if the "tipping balance" when used with this new Magic Keyboard is not any worse in actual use cases when compared with the iPad Pro tipping balance, then i will buy this. only regret is no backlit keys...
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M2 iPad Air vs. M3 iPad Air Buyer's Guide
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I must be cursed because the previous iPad I owned was the iPad 3.
Still love the M2 Air 13” though and not looking to upgrade.
All these releases have been so dull. We keep getting the same product year after year with very little improvement. I remember when the releases were packed with excitement.
I returned it after 5 days of frustration with how bad the experience is compared to a model that’s over 4 years old.
It’s really mind boggling.
Author here, thank you for posting it!A good article about the software and hardware relationship of the iPad, and how meaningful this evolution is in real use cases:
Apple's Software Quality Crisis: When Premium Hardware Meets Subpar Software
Tim, I think we are not cookingwww.eliseomartelli.it
I’ve got the M2 Air and am extremely satisfied with it, although I would have liked to have 120hz screen. Coming from an iPad Pro. That machines was too much for my needs and I feel uncomfortable paying 1.000€+ for a tablet.
The Air M2 was much more of an upgrade, with 128GB base storage, M2, new WiFi and BT, new landscape camera, Apple Pencil pro support.
Even though the new M3 has been released less than a year after, M2 was a more solid upgrade and a good time to upgrade.
The Air M2 was much more of an upgrade, with 128GB base storage, M2, new WiFi and BT, new landscape camera, Apple Pencil pro support.
Even though the new M3 has been released less than a year after, M2 was a more solid upgrade and a good time to upgrade.
The M2 iPad Air is fine if you can get a good deal on it, because it only came out last year, meaning it will last a long time in terms of iPadOS updates. However, I do wonder how important the AV1 decode support of M3 will be in the coming years.
This is in contrast to the iPad 10, which came out way back in 2022. It's roughly halfway through its iPadOS update cycle.
My kid's A8X powered iPad Air 2 will be replaced by an iPad (A16).
A8X Geekbench 6 ~ 450/1050 Binned 5-core A16 should be roughly 5X as fast.
Plus the iPad (A16) has a bigger screen, landscape camera, and stereo speakers in landscape mode.
I have an iPad Air 2 (NH1J2LL/A) along with some newer models. It was an identical Apple replacement for a "battery replacement" and came with iPadOS 14.7.1 in January 2022. It is still running that version.
At the time I didn't know an iPad battery replacement was basically a device swap. I did one final iCloud backup in the Apple Store before resetting it and "trading it".
I previously read some reviews online that said iPadOS 15 was a dog and made the iPad Air 2 slow, so I decided to keep it where it is. Odd since my iPhone 6S works fine on 15.8.3 and is a dual-core A9 vs the iPad's A8X triple core.
Not sure if these issues were resolved in the later versions of 15.x and I'm not willing to risk the upgrade since there's no way to downgrade. The apps that I use on it work fine even if they don't get updates anymore. Still a terrific device considering it's 11 year old technology.
I don’t remember there being any difference, but that was a while ago.
I think what’s slowed mine down is the fact I’m using larger, more complicated PDFs, and app updates getting more demanding.
Honestly, my m2, 13 inch iPad air has battery life problems (5 hours at the most) since I purchased it. According to Apple, after 2-3 visits to the Apple store, nothing’s wrong with my iPad, even if using it mostly for music scores display, which is the reason I wanted a 13-inch model. I’m really tempted to upgrade, hoping the 10-hour mark of battery life would finally be respected this time around. My previous iPad was lasting 10-12 hours. I almost regret the change, except for the 13-inch display.
I ended up getting the M3 iPad Air because it's now increasingly hard to get the M2 iPad Air brand new unless you're really lucky.
I upgraded from an old 10.5" iPad Pro (256 GB) with the Fusion A10X SoC. I can say that the new iPad is WAY faster running many apps, for example loading the Xfinity Stream app really quickly (I have an Xfinity account).
Yes good upgrade! Personally I went from iPad 9 to air m2 so 10.5 to air m3 is huge
Correct. In fact, because I have a YouTube Premium account, it's also a great way to watch YouTube, because the screen is big enough to watch YouTube videos comfortably.