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iPad AnandTech review of the iPad Air

Southernboyj said:
I'll be buying an iPad Air bright and early Friday morning... but no, it isn't wiping the floor with anything.

My Google Edition Galaxy S4 runs just as smooth as any iPhone 5S I've used.

I'm assuming here is where you'll say the A7 benchmarks higher than the Snapdragon 600 in my S4... yet when I tell you it had double the RAM of the iPhone 5S.. you'll say specs don't matter. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

The s4 doesn't run ANYWHERE near as smoothly as a 5s. That is absolute nonsense.
 
Did any of you read the review? This is extremely troubling:

In general you’re looking at a 20 - 30% increase in memory footprint when dealing with an all 64-bit environment.
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So essentially the iPad Air, because it has a 64-bit A7, has more like 717-819MB of ram. That is rather appalling! As I'm already up a creek since I sold my iPad 2, I'll be only buying one Mini Retina 32GB, instead of a 16GB Mini Retina for my wife and a 128GB Mini Retina LTE for me. We'll just share until next autumn! This really pisses me off. I don't want the ram amount to be lower than the previous model! I probably would have dealt with 1GB and pulled the trigger but lower??? Are you serious!!???!!??
 
Great review!

Faster AND better battery life - that's awesome. Definitely tempted to upgrade the old 3rd Gen - it's really feeling old now.
 
macduke said:
Did any of you read the review? This is extremely troubling:



So essentially the iPad Air, because it has a 64-bit A7, has more like 717-819MB of ram. That is rather appalling! As I'm already up a creek since I sold my iPad 2, I'll be only buying one Mini Retina 32GB, instead of a 16GB Mini Retina for my wife and a 128GB Mini Retina LTE for me. We'll just share until next autumn! This really pisses me off. I don't want the ram amount to be lower than the previous model! I probably would have dealt with 1GB and pulled the trigger but lower??? Are you serious!!???!!??
Click to expand...

Great I can read this again. Thanks
 
No problems whatsoever with my Mini and while I'm not a power user, I have thrown everything at it that I want to do with it and never had a performance problem even with iOS 7.

Concerned with the Air and RAM? Buy it, try it! :D
 
In general you’re looking at a 20 - 30% increase
in memory footprint when dealing with an all 64-bit environment.

I am surprised that is not getting more attention,
this new Air is a step back and a pretty big step back?

It seems like the Air could be like the iPad 3 and
either have a short lifespan
or a Pro model is coming in a few months with more memory?
 
filmbuff said:
Does ios 7 have compressed RAM like Mavericks? Apple may be thinking that they can get away with 1gb by compressing a third of it. Still, this should really have 2gb. There is no excuse not to. 1gb can just barely hack it on my iPad 3 (showing over 500mb used with no apps open).
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iOS 7 uses 300-400 Mb of RAM. The rest of that is inactive RAM which will make launching apps that have been launched before faster. One app should eat around 700Mb before it is force quit by the OS.
 
Chundles said:
Great review!

Faster AND better battery life - that's awesome. Definitely tempted to upgrade the old 3rd Gen - it's really feeling old now.
Click to expand...
Faster?

59439.png


My only complaint about task switching on the iPad Air is that UI frame rate will regularly drop below 30 fps during some of these transitions. The added GPU performance on the A7 doesn't seem to really impact things compared to the A6X
Click to expand...
 
Menel said:
Faster?

Image
Click to expand...

Please put that in context. The review did mention the scores being lower here on this one test but the throughput actually made it a faster performer. A single test doesn't tell the whole story.

They also mentioned that the poor animation frame rate is likely to be a software issue given the issue exists on both 4 & Air and the latter has much better graphical horsepower.
 
Johnf1285 said:
Well yes :)

But typically they have received a bit of a tweak to compensate for the extra pixels being pushed. I guess I was anticipating something that would be a notch beyond the iPhone 5S hardware-wise. Not to say there is anything wrong with the iPad Air. It looks and sounds amazing. I just think that next year's iPad will have that extra bump over the iPhone 5S - as expected since technology progresses constantly - thus justifying the purchase even more (as I am "chained" to this phone for the next 1 year and 11 months).

