iPad First Impressions From Air 2 Owners TODAY

AppleRobert said:

You fired it up and obviously have initial thoughts so far about it. The first page of this forum I did not even see any of this type of feedback. I want first impressions so let's have it!

Thinness, size, weight, color, handling ability etc. You know, the first things-you take notice of.

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I really like size, weight, color, and handling. The only gripe I have is the speaker vibration even on the lowest sound setting. I'm coming from an iPad 4. Huge difference for me.

Can't believe how thin and light it is. Makes my old iPad 3 feel massive now.

Speed wise, it's crazy. Literally everything is faster, and I love it.

Screen looks amazing, and I can't see any issues with it whatsoever. Very pleased overall!

Only issue I could say is the sound vibrations. As others have said this is an issue even at low volumes.

Coming from an iPad 3, I'm finding it much faster and responsive, no lag, no safari reloads, very pleasing to use.

I only use the speakers for an occasional YouTube video so not concerned about speaker vibration, it's much thinner and lighter of coarse, but for the way used it, the bulk of the 3 was not a problem.

I bought the Air 2 for a much needed speed increase, which it delivers, however, other than that, it's basically the same.

Which I expected anyway

Got some nice backlighting uneveness on the left hand side and the right side gets blazing hot just downloading apps. Gotta be an issue. No way it should get this hot doing virtually nothing.

Big upgrade from the iPad 3 but a bit disappointed at the idea that they reduced the battery size to make it marginally thinner than the Air. My wife has the Air and I really can't tell the difference when using each one independently. Sure, if you hold each one in each hand at the same time, you can tell...barely...but if you're not doing a side by side comparison, there really is no difference in how it feels in your hand.

Mine came via UPS yesterday, and my wife said she was fine with her Air 1. After a few minutes, I showed her the laminated display. She sat there for about five minutes, and told me to order another one....LOL! She just picked it up a few minutes ago, on her way to a convention.

Battery life is good: 46% with 8hrs 20min usage, 18 hrs 25 min standby. Mostly web browsing, with brightness set to around 40%. Oh yeah, I did use Google maps for a while, to look at the terrain around her convention....and around some other places.

I was a bit concerned when I noticed that the Air 2 could be flexed last night. In fact, I woke up feeling a bit uneasy about it. Using a surface I know is dead flat, and a plastic drafting straight edge, I was surprised to see that my Air 1 had a concave bend on the screen side, and the Air 2 was nearly flat. My Air 1 didn't seem to flex much last might, but it certainly did this morning. It's no longer an issue, and I'm loving the thinner size. The Air 1 feels thick now...

This is my first iPad, and I can't get over how thin it is. I seriously can't put this thing down!

It is super fast, and the battery is so much better than any other Apple device i've used. I guess I'm just used to having to recharge every couple hours . The sound vibration is completely overblown, but not an issue, I think its kind of cool actually.

The screen is amazing, and I love that its clearly visible at about 40% brightness.

Overall, I'm pleased with my purchase!

Came from an iPad 4 I love to death, which was my first/only iPad.

The Air felt cheap to me last year - this year's Air 2 does not. It feels really light but still feels like it is made of high quality.

Nice cool screen with even backlighting and no issues. I prefer cooler screens, so it's nice to see the pendulum swing back that way after years and years of screens constantly getting warmer.

Sound vibrations don't matter to me, I never use the iPad speakers.

Completely happy with it.

Coming from an Air. Love they finally went to 802.11ac for wireless. Noticably zippier with that adn the beefed up internals. the fingerprint scanner is awesome and works flawlessy. Screen looks a bit nicer due to taking out the air gap between glass and screen. Love it.

Amazing.
Came from air 32gb to air 2 64 gb and it is gorgeous.
Gold color is much better than I expected. Touch feels nice, and it is super thin. It is just crazy. I thought I would never notice the difference, but as soon as I grabbed it out of the box, I was astonished as it feels lighter, it is much easier to grab than the predecessor air 1. Speed is another thing. I haven't tested everything but I was using some of the apps and it was much smoother and faster than air 1.
What I like the most about air 2 is that it does not reload or shut off from Safari on the site where it did for air 1.
This is huge difference for me especially.
And touch ID is great that it reduced time significantly to type the password.
Like everyone else is saying about the sound vibrating, it is doing it in mine too but I think it is because of its thinness. It is too thin that it does not block vibrating I think. Other than that, it is perfect.
I used to carry mine in a carrying pouch without the case, only covered it with the screen protector on the screen and I am not sure if I should do the same for this one since my former one was space gray, and now I have gold.
Overall it is a great product and now I should just wait for my 6 plus to come.

I went from the Air to the Air 2 today and did not expect much of a difference but I was WRONG.

The screen is much more vibrant when sitting next to the Air 1 and the Air 2 is MUCH faster and smoother. The screen no longer has that hollow sound like the Air 1

I have several iPads at home. Brand new Air 2, and old Air 1, mini 1, iPad 3, iPad 2.

