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aunkster

macrumors member
Original poster
Nov 21, 2004
53
1
Nashville
I never had an iPad yet ,getting ready to make purchase .My question to everyone is about my need .So if I'm purchasing iPad just for email ,surfing web to read news ,a few games and some music ,,what do I actually need .With this said I know I want 256gb and would love a Smart Keyboard and Retina display ,,so do I go with 2nd gen iPad Air or can I go with older version and be just as happy
 
I saw a few reviewers say that iPad Air is a little bit faster than the iPad Pro 10.5in. If this is something you see yourself using for a long time then go with the Air which is slightly faster than the current iPad.

Getting the 256GB you wouldn't have to juggle around moving apps or movies in and out.
 
One thing to keep in mind that Apple tends to support older hardware for a (comparably) very long time. I bought my iPad Air 2 in early 2015, for example. At the time it was an absolute speed demon, and while no longer even close to being considered fast (that’d be my IPP/18/12.9) it continues to serve me very well to this day, and runs iOS 12 (and soon 13) just fine.

All that being said - my recommendation is to buy whatever fastest model you can afford. If you’ve got a decent internet connection you can always store data (music, photos, documents etc.) in the cloud. And with the advent of iPad OS, you’ll even be able to store stuff on directly attached external drives.


TL;DR & IMO: $150 spent on A faster CPU/SoC goes a much longer way than the same money spent on addtl. in-device storage.
 
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