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iPad Air 5 Reviews: Great Value With M1 Chip at $599 Starting Price

kjvmartin2 said:
I am not versed on the resale of non-Apple items. You could enlighten me there maybe? Are Windows PC and Samsung phones catching up in terms of resale value? I would think the lack of long term support would be prohibitive.

Recent examples:

I paid $250 for my Apple Watch SE and I could sell it for $150 if I was inclined. A ~two year old iPad Air 4 is reselling for over $400 when I paid $549 brand new.

What more do you want? The 13 Pro I have would sell for around $1000 on eBay, I think I paid about that for it new.
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iphone 12 pro selling for 700 or less, macs on other other hand is even worse, i haven't check the market lately due to work, but upon last recall, 16inch were on a heavy discount, i'm talking about 5k msrp going for 2.5k-3k range. and the worse of them all is the watch, any SS or higher, you be looking at 40-50% discount when new version comes out.

samsung is just known for not holding it's value due to lack of support after 3 years, so its a moot point bringing that up since samsung is just such a low standard in this regard.
 
ilikewhey said:
iphone 12 pro selling for 700 or less, macs on other other hand is even worse, i haven't check the market lately due to work, but upon last recall, 16inch were on a heavy discount, i'm talking about 5k msrp going for 2.5k-3k range. and the worse of them all is the watch, any SS or higher, you be looking at 40-50% discount when new version comes out.

samsung is just known for not holding it's value due to lack of support after 3 years, so its a moot point bringing that up since samsung is just such a low standard in this regard.
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Apple products have the highest resale value of pretty much any electronics. If you think they have poor resale value, you just don't understand resale value.
 
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Spock said:
The iPad is slowly becoming reminiscent of the Performa line from the 90s, A bunch of different devices with very little differences.
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This is what I was concerned about years ago. And it’s happening. I don’t like using the word ‘fragmentation’ (Because most people misuse/don’t understand what it means on here), but that’s kind of what the iPad is turning into. And even though that’s not a knock on the performance or the hardware aspect, it’s just generally becoming confusing to the average consumer, and Apple’s marketing really doesn’t help, because they only typically target the most expensive iPad model. It’s going to be more problematic as it continues to progress.
 
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And why shouldn't people choose to get the Air 4 instead? What is there to justify buying a M1 ipad?
 
Currently the US refurb store has A12x 64gb SSD/4gb RAM 11" Pro for $519 & A12z 128gb SSD/6gb RAM for $609.
The everyday user will never notice speed bump of the M1 or even the extra RAM, but they will notice the Pro Motion & quad speaker sound.

The iPad Air is an under featured overpriced iPad Pro 11". The better thing would be to have an iPad Mini Pro. People either want an affordable base iPad or a bells & whistles pricey Pro and the only market in the middle aside from a pocketable Mini is a more featured Mini.
 
I’m late 50’s my use is 95% consumption, web browsing, shopping, email, photos etc.
Had the original iPad think this will be my 4th ipad purchase only using 30 odd gb not into games, so looking forward to the blazing speed hopefully.
Probably total overkill for what I will use it for, the pro just seemed too much of a stretch and hard to justify.
It’s the ease of use I love compared to a laptop, sitting on the couch adverts come on quickly check whatever put it back down, too much faffing about with a laptop.
Roll on Friday.
 
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dandy1117 said:
I am reading others in these forums, once again, stating that iPadOS is limiting and that the “power” of the M1 chip is not being utilized.

What it seems to me is that most of these users just don’t use the many “professional” vertical apps developed as custom B2B solutions or vertical professional markets. My firm develops apps for real estate, medical offices, and production companies that are extremely powerful and run faster on better chip hardware. It utilizes the camera hardware, Apple Pencil, and battery efficiency better— as such, our pro apps are better than apps developed for traditional laptop computers.

I hope this offers another perspective on professional use cases for the current iPadOS. I am certainly not opposed to iPad further improving, but the conversation needs to be reframed regarding the current iPads.
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I use an IPP professionally. For anything GIS based it’s the absolute bees’ knees with its portability, built in GPS and camera systems. I prefer to take an iPad to meetings than a laptop. But I do regard the ipadOS as the main thing holding it back. My biggest wishes:
*The file management system needs to be like Finder in MacOS or file explorer in Windows 11 with full integration with MS Server.
*Windowing needs to be resizable and layered, perhaps with “snap to” zones if you flick a window there
*Multitasking needs to be properly multitasking (see windowing), I need to be able to easily cut and paste, or drag images etc between any app I want
*Multiuser accounts for work iPads
*Better printing

I don’t know why those features haven’t turned up ever since iPadOS was forked off iOS.
 
QCassidy352 said:
I don’t see it as a good value. I see it as an oddball that’s too expensive for basic use but lacking in the high end user experience of the pro (faceID, 120hz, quad speakers, etc). I’m honestly not sure for whom this is the best option.
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I think is aimed more towards people who like fun colors over function and some people are fine with 64 GB. I have to say that I was tempted when it first came out simply because it was green. I also think that Apple is planning to raise the price on the pro models, especially if they update the screen technology like the rumors are saying.
 
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From a real world perspective the performance upgrade while holding the price (in Canada the price went down 30 bucks) is going to be appreciated by some. iPad Pro performance for $250 CAN less.

