Over the years, Apple has been adding a variety of iPads to cater to a wide range of consumers with different needs and budgets. While the generic iPad is targeted at early tablet adopters and children, the iPad Air series in the middle can cater to all and the Pro series is for niche professionals and premium users, who want the latest and the best a tablet can offer.
Apple earlier this year, launched a new generation iPad Air with PC-grade M1 silicon, which is on par with Pro but costs less. I have been using the iPad Air (5th Gen) for several months and here are my thoughts.
Design, build quality, and display
Since the very first version of the iPad Air or even the generic models too, Apple has used high-quality built materials and for this too, the company has not made any compromises.
Design-wise too, is no different. It has no peers that can match its classy elegant design and premium hand-feel experience.
On a side note, the new iPad Air is more eco-friendly than any previous models. The metal case of the iPad Air (5th gen) is made 100 per cent recycled aluminium and is of aero-grade quality.
Also, components made of rare earth elements in the enclosure and audio magnets are also 100 per cent recycled. Even the packing has 100 per cent re-purposed wood fibers and responsibly sourced raw materials.
Coming back to the design aspect, Apple iPad Air has a flat edge-design language similar to the latest iPhones in the market. This is Apple's way of maintaining uniformity among devices in its product portfolio. On the back, it features a visually appealing metallic case with a matte finish. The space grey model looks great in the sun.
Apple offers iPad Air (5th Gen) in four other colours-- blue, pink, purple, and starlight.
However, there is one tiny, but notable difference; it features the side-mounted fingerprint sensor, which also doubles up as the power/wake button at the top right corner. It is easy to access and most importantly, works flawlessly to unlock the screen in a quick time.
On the front, the bezel around the display is slightly thick and it is designed that way for a good reason. The thickness is just right for users to place fingers around the edge to hold onto the iPad and operate it. Also, the four speakers, two each on right and left sides of the iPad (in landscape position) ensure the sound can be delivered right. The speakers are really great and have to tell you, they are the best among the premium tablets. You can feel their power when watching a movie or a TV series without headphones. They work great even with the volume at max and there was never a case of audio distortion.
At the base (in portrait position), there is a Type-C port. This saves users from buying separate USB accessories, to connect power banks, portable storage hard disks, or cameras to transfer high-quality photos that too, in a quick time.
It sports a 10.9-inch (diagonal) LED-backlit IPS LCD-based Liquid Retina screen with 2360x1640p resolution, pixel density of 264 ppi (pixels per inch), and True Tone display technology. The display is fully laminated and also comes with an anti-reflecting coating too.
Apple iPad Air's screen quality is really good, and also bright, which comes in handy while using it outdoors. I did not face issue reading news on websites or viewing emails or browsing social media newsfeeds.
Indoors, it is even better. The nature documentaries come off visually immersive with rich colours and darker blacks on the iPad Air's display.
Apple iPad Air is compatible with Magic Keyboard and Smart Keyboard Folio. Working professionals who travel a lot should go for the former, while others can get the latter.
I used the regular smart folio cover and it comes with strong magnets. It bonds to the back of the iPad very neatly and one can feel how strong the attachment is when taking off the cover.
And, the soft padding ensures good protection against accidental drops but only from a small height. But, it does an excellent job of protecting the device from scratches when kept in the backpack.
Performance
As said before Apple iPad Air (5th Gen) comes with M1 Silicon. It features an 8-core CPU, promising to deliver up to 60 percent faster performance, and the 8-core GPU can offer up to 2x faster graphics performance compared to the previous iPad Air.
Combined with the powerful CPU, GPU, and 8GB RAM, the integrated 16-core Neural Engine in Apple M1 is capable of boosting the advanced machine learning (ML) functions on the iPad Air.
Numbers and fancy tech jargon aside, the iPad Air is a smooth performer. During the entire review period, I never faced an issue in terms of day-to-day usage and as well as while playing heavy-duty games such as Asphalt 9: Legend. Even when using 3D apps such as Night Sky, with a stable internet connection, works smoothly and offers an immersive visual experience.
Even while editing a short video, the iPad Air does not even show the slightest signs of lag-ness at all. Also, doodling and scribbling notes on the iPad's display with Apple Pencil (2nd Gen) is such a fun experience.
