Apple iPad Air review: Sun and heir

The usual accessories

The Apple iPad Air comes with a lightning cable and an A/C adapter - hardly a surprise after a few generations of tablets already. There are of course the usual leaflets and a couple of stickers.

The iPad Air retail box

Apple gets plenty of repeat customers, meaning the most likely people to buy the iPad Air are ones that already have at least one iPad. But is it worth it? When the iPad 4 came out, there was very little sense for iPad 3 owners to update but this time it's different.

The iPad Air is a massive upgrade over the predecessors, not just in terms of its compact, light design, but a new, powerful chipset too and a new screen. Hopefully, the table below will give you the gist of iPad Air versus the outgoing iPad 4 and the iPad 2, which will stick around for another while.

Fit and fine

Taking heavily after the original iPad mini, the iPad Air moves away from the sloping edges of old, resulting in a more muscular, and somewhat more compact feel, reinforced by the much thinner frame. The bezels around the screen have been significantly narrowed, which - convincingly - creates an impression of a much more immersive screen.

To run by the numbers, the iPad Air is a whopping 16.2mm narrower than its predecessor, 1.9mm thinner and 1.2mm shorter. The weight is probably the most radical of changes - having lost the unbelievable 183g, the new iPad Air takes a huge load off your hands.

iPad Air next to predecessor

The question still remains of how the Air will co-exist with the new iPad mini with Retina display, which simply is a downscaled replica. In terms of what rival platforms have to offer though, the iPad Air may actually enjoy a certain level of comfort and safety knowing it's the most compact big tablet in the market. On the other hand, the competition has mostly caught up and even edged forward in terms of screen resolution.

Controls and handling

The iPad Air may premiere a new design (in the size-L category at least) but hasn't changed much in terms of controls. The front has the same 9.7" 1536 x 2048 IPS LCD of 264 ppi. Above it we find the same 1.2 MP resolution front-facing camera capable of 720p video capture. There's also an ambient light sensor.

Under the screen lies the familiar home button. Many must've been hoping for a Touch ID scanner on the iPad Air but to no avail. Perhaps next year?

Anyway, the home button seems to have a more solid click compared to our iPhone 5s but it could also just be a unit-specific quirk.

iPad Air up front

The left side is completely bereft of controls, while on the right we find the silencer switch (that will also lock screen orientation) and the two volume keys. They have solid feedback and are generally very comfortable, the only problem is getting to them in either portrait and landscape as they are very far off your fingers.

The sides of the tablet

For the first time on a full-grown iPad we find stereo speakers. These are hardly unforeseen since we saw those first on the original iPad mini, but the pleasant surprise is they are impressively loud. In fact the whole slate vibrates when they're pumping out sound.

There's the now typical Lightning connector port at the bottom. The top is reserved for the 3.5 mm headphone jack and one of the two microphones. The audio jack placement is a little inconsistent - the iPhone has its on the bottom and it would make much more sense to have it there on the iPad too to not have cables running over the screen when you've attached a set of headphones.

The top and bottom

The second microphone is on the back along with an Apple logo with a mirror finish. In the top left corner sits a 5 MP iSight camera, which hasn't seen any technical upgrades besides a reportedly improved backside sensor illumination. Aperture is still set at f/2.4 and the camera still lacks an LED flash.

On the back

While immense progress has been made by Apple to reduce the burden of handling an iPad Air, the tablet is still on the big side perhaps for single-handed operation. However, when held with both hands the device fits nice and comfortable and the bezels are just enough on both sides for your thumbs to rest without getting into the screen.

Handling the iPad Air

We love thin bezel designs as they put the screen more into focus but what makes the iPad Air a better tablet than its predecessors is the huge weight difference. Being 183g lighter, the iPad Air is easier to handle for prolonged periods of time without making your hands numb.

It still not the lightest of loads to keep standing in your hands but, compared to other big tablets like the current Nexus 10 or the Galaxy Note 10.1 2014, the iPad Air really does live up to its name.