Apple released the redesigned iPad Air last year at its ‘Special Event’ in September. The device now features a design which is in line with the current trend of thin bezels. The iPad Air is an interesting device – falling in between the 10.2” $329 iPad and the $799 iPad Pro. It offers the best of both the world, in terms of price and performance.
The iPad Air features a 10.9” LCD screen with a resolution of 2360×1640 and 264 pixels per inch (PPI). The screen supports the P3 wide color gamut which means the iPad Air will be able to display true colours as it supports more of them. The display is also laminated which has been a thing with the previous iPad Air models also – very little gap between the display and the touch surface area. With 500 nits of brightness, it gets plenty bright for most conditions.
Powerful A14 Bionic chip and TouchID
Powering the iPad Air is the 5nm A14 Bionic chip. The chip was first introduced on the iPad Air and then was also introduced on the iPhone 12. Usually, the iPhone is the first to be updated with a new chip and then a new iPad with a slightly tweaked chip is released. However, last year, due to the global coronavirus pandemic, Apple had to postpone the launch of the iPhone as supply chains were affected.
The iPad Air features TouchID on the power button at the top (depends on the holding orientation) when held vertically straight. While FaceID is easier to use, TouchID is not bad either but the implementation on the iPad Air is not perfect. As the power button is thin and does not have a large surface area as the home buttons on the iPhones used to have, the success rate of TouchID on the iPad Air is not very high. It is not bad though.
The iPad Air is the best iPad – sort of. While the $329 10.2” iPad may be tempting, the $599 iPad Air includes a faster chip, supports USB-C charging and data transfer, and has thin bezels. Also, it is priced $200 lower than the iPad Pro.
