iFixit Tears Down iPad Air 2, Confirms Smaller Battery, A8X Chip, and 2GB RAM

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iFixit Tears Down iPad Air 2, Confirms Smaller Battery, A8X Chip, and 2GB RAM

speak for yourself, ipad air 2 is (for me) product where thinner means better, this is great update, it is beast, best ipad ever and for me instant buy.

Agreed. These guys have probably never even used a tablet.


The weight, and to a lesser degree the thickness of a tablet is the difference between something that is a joy and nightmare.

 

[Max(IT)]

Multiple sources may say that it is 2GB

My point is saying this "teardown reveals 2GB of RAM" IS NOT ACCURATE.

This teardown gives you an unsearchable part number and the fact that there are 2.

iFixit themselves didn't even say (it appears to be 2 1GB modules) or anything of the sort, which they usually do. Since the part can't be searched they said nothing about capacity.

So this teardown reveals nothing about the actual amount of RAM.

Ok and your point is?

 

[haruhiko]

speak for yourself, ipad air 2 is (for me) product where thinner means better, this is great update, it is beast, best ipad ever and for me instant buy.

Everything seems to be really great for this tablet and I think with this spec the Air 2 can survive a long time (with good performance). However I think it is not an instant buy for current Air 1 owners.

 

[Max(IT)]

My problem with that is exactly that.....SAME battery life as in 2010.

why aren't we at 12 or 14 hours by now?

Who says the battery life must increase over the time?
I really can't understand the complaining about battery life on an iPad....

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The 2010 iPad has the same performance as the 2014 iPad?

Exactly.

 

[Jimmy James]

If they eliminate the battery entirely imagine how thin and light they could go.

 

[Parasprite]

The fact is people in general are vapid, fickle, and generally pretty stupid. This holds true in real life just as on MR forums.


What exactly do you need 14hrs of battery life for, or ten for that matter? Do you sit on your tablet for 10 hours a day?

I mean the only other benefit to a huge battery is not having to plug it in AS MUCH, right? Who even cares?


I'm convinced that the people complaining about Ram, and battery life, are most likely people who are not in any position to buy a $700 tablet anyway.

At uni for 6-8 hours a day taking notes with it during class, writing papers between classes, required readings from the (ebook) texts during the hour's commute there and back...yes it does add up.

Fortunately, (unlike the laptop I used before) with the iPad if I forget to plug it in the previous night I still have enough battery to get through most of the next day... provided I mostly stay off of Safari.

 

[Max(IT)]

The battery life is still good, but it's disappointing to see Apple increase the battery life in the iPhones and decrease the life in the iPad. It doesn't make sense why they wouldn't increase both, especially with all of their negative battery press recently.

Where is the negative battery press about Apple products?
I mean outside biased posts on tech forums....
Show me one Apple device with bad battery life.

 

[haruhiko]

Where is the negative battery press about Apple products?
I mean outside biased posts on tech forums....
Show me one Apple device with bad battery life.

iPhone 5 is the best example of poor battery life. Every iPhone before and after it has better battery life. Apple acknowledged part of the problem and offered free replacement to some iPhone 5 users, but some others are not eligible for the replacement program (my anecdote) also encounter similar battery issues and have to pay Apple to have the battery replaced.

 

[doelcm82]

Apparently Johnny Ive loves anoerexic devices? He must have a sick obsession with thinness.

Someone has a sick obsession with Jony Ive.

 

[fertilized-egg]

Iphone battery life went up this year after years of bouncing around the same time zone. Ipad has been improving each year until this year

Do people have really this short of memory? The iPad 3 and the iPad 4 had a shorter battery life than the iPad 2. Apple had to put a extra heavy battery in the iPad 3 and 4 to accomodate the Retina display but they were still power hungry.

Furthermore I very vividly remember how much complaints were there because Apple did exactly what people want them to do in this thread - make a thick and heavy tablet with a big battery. This was only two years ago. People complained how heavy and thick it was, a lot. Nobody remembers what happened then. Again this is only two years ago.

Thus in short, no, what you're saying isn't true. iPad has not been improving its battery life every year until this point. And yes, Apple did try adding more battery and people didn't like it.

I look forward to what'll become the issue of the year now that nobody talks about the iPad RAM anymore. The rumored iPad Pro looks like an excellent opportunity for the forum to explode if it gets released.

 

[Max(IT)]

I'll be curious to see if Nexus 9 owners in the alternate iOS forum complain about it's 9-9.5 hour battery life. Why is iPad battery life all of a sudden a thing? Hardly anyone has an Air 2 in their hands yet everyone's freaking out over its battery life.

Haters gonna hate.... I'm waiting for the "my iPad bent" thread...

 

[imamacperson]

Yep ! Yep ! Yep!

All for thinness that matters little. Bet many would've gladly take the previous gen's depth + the bigger battery.

Yep ! Yep ! Yep!

 

[RockSpider]

Yep, and they're gonna keep making money as long as I've got it :awe:

Well I hope for your sake they make the next iPad with 2hr battery life, 8gb storage, 250mb ram and an A2 chip and charge $1000, that's all people need.

I think I'll go and lay down I'm feeling a little vapid.

 

[BvizioN]

All for thinness that matters little. Bet many would've gladly take the previous gen's depth + the bigger battery.