The decision here is iPad 256GB 9th GEN for $629 CAN or iPad Air 64GB w. M1 for $749 CAN.

The 9th GEN iPad is no slouch for a mainstream general purpose tablet. I think it represents good value especially the entry 64GB model which stayed at $429 CAN even with the upgrades. It’s no wonder these outsell all other iPads by a wide margin.

The new Air—much more so than last year’s version—offers Pro performance at a decent savings, but at the sacrifice of storage. If you want to play games and watch lots of video, but don’t really need much storage, than the 64GB Air is for you. If you just want something general purpose but with lots of storage than get the 256GB 9th GEN iPad.

It gets murkier when you compare the new Air with 256GB for $949 CAN with the iPad Pro 11 128 GB for $999 CAN. Again it may be a matter of storage because how much more is the Pro offering you while sacrificing half the storage?
 
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headlessmike said:
I suspect that the 64 GB model will be the best selling one. Not to the typical person who hangs around here, but to the general public that go for the cheapest option.
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I’ve got the 2020 Air and do a good amount of productivity work on it (Excel, LaTeX, pdf markups etc) — all my photos and music are in the cloud, movies are accessed through streaming services, files are in iCloud — I’ve not even used half of the I thermal storage. Being cheaper was an important factor when I got it, but also I’d have no clue how to even fill that storage up with everything in the cloud. (Granted, I don’t play games so that’s a huge Gb-burden off my shoulders…)

Ymmv of course, just a snapshot.
 
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ilikewhey said:
lets be honest really no one is going to go for the base 64gb, after system allocations and what not you be left with not much storage.

at 700 price point you might as well pony up 50 bucks and get the pro.
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Re. price, you are 100% correct. Bought the 256gb Air 4 when it came out. Wish I got the Pro for FaceID and ProMo. 128gb would have been fine for me.
 
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If only they'd let you install MacOS on this or the iPad Pro. The M1 is wasted for most people on an iPad. I'm surprised someone hasn't managed to hack it yet and do just that.

Really, that is what needs to happen. IOS and MacOS just need to be one OS. It's wishful thinking.... but Apple could give that more elegance than Microsoft, though the Surface line does work great as both a tablet and laptop save lack of tablet apps soon to be remedied with Win11 getting Android apps.
 
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dandy1117 said:
I am reading others in these forums, once again, stating that iPadOS is limiting and that the “power” of the M1 chip is not being utilized.

What it seems to me is that most of these users just don’t use the many “professional” vertical apps developed as custom B2B solutions or vertical professional markets. My firm develops apps for real estate, medical offices, and production companies that are extremely powerful and run faster on better chip hardware. It utilizes the camera hardware, Apple Pencil, and battery efficiency better— as such, our pro apps are better than apps developed for traditional laptop computers.

I hope this offers another perspective on professional use cases for the current iPadOS. I am certainly not opposed to iPad further improving, but the conversation needs to be reframed regarding the current iPads.
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You make great points. Some of the things it can do require serious horsepower. For example, it reliably translates my handwriting into text. It's amazing to me that it can do this (again, reliably) considering my own dot-less "i"s and the diversity of handwriting out there. Whether or not it's overpowered is relative to the use.
 
mnsportsgeek said:
Let's be honest. 64gb is going to be the best seller.
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most likely, corporate and firms will buy the bare minimum for their staffs as usual, my old firm had regular ipad for the longest time before jumping to the 4th gen air. however my comment was meant for personal use, in which cause 64gb is rarely enough for most user case, and by the time they jump to the only upgrade option, the pro makes more sense.
 
LIVEFRMNYC said:
For me it's more like a $749 starting price. Cause 64gb is a joke. I'll be better off getting the Pro 11" 128gb for $799 ($50) more.
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..is the exact thing that Apple is going for.

-iPad Air is still nothing more but a step on the ladder to get you to realise how much more value you get with iPads Pro.

And really, $200 more for 128GB internal storage, ProMotion display, much better speakers, LiDAR cameras, plus more is the better option.
 
max2 said:
I dislike YouTube reviewers.
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Agree -Any little spec bump is hyped as this super important change and any little thing is turned into a 10+ minute video.

I get they make good money. But I'm not the one who's going to be watching ads to have some tech influencer tell me that he understands the concerns of the average tech consumer.
 
QCassidy352 said:
I don’t see it as a good value. I see it as an oddball that’s too expensive for basic use but lacking in the high end user experience of the pro (faceID, 120hz, quad speakers, etc). I’m honestly not sure for whom this is the best option.
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It's not a good option for anyone -At $599, It's too expensive to be a true entry-level device for the casual user, and lacks too many features to be impressive by comparison to a $200 more 11" M1 iPad Pro.

Apple almost always has a "middle step" on its product "ladder". iPad Air is the middle step.

-You should get the 256GB iPad 9th Gen or the 128GB 11" M1 iPad Pro. Both 64GB and 256GB iPad Air is a terrible middle option, and it's just there to make you fully grasp how inexpensive iPad 9th Gen is, by comparison, and how much more you get with iPad Pro for just $200 more.

Neither specs that really compete with iPads Pro, nor a price that's competitive with iPads Pro or 9th Gen.
 
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