Just my 2 cents :D
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the air did receive a tweak. the clock speed is higher than the iphone 5s
 
Love Anand's reviews. His only review I have trouble with is his battery life claim on the 2013 Nexus 7 - I get less than half of what his test shows, with very light use on a completely stock unit. And it's constantly closing my browser tabs with its 2GB of RAM.

It's funny some comments on Anand's review think that he's Apple-biased. But he seems to praise the Nexus 7 every chance he gets.
 
Menel said:
Faster?

Image
Click to expand...

It's the same with iPhone 5s in that particular test (and it's the only benchmark where power vr series 5 is faster, and probably the least important one). Img tech changed how certain things work is 6 series (1st it's not a quad core GPU, it is a 4 cluster GPU etc.), which basically ensures huge performance increase everywhere except for this test.
iPad Air is more powerful than 4 in GPU
 
OSMac said:
In general you’re looking at a 20 - 30% increase
in memory footprint when dealing with an all 64-bit environment.

I am surprised that is not getting more attention,
this new Air is a step back and a pretty big step back?

It seems like the Air could be like the iPad 3 and
either have a short lifespan
or a Pro model is coming in a few months with more memory?
Click to expand...

That's very concerning
 
I have thought about waiting until next year to buy an Air but if you wait then you are always waiting for the next thing.
 
mcdj said:
Apple is like a lap dance. No matter how much money you put on the table, you never quite get everything.

But you keep coming back...
Click to expand...

This analogy just sold me on buying the Air. I'm now $500 poorer. yet better spend than in the champagne room
 
leenak said:
I have thought about waiting until next year to buy an Air but if you wait then you are always waiting for the next thing.
Click to expand...

waiting a year to me is pointless. unless you already have a similar device(like going from a 5-5s).
You'll be completely fine with this new tech for a year. But next year might not be as big of an upgrade since speed increases won't be as noticeable like going from a iPhone 3g to 5. In real world performance anyway. You won't notice big changing in speed enhancements to worry about it.
 
Wow, I have no issues with performance on my iPad 3. Does everything I want it to without problems. I am not going to get wrapped up in specs unless I see an issue with usage.
 
lcseds said:
Wow, I have no issues with performance on my iPad 3. Does everything I want it to without problems. I am not going to get wrapped up in specs unless I see an issue with usage.
Click to expand...

Yep, specs fooled me once with the Mini. What a waste of time being concerned about specs when I could have enjoyed using it sooner than when I decided to buy it.
 
Reviews that I have read showed thus far indicates the Air is smooth, no lag present, and that is what I care about, not the spec's that some are so locked into.

Next year the Air may have the fingerprint thingy, and a better camera that many would not need as well as another step up on the CPU front, so its a no brainer for me to get this new Air coming Friday, and not wait for next years release. :D
 
ABC5S said:
Reviews that I have read showed thus far indicates the Air is smooth, no lag present, and that is what I care about, not the spec's that some are so locked into.

Next year the Air may have the fingerprint thingy, and a better camera that many would not need as well as another step up on the CPU front, so its a no brainer for me to get this new Air coming Friday, and not wait for next years release. :D
Click to expand...

While a no brainier in the sense that either one blows away my current Mini, BUT do I go for the larger screen Air vs. the new Mini? :confused:
 
ABC5S said:
Reviews that I have read showed thus far indicates the Air is smooth, no lag present, and that is what I care about, not the spec's that some are so locked into.

Next year the Air may have the fingerprint thingy, and a better camera that many would not need as well as another step up on the CPU front, so its a no brainer for me to get this new Air coming Friday, and not wait for next years release. :D
Click to expand...

Anand complained that sometimes the Air is less than smooth, such as bringing up the multitasking tray, though he seemed to point the finger at iOS 7.

Crap my iPad 4 just spontaneously rebooted as I tried to bring up the multitasking tray to see the less than smooth animation. Looked quite smooth to me, right before it crashed :rolleyes:
 
AppleRobert said:
While a no brainier in the sense that either one blows away my current Mini, BUT do I go for the larger screen Air vs. the new Mini? :confused:
Click to expand...

I've grown very accustomed to the smaller form factor of the mini and to get all the power of the Air including a retina screen in the mini size is very compelling. I still appreciate the larger screen of the Air though but as long as there is no compromise with the mini i.e. battery life and performance, I'm leaning towards the mini. It's cheaper and more portable while still being as capable as the air.
 
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