New iPad Air Reviews: 'The Best Tablet for Most People' With New Pro-Like Design and Features at Lower Price

[Mahasamatman]

How is having a big notch and not being able to use Face ID while wearing a mask during Covid better than the Touch ID implementation on the new iPad Air? I'll answer for you: it's not.

The iPad Pro doesn’t have a notch, the camera is in the bezel, and usage of an iPad is somewhat different to an iPhone where i find I’m more likely to be inconvenienced by wearing a mask. Though having to enter a six digit PIN during a pandemic definitely falls into the first world problems arena.

 

[kerr]

first world problems

I don't disagree, but the simple fact is that fingerprint authentication will absolutely return to the iPhone, and I'd say people love the implementation on the iPad Air and will be looking forward to the same on iPhones in the near future.

 

[MrMojo1]

"My biggest complaint is about storage. The base $599 model has 64GB, which is a good enough amount today but may feel cramped over time. That’s not the complaint, though. The complaint is that there’s no 128GB option — to get more storage you have to spend $150 more for 256GB. At $749, you’re just $50 away from the 128GB 11-inch iPad Pro and you may as well just get that one. (Come to think of it, that’s maybe not an accident.) "

Apple still uses the lowest storage capacity for its devices to lure in customers.
Typical Apple BS marketing to upsell its more expensive products to people for many years.

Best to wait and see what Black Friday/Cyber Monday offers are available on the new iPads.

 

[Broadus]

"My biggest complaint is about storage. The base $599 model has 64GB, which is a good enough amount today but may feel cramped over time. That’s not the complaint, though. The complaint is that there’s no 128GB option — to get more storage you have to spend $150 more for 256GB. At $749, you’re just $50 away from the 128GB 11-inch iPad Pro and you may as well just get that one. (Come to think of it, that’s maybe not an accident.) "

Apple still uses the lowest storage capacity for its devices to lure in customers.
Typical Apple BS marketing to upsell its more expensive products to people for many years.

Best to wait and see what Black Friday/Cyber Monday offers are available on the new iPads.

Absolutely. I think Apple’s strategy is to push the bar higher on what people are willing to pay. They’ve done the same thing with the new iPhones as iPads, significantly increasing the midrange specs along with a significant increase in price.

In my opinion the best “better” tablet than the iPad 8th gen to buy now is the 11” Pro if one needs more than 64GB. And I think the best “better” iPhone is the 12 Pro. And waiting for a Black Friday discount on the 11” Pro is what I’m doing.

My guess is that the Pro models in both iPad and iPhone will see a noticeable increase next year. I hope I’m wrong.

 

[GuruZac]

I thought of one difference: 2GB more RAM in the Pro that most people probably won’t use or notice unless they’re doing illustration with lots of layers. As a designer and photographer I’ve never been able to do serious graphic design work on this thing (you can but it’s tedious) and while I can do serious photography work, it uses low-res proxies in Lightroom and would never get near 6GB. I think Apple needs to develop Xcode and Final Cut for iPad Pro and then we’ll have a need for something with more power and RAM.

One area my 2018 iPad Pro suffers with 4GB of RAM is running a heavy app called Complete Anatomy. I use in med school as a supplementary study assist, and the app literally refreshes if I go out of it for more than 30 secs. Not sure the 2020 iPad Pro with 6GB of RAM would remedy that, but it’s frustrating. iPad Pro starting in 2018 with the unbelievable performance of the A12X should have shipped with 8GB of RAM, at least 6GB across the board.

 

[GuruZac]

How is having a big notch and not being able to use Face ID while wearing a mask during Covid better than the Touch ID implementation on the new iPad Air? I'll answer for you: it's not

Are you walking around with your iPad Air? The TouchID solution on the iPad Air would be a welcome addition to the iPhone, but FaceID is so much better on the tablet, especially if you use the iPad as a laptop. I use both my iPad Pro 10.5 still for some note taking but FaceID on my iPad Pro 12.9 has spoiled me.

 

[macduke]

One area my 2018 iPad Pro suffers with 4GB of RAM is running a heavy app called Complete Anatomy. I use in med school as a supplementary study assist, and the app literally refreshes if I go out of it for more than 30 secs. Not sure the 2020 iPad Pro with 6GB of RAM would remedy that, but it’s frustrating. iPad Pro starting in 2018 with the unbelievable performance of the A12X should have shipped with 8GB of RAM, at least 6GB across the board.

Sounds more like a crappy developer. No reason for loading the entire volume into RAM when it should stream off the SSD. Probably yet another example of a company monopolizing something needed for college by being the highest bidder for a license and delivering the lowest possible quality product.

 

[compwiz1202]

The iPad Pro doesn’t have a notch, the camera is in the bezel, and usage of an iPad is somewhat different to an iPhone where i find I’m more likely to be inconvenienced by wearing a mask. Though having to enter a six digit PIN during a pandemic definitely falls into the first world problems arena.

And this is exactly why I don't understand why they put Touch ID on an iPad again before an iPhone. I'm not taking my iPad out to the store to pay for things.