I seriously don't get this crazy obsession with super long battery life. It takes you easy through the day with heavy usage and you get the chance to charge it when you sleep on the evening. But no..... it must be much longer and let it be thicker for the sake of it!!

So, yeah..... all that thinness that matters little to you

 

[akbarali.ch]

Reviewers have found the original Air to have better battery life in their reviews.

But doesn't it still surpasses Apple's own claim of usage hrs.

 

[rotation]

At uni for 6-8 hours a day taking notes with it during class, writing papers between classes, required readings from the (ebook) texts during the hour's commute there and back...yes it does add up.



Fortunately, (unlike the laptop I used before) with the iPad if I forget to plug it in the previous night I still have enough battery to get through most of the next day... provided I mostly stay off of Safari.

Your use case is extreme, and not typical of an average user of an i device


Apple cannot design every device with you in mind because nobody else needs that much battery life and there are other (size/weight) bigger concerns. What good is all that battery life to the other 98%of people who use their ipad less than 10 hours a day?

 

[Parasprite]

If they eliminate the battery entirely imagine how thin and light they could go.

Reminds me of an old Windows 95 laptop I used to have. Was always tethered to the wall anyways so I might as well forget the battery and save the extra 1-2 lbs.

Even at the time it baffled me that that thing even managed to function with only 4 MB of RAM.

 

[iMcLovin]

I wonder if a smaller battery has an impact or if apple managed to make it last as long as the previous ipad air. Guess Ill know in a few days.

 

[Max(IT)]

No it's not, Newbie. Thinness without sacrificing the battery life is more than welcome. 11 ***** hours for video on this Air 2 is more than any need even during transpacific flights. Tell me if anyone would watch 11 hrs straight video.

Correct.
I'm quite sure there are people with an agenda on this forum.
I'm really shocked about reading complains over the iPad battery life. I just think they don't have anything else to complain....

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No HDMI. I'll keep using my $40 android tablet.

Good luck.
Next please

 

[the-msa]

I just don't see why you have to resort to namecalling. Seems rather childish.

Lack of RAM in iDevices is a perfectly valid complaint that need to be addressed by Apple. Just because they say their devices work fine with 1GB doesn't mean they wouldn't run better with 2GB. (Feel free to ask Safari all about that.)
.

Just a funny thing i noticed yesterday: i put the family guy game on my ipad mini 2. I loaded up my savegame. The city i have took about 3-4 minutes to load completely. It takes a couple of seconds on my nexus 5 with 2 gb of ram. And there weren't any other programs tuning in the background. I'd love to see how it works on the air 2.

 

[Max(IT)]

It would be great if Apple listed the amount of ram on the iPad Air 2 spec page.

Who cares about tech specs?
We are speaking about Apple, not an android OEM...

 

[Parasprite]

Your use case is extreme, and not typical of an average user of an i device


Apple cannot design every device with you in mind because nobody else needs that much battery life and there are other (size/weight) bigger concerns. What good is all that battery life to the other 98%of people who use their ipad less than 10 hours a day?

You really ought to visit a university sometime. One of the reasons that MacBooks and tablets are so prolific there is their excellent battery life.

Anyways, Apple have already designed several devices with me in mind, which is really my point.

 

[RockSpider]

Your use case is extreme, and not typical of an average user of an i device


Apple cannot design every device with you in mind because nobody else needs that much battery life and there are other (size/weight) bigger concerns. What good is all that battery life to the other 98%of people who use their ipad less than 10 hours a day?

Okay Tim, you can give it up now, we know who you are, you'll get your bonus this year.

 

[iLLUMI]

Smaller battery but same battery life. If thinness makes the tablet easier to use, then yea go ahead and shrink the battery as long as it gives me the same great battery life.

Well said!
As CPU's etc become more energy efficient then you don't need the same battery size.
My guess is that eventually, as technology continues to improve, that Apple will one day offer greater battery life, that is to say that the standard won't be 10.1 hours but something greater.
And considering that iPads generally hold their charge really well when not in use and when switched of, there's no great urgency (well from my perspective that is) to have longer battery life.
I think battery life on the iPad has been one of Apple's success stories from the beginning. I had my old 1st gen iPad fully charged and switched off for months, almost a year. I took it out of storage and hit the power button and expected it to be dead. To my surprise it was still at 100% charge.
My iPad 2 (2,4 model) gives an expected 11.7 hours battery life and it's early days it gave me closer to 18 hours. It has since dropped greatly. But it's still good.

But more on topic, there is more buzz these days at MacRumors than at an Apple product launch. Think I'll skip the launches in future and just wait for the MacRumors articles.

So excited to read all this stuff (the specs) of the iPadAir2.
I'm busy earning extra credit card reward points so I can get one for free!
But I still can't decide whether to stick with a 16GB model or this time go for the 64GB. What do you guys recommend? I'm thinking 16GB is too small these days. ??

 

[NMBob]

Right.

That's my point. If it has no NFC Antenna there is no way that it can connect to anything NFC . So it has no NFC .

Maybe they are just sharing parts between iPhone and iPad and the module is just part of the board, but without an NFC Antenna that chip does nothing from what I can see..

If they would have left the chip out they could have afforded a mute switch.