iPad Air 2
It's even thinner and lighter
than last time around and to a noticeable extent. The screen is better, with
more vibrant colours, it's more powerful thanks to its A8X processor and the
battery life holds up just as well. It even benefits from Touch ID and Apple
Pay and while these features aren't as exciting here as they are on phones
they're still nice to have. Performance
The 64-bit A7
processor introduced on the iPhone 5S was altered to provide a power boost to
last year’s iPad Air. Called the A7X this chip was similar in performance to
the A7 – up 5-10% in our benchmark tests.
This year Apple
has gone further and designed a processor specifically for the iPad Air 2. The
A8X has a tri-core CPU running at 1.5GHz and a quad-core graphics processing
unit coupled, for the first time, to 2GB of RAM.
If we play
Specs Top Trumps the iPad Air 2 looks a shadow of top-end Android tablets such
as the Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5 and its 2.3GHz quad-core processor.
Don’t let that fool you, though. The iPad Air 2 is the most powerful tablet
we’ve ever tested – and that’s including Nvidia’s Shield Tablet that packs the great new Tegra K1.
And while the
processor is key to that performance, Apple has also ensured that iOS 8 can
make the most of it. Metal lets developers take full advantage of the quad-core
GPU, while the new iOS programming language, Swift, means apps can hook into
certain features such as Touch ID.
Some observers have even compared the iPad Air 2's
performance to a desktop PC. In some respects they’re right. The A8X processor
performs a few tasks faster than PCs just a few years old, but the question is:
do you need all that power? If you intend to use your iPad as a productivity
device then you’ll appreciate it. Even if you don’t, you may find yourself
using it more as a laptop replacement than you anticipated.
During the launch of the Air 2, Apple showed off a
video-editing app called Replay that lets you create slick-looking videos with
ease. The iPad Air 2 powered through the edits.
There are clear benefits to be had from the extra
performance, but let’s see how it stacks up against the competition.
The iPad Air 2 scores an excellent 4,509 on Geekbench 3.
To put that in some context, the next fastest tablet we’ve reviewed, the Nvidia
Shield, scored 3220 – that’s 40% faster. That also makes the iPad Air 2 almost
70% faster than the iPad Air. That’s some impressive work in just a year.
And the wins keep coming with a 3D Mark Ice Storm
Unlimited score of 21,797. That’s 33% higher than the Shield and almost 50%
better than the first-generation iPad Air.
The iPad Air 2 is astonishingly fast – so fast, in fact,
that you might not know what to do with all that power. Not that we’re
complaining, of course. The extra grunt means that this is a tablet you can use
for more than just checking out the latest memes and Facebook. It future-proofs
the Air 2 to some degree.
There’s also been an upgrade to the co-processor, now
called the M8. This handles all the sensor data from the iPad Air 2, such as
the accelerometer and the new barometer. The reason that Apple favours a
co-processor is that it uses much less power than the main processor, helping
the battery to last longer.
In
short the iPad Air 2 really is the complete package and while you can always
find things to niggle about there are no significant flaws. In the time since the original iPad Air launched everything else is
still struggling to match it and yet Apple has managed to raise the benchmark
higher still. Everyone else really has their work cut out if the iPad Air 2 is
going to be unseated from the number one spot. The new iPad Air gets an
improved A8X processor, better rear and front-facing cameras, an even thinner
and lighter design, an anti-reflective screen, a Touch ID fingerprint sensor,
and more built-in storage at higher configurations than last year. But
The Air 2 isn't a big change from last year's iPad in terms of overall
function; battery life remains the same, although its battery life is already
pretty good. Audio playback via speakers makes the thin metal body resonate
more than before. The
Bottom Line The iPad Air 2 is a nice refinement and finesse of last year's
model, with a bevy of tweaks, enhancements, a much faster processor, and the
welcome addition of Touch ID. Simply put: it's still the gold standard for
tablets.
Weight: 437g | Dimensions: 240 x
169.5 x 6.1mm | OS: iOS 8.1 | Screen size: 9.7-inch | Resolution:
1536 x 2048 | CPU: Triple-core 1.5 GHz | RAM: 2GB | Storage:
16/64/128GB | Battery: 7340mAh | Rear camera: 8MP | Front
camera: 1.2MP
The
iPad mini 3 The iPad mini range is still a
brilliant proposition, offering the best of the iPad but squishing it down into
a smaller package.
Well, that's what happened last
year - this year Apple has basically rebooted the Mini 2, put TouchID on the
front, made it gold and called it a new tablet. Performance
The iPad mini 3
has exactly the same processor as the iPad mini 2 and iPhone
5S – a 64-bit A7
dual-core processor with 1GB of RAM. The cores run at 1.3GHz, as opposed to the
iPad Air 2’s tri-core 1.5GHz, and a quad-core GPU provides plenty of grunt for
3D gaming.
Even though
it’s a year old, it’s still a very competent processor. The iPad mini 3 zips
through menus on iOS 8 and apps open with speed. Games look fantastic,
particularly those made with the 64-bit architecture in mind, such as Infinity
Blade 3.
As expected, in
our benchmark tests the iPad mini 2 scores almost exactly the same as its
predecessor. It scored 2550 on Geekbench 3 and 14,009 on 3D Mark Ice Storm
Unlimited – both decent scores, but less than the Snapdragon 801 or 805 that
most top Android tablets have. It’s also a lot less than the Nvidia Shield Tabletcan muster. That scores
3209 on Geekbench 3 and a whopping 29,206 on Ice Storm Unlimited. That’s more
than double the gaming performance for a lot less cash.
However, the
iPad mini 3, like the mini 2 before it, performs well and should still do so
for a few years to come.
It's
only ahead of the older version (a cheaper option while offering the same specs
minus the biometrics) due to this being a list of the best tablets, and this is
the best mini tablet from Apple, but it's not offering a lot more than last
year's model.
What it does bring is good
though: iOS 8 works very well on the mini 3, and the overall speed and compact
size is still a very good combo, even at the higher price. Weight: 331g |
Dimensions: 200 x 134.7 x 7.5mm | OS: iOS 8.1 | Screen size: 7.9-inch| Resolution:
1536 x 2048 | CPU: Dual-core 1.3GHz | RAM: 1GB | Storage: 16/64/128GB |
Battery: 6470mAh | Rear camera: 5MP | Front camera: 1.2MP 
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