Tech Guide’s iPad Air review

By Stephen Fenech On Nov 1, 2013

The iPad Air is certainly an appropriate name for Apple’s latest device. Despite its amazing thinner and lighter design it still delivers a powerhouse performance.

Apple’s highly anticipated new product has had its most significant re-design to date.

It looks a lot sleeker and noticeably smaller yet still manages to fit in the same dazzling 9.7-inch Retina Display.

The changes are obvious even before you hold it in your hand.

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The first thing we noticed when we started our iPad Air review was how much lighter it was but still with its trademark solid build quality.

The “airness” of the iPad Air comes from the fact it is also incredibly thin. In fact, it’s as thin as the smaller iPad Mini.

The edges are a lot more rounded than the previous design with a polished edge running right around the screen.

But the biggest change you’ll notice is to the overall width of the product.

The frames either side of the screen is 43 per cent narrower than the previous designs. In fact it makes the older iPads look huge.

We could actually grip the iPad Air with one hand – something we definitely couldn’t do with the older iPads.

But while the iPad Air is sporting a great new look, it is equally impressive under the hood as well.

The faster A7 64-bit processor makes a big difference to performance. It was noticeably snappier across the board during our iPad Air review with apps opening and closing instantly.

Even scrolling through long lists of emails or web pages was smoother and faster as was moving between app screens.

Another bonus for customers and one more of the many reasons why people will buy the iPad Air is the fact that Apple’s most powerful apps – iPhoto, iMovie, Pages, Numbers, Keynote and GarageBand – are now preloaded on the device for free.

These apps alone can provide similar capabilities and performance to a laptop for basic to mid-level tasks.

And the App Store now has more than 475,000 apps which have been especially built for iPad as well.

This means there are plenty of choices to find the right apps for exactly what you want to do with your device.

One of the many strengths of the iPad is the battery life and the iPad Air is no different with a promise from Apple of 10 hours of performance.

It actually runs longer than that – more than 12 hours – and that’s with movies playing, apps running and surfing web pages.

Apple’s iPad Air had taken the product from great to extraordinary. It has ticked the boxes for excellent design, brilliant performance and even longer battery life.

The iPad Air is easily the best tablet on the market today.

iPad Air

Price: From $598