The Air 2 is awesome in terms of thinness, but does not feel much lighter than my Air 1. The 2 GB of RAM is extremely noticeable. it is great not having to reload webpages any more. Even after a day, and doing a bunch of other activities, surfing other sites, etc., the original tabs with lots of pictures, etc. still remained in cache without ever needed to reload. Forms stay filled out also.

Speed wise, Air 2 is faster than Air 1, but Air 1 is still a decent machine. iPad 3, 2 and mini are virtually unusable with some apps on iOS 8. I will be selling or giving these away.

I thought I would miss the lock rotation switch, but I don't at all as it's simple enough to swipe up and lock... easier even in some ways.

The battery life, is decent, but it is not nearly as good as any of my old iPads... even the iPad 2 which is what? 3 yrs old now? The battery drains while it's just sitting idle - something that never happened on any of my other iPads. With that said, I am cycling the battery now and I'm optimistic battery life will improve. It's not bad... just not to the same high standards as all of the previous iPads.

I don't mind the compromise so much on battery life as I think portability and weight of the iPad are much more critical factors than just battery life. I hope Apple can return to the same prior battery performance next gen while making the iPad even lighter. I doesn't have to get thinner... just lighter in weight.

puma1552 said:

Came from an iPad 4 I love to death, which was my first/only iPad.

The Air felt cheap to me last year - this year's Air 2 does not. It feels really light but still feels like it is made of high quality.

Nice cool screen with even backlighting and no issues. I prefer cooler screens, so it's nice to see the pendulum swing back that way after years and years of screens constantly getting warmer.

Sound vibrations don't matter to me, I never use the iPad speakers.

Completely happy with it.

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funny how all of a sudden the air felt cheap......lmao

richardbb85 said:

funny how all of a sudden the air felt cheap......lmao

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A lot of people made that comment about the Air last year. The air gap gave the screen a more "plasticky" feel. I can attest to that slightly but it is my first and only tablet so I got over it pretty quickly. Nice to see they addressed that in the Air 2.

Mesmerized.

delivers again.

I'm coming from the Air 1. Honestly it's not a huge leap. I put the Air 1 and the Air 2 side-by-side with the same picture and it was very difficult to tell the difference between the two.

With that said however, it definitely feels lighter and is definitely faster.

Slightly underwhelmed but will probably keep it anyway because my wife wanted my 128 GB Air 1.

Can't hear the speaker vibration that everybody is talking about. Actually I think the speakers sound a little bit better.

First Impressions From Air 2 Owners TODAY

Chris, you don't hear the vibration you feel the vibration. Try holding it in your hands for a little while playing music or a video.

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just picked up the air one today and I'm quite impressed with it. Coming from a third-generation iPad this is leaps and bounds. I just finished updating to iOS 8.1 and the differences incredible compared to it running on an iPad 3. Don't get me wrong when I tried out the air two at Best Buy today it was incredible. It was fast, the screen look great. I just couldn't stand the vibration but that is just me.

Very pleased indeed

Coming from iPad 3 here are my impressions so far since I set it up over 5hrs ago

Battery still on 75% ( not gaming nor streaming movies)
Thinness
Feather weight
Very sharp screen
Responsiveness
Multitasking
Browsing
Found a virtual magnifying glass too# which I thought was really cool; (zoom function)
Reading ebooks
Music output was impressive

Chris Blount said:

I'm coming from the Air 1. Honestly it's not a huge leap. I put the Air 1 and the Air 2 side-by-side with the same picture and it was very difficult to tell the difference between the two.

With that said however, it definitely feels lighter and is definitely faster.

Slightly underwhelmed but will probably keep it anyway because my wife wanted my 128 GB Air 1.

Can't hear the speaker vibration that everybody is talking about. Actually I think the speakers sound a little bit better.

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Agree with every point made above. Gone for the gold version and really like the brown Apple smart case.

Returned my original Air and got a replacement when I had serious wifi problems after upgrading to 8. The replacement unit had 7 and wifi performance was back to normal.

The new Air 2 still doesn't seem to play nice with wifi. Not as bad as the old one but not good. I will use it for a few more days and see how it goes. Rather disappointed so it may go back And I carry on with my old Air an iOS 7.

cababah said:

A lot of people made that comment about the Air last year. The air gap gave the screen a more "plasticky" feel. I can attest to that slightly but it is my first and only tablet so I got over it pretty quickly. Nice to see they addressed that in the Air 2.

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This ^^^. From Air toy back to Air 2 solid feel.

So does anyone else's get warm doing the simplest things, like just browsing the web?

Its on the right side, about halfway up on the back of the device. I assume one of the processors/graphics chips is in that location. It's not uncomfortable to hold, but annoying. I can understand gaming, but just regular browsing of the web should not heat it up this much IMO.

Really impressed. The gold is beautiful. The screen is amazing. (I'm coming from an iPad 2 btw). Everything is just very nice. The smart case kinda sucks though. Feels like it wasn't made to specially fit this new air 2. And... hate to say it, but the sound vibration is a massive turnoff.

I figured, hey I never listen to music on my ipad. But guess what? Even on basic games with low volume, it vibrates like crazy

So, overall I like it, but not sure I'm keeping it.