The best tablet in the market is the iPad, there is no doubt about it. Google tried for years to fight Apple in the tablet game, hoping it would be able to replicate what it did in the smartphone game. However, Android lost the tablet wars and iPad is the only tablet that actually makes sense.
The $329 iPad is an extremely good laptop and in some cases is the best valued machine. However, it makes some compromises to get its price down to $329 in terms of performance, design and screen quality.
The current generation iPhones are powered by Apple’s A13 Bionic chip which are insanely fast. However, the $329 iPad 10.2” is powered by the Apple A10 Fusion chip which was used in the iPhone 7. The A10 was a very good processor but it is not fast anymore and iOS updates will only make it slow in the future.
The $329 iPad looks like a good deal on paper. Let me be clear: it’s not a bad tablet, iPads are always better than Android tablets as they are not terrible in terms of performance. But the fact that people do not update their iPads every few years like the iPhone is an issue when buying the $329 iPad.
The basic 10.2” $329 iPad will not last long in terms of software support and it will very likely start showing signs of aging in terms of performance. The best iPad without shelling a lot of money is the iPad Air which retails for $499.
The iPad Air is powered by a fairly recent processor, the Apple A12 Bionic chip from 2018 which is almost similar to the A13 in terms of performance. Also, the iPad Air uses 3GB of RAM whereas the $329 iPad uses just 2GB of RAM and it has a laminated display with P3 color gamut which looks better and feels better to use compared to the non-laminated display on the $329 iPad.
