it's not an A7X?Both claims can't be true. Unless they doubled performance without calling it an X series, or if the new claim takes different metrics, Apple themselves also claimed the A7 was double the A6 during the 5S announcement, so now turning around and saying it's also double the performance of the A6X is a bit underhanded.
If it's the same old A7, that's less performance at hand per pixel than the iPhone 5S, seeing as they have a lot more pixels to push in retina iPads.
Sm0kes - Tuesday, October 22, 2013 - link
I think we need to wait and see benchmarks, but the power / clock adjustments could easily account for the gap in performance improvements.melgross - Tuesday, October 22, 2013 - link
The A7’s graphics performance is greater than that of the A6x. As the air's performance is twice that of the ipad 4, then Apple did something in addition.Krysto - Wednesday, October 23, 2013 - link
They said that, but they didn't change the name and didn't give any details. So we don't really know for sure until we see the reviews.Also, the iPhone 5S A7 was just ever so slightly more powerful than A6X, but they were really roughly the same.
dwade123 - Tuesday, October 22, 2013 - link
Add in the new iWorks and I don't see why anyone would get a useless Android tablet. You can do work on the iPad now!