An Upgrade That Doesn’t Really Lift Spirits: The Stale iPad Air 2
Has Apple lost interest in tablets? Will the stale Air 2 sink?
It’s tough improving on something as perfect as the iPad Air. This isn’t fanboy speak, its the measured view of someone who enjoys technology no matter what badge it wears.
Not every one plays chess, yet every one acknowledges that it takes intelligence to play it.
The iPad Air was a revolutionary device in more ways than one. It brought some really intuitive features to the table along with an impressive advancements to hardware and cameras, top-notch graphics and a beautiful design that was a pleasure to hold and feel. It was 22% lighter than its predecessor, and had a better body-to-screen ratio than the iPad Mini!!
Ever since it’s release in October 2013, the impossibly light iPad Air set standards for how tablets should be. For many, it would change the tablet sector forever.
Last week, Apple announced the iPad Air 2 — an update to the extremely competent iPad Air, and their iPad mini 3 (which replaces the venerable iPad Mini 2)
The iPad Air 2 is not a monumental upgrade by any stretch of the imagination, but it has some additional features to talk about.
Weighing a meagre 437 grams (32 grams lighter than the iPad Air), the iPad Air 2 sports a nano-SIM slot and boasts another incredibly beautiful 9.7 inch LED-backlit IPS LCD capacitive display with a 1536x2048p resolution and 264 ppi.
This gorgeous display is protected by a scratch resistant glass, an oleophobic coating that keeps this display spotless, and now has even undergone anti-reflective treatment to reduce glare and make it more usable outdoors.
The iPad Air 2 is one of the first few Apple devices to sport a fingerprint sensor in the form of Touch ID which is incubated right into the Home button. As of now, the iPhone 5s, the iPad mini 3 and the iPad Air 2 are the only devices from Apple’s line up to feature this unique and secure way to unlock your device.
The iPad Air 2 features an Apple A8X SoC under the hood with a triple-core 1.5GHz Typhoon and a PowerVR GXA6850 GPU. Backing all of this is 2 GB of RAM which keeps the device slick and lag-free. This tablet comes in 3 memory variants: 16 GB, 64 GB and 128 GB.
Both the cameras have been updated too. The rear camera is bumped up to 8 megapixels from the former 5 megapixel shooter on the iPad Air; and it supports burst mode, video recording at 1080p, slow-motion videos, geo-tagging, touch focus, HDR and panorama.
The front camera continues to be a 1.2 megapixel camera with f/2.2 aperture that comes with HDR mode. This guarantees much clearer video calls and selfies. It too, supports burst mode! It is capable of recording 720p videos, just as before.
For me, I’m not convinced this is the best Apple could do. There’s a lot more to achieve in the still-budding world of tablets, and I really don’t think Apple put their back into this one. It’s not that they’re running out of ideas, but they definitely aren’t showing much interest in this line of products at this time. The only possible silver lining I can think of, is that perhaps its their new iPhone or a Wearable thats soaking in all their time. That’s something I could live with.
Potential buyers.. well unless you really want the Touch ID, I think you can slide past this one and get the iPad Air (quickly though), and enjoy a rare stock-clearance discount.
The iPad Air 2 is available in three colours: Space Gray, Silver, Gold.
Update: The device originally came with iOS 8.1 and is now announced as being upgradable to iOS 9.0.2. All the new multitasking features of iOS 9 (Slide Over, Split View and Picture in Picture) will work on the iPad Air 2.
Originally published at Chip-Monks.