Professionals will love iPad Air with M1 even more with the latest iPadOS 16. It brings several new capabilities including Stage Manager feature that allows users to resize apps and overlap them or split screen to work on multiple apps with ease.
And, with the Visual Look Up feature, users can easily lift the subjects such as birds, insects, statues, and more from a photo with just a tap, and add them to notes or a presentation.
The Stage Manager feature will also let iPad Air (5th Gen) connect with a full external display with resolutions of up to 6K. With this, users can work on four apps on the iPad and four apps on the external display. However, this feature will be unlocked in the follow-up iOS 16 updates in the coming weeks.
Furthermore, in the upcoming update, Apple will also be bringing the Freeform feature. With this, users will be able to host group video conferences or project meetings with a presentation-sharing feature.
This offers a great medium for the invitees to brainstorm with colleagues, share a link, and start working together instantly. As others add their thoughts, users can see changes on the canvas in real time. Also, the previously used app will be visible right behind the one users are currently working on. This way, the users don’t lose track of their work.
Must read | Apple iPadOS 16 released: Key features you should know
Apple iPad Air (5th gen) features 12MP Wide camera. It can support up to 4K video recording, and be used to scan documents. Like in iPhones, the native photos app support editing features, and users can play around to make creative videos. But, I prefer just video editing than go around places with big iPad to record videos or take photos.
Having said that, the primary camera takes excellent images and can be put to good use for scanning documents and converting them into PDFs for work or school projects. There is a vast number of third-party apps on the Apple App Store to help you with the work.
On the front, it features an Ultra Wide 12MP front camera. It also supports the Center Stage feature, which was first introduced with iPadOS 15. It works great while video chatting. It tries to keep the user in the middle of the frame and people on the other side do not lose focus on the host, even if the latter moves around. Also, if the host is joined by others, the camera can automatically pan out to include them in the fame.
Provided you have a good internet connection, it does an excellent job with high-quality streaming on video calls.
As far as the battery life is concerned, it is capable of delivering 10 hours of video playback with Wi-Fi on, and with cellular data, it can last for nine hours. But, the battery life is very subjective and depends on an individual user.
I am not an extreme user and I don't spend too many hours on my iPad. I spend close to 10-12 hours outside traveling and working, and the rest at home. I used to charge the iPad Air once a week. My routine with iPad Air usually involved window shopping on e-commerce sites, or watch travel vlogs or nature documentaries for an average of a couple of hours a day, and sometimes watching a two or two-and-a-half-hour movie on Fridays.
For testing the iPad Air's power, I used to play games and even tried editing videos as said earlier, the Apple tablet excels in such tasks, and here with the battery too, the draining is not drastic, compared with rival Android tablets. That's probably one of the benefits of having full control over the hardware and software.
Also, the new iPad Air supports multiple 5G bands. With this, the device can reach peak speeds of up to 3.5Gbps in ideal conditions. The new device also comes with eSIM and Wi-Fi 6 support.
Final thoughts- Apple iPad Air (5th Gen) is a really good long-term investment that caters to entire family members at home
Thanks to improvements in iPadOS over the last couple of years, iPad Air models in particular have become more productive than ever before. With iPadOS 15.4 enabling the universal control feature, you can effortlessly move objects and notes between your companion Mac.
Also, with new enhancements in the iMovie app, there are more tools to let your imagination loose to edit and make good fun short videos.
And, the latest iOS 16 brings more capabilities such as a stage manager for multitasking on the iPad Air.
To sum up, you should see the iPad Air (5th Gen) as a long-term investment and will be able to cater to all members of the family be it to work on presentations or play graphics-rich games, edit videos/images of a party, or to binge watch on movies or shop on e-commerce apps.
And, it doesn't need to be replaced every two years. Considering Apple's software support pattern, the iPad is most likely to get iPadOS updates for at least the next five to six years. Even if the support stops, the device will work just fine and even get a security software patch from Apple.
The Wi-Fi models of iPad Air(5th Gen) are available at a starting price of Rs 59,900 (64GB) and the Wi-Fi + Cellular models start at Rs 74,900(64GB) in India. The 256GB models of Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi+ LTE variants are priced at Rs 74,900 and Rs 89,900, respectively.
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