iPad Air: Die ersten Testberichte sind da
Am Freitag wird das iPad Air in den Verkauf gehen und, allerdings nicht überall, auch bei uns in Deutschland erhältlich sein. Wie immer hat Apple schon im Vorfeld erste Testmuster an die Presse geschickt und da das Embargo soeben gefallen ist, wollen wir mal wieder einen Blick auf diese werfen. Ich habe mir die üblichen Kandidaten rausgesucht, die in den letzten Monaten durchaus interessante Ergebnisse geliefert haben, und euch einen kleinen Ausschnitt aus dem Testbericht und den Link zu eben diesem in diesem Beitrag gepackt. Im Laufe des Wochenende werden dann weitere Eindrücke (vielleicht auch schon von uns) folgen. Da in einigen Bundesländern aber am 1. November Feiertag ist, werde ich erst am Samstag mein Glück versuchen.
Für mich stand eigentlich schon im Vorfeld fest, dass es das iPad 5 wird, denn bis auf den Namen hat Apple keine große Überraschung parat gehabt und das geliefert, mit dem alle gerechnet haben. Ich hätte mir vielleicht noch TouchID gewünscht. Für einen Moment habe ich auch überlegt auf das iPad Mini mit Retina-Display zu warten, doch 10 Zoll ist für mich immer noch die optimale Tabletgröße. In den Testberichten gibt es übrigens auch keine großen Überraschungen. Ich glaube man könnte das iPad Air recht leicht zusammenfassen: Das bis jetzt beste Tablet ist leichter, dünner und auch schneller geworden. Überraschungen gibt es keine, aber die braucht es auch nicht.
Apple iPad Air Reviews
Surprise: the iPad Air is the best iPad we’ve reviewed. In addition, though, it’s also the most comfortable 10-inch tablet we’ve ever tested. Not every manufacturer can produce a thin and light device without also making it feel cheap or flimsy, but Apple nailed it. Factor in a sizable boost in performance and battery life, and the Air is even more compelling. The last two iPads served up relatively few improvements, but the Air provides people with more of a reason to upgrade or even buy a tablet for the first time.
The iPad Air is the no-compromise tablet. Beautiful display, crisp design, premium build quality: it’s the gold-standard by which tablets are judged, and rightly so. If Apple’s full-sized slates had fallen into the shadow of their mini brethren over the past twelve months, the iPad Air brings the larger tablet right back into the spotlight.
I’ve been obsessed with devices that convey the sort of lightweight yet high quality computing slate feel that I always imagined tablets could be. The list of devices that achieves that goal in my mind is pretty limited. The iPad mini did it, as did the 2013 Nexus 7. The iPad Air joins those two in a major way. In fact it’s the first tablet of this size to really feel right. The first iPad looked great but needed improvement on so many vectors. The second gave us a size and weight reduction but lost some of the luxury feel in the process. We know the story of numbers 3 and 4 which amounted to a set of tradeoffs in order to accommodate a Retina Display, but with the iPad Air Apple hits a balance of features, design and ergonomics that I don’t think we’ve ever seen in the iPad.
But this new iPad Air just kept going, clocking a battery life of 12 hours and 13 minutes, which exceeded Apple’s claim by more than 20 percent. The company says its A7 chip, combined with the fact it controls its own operating system, gives the new iPad the ability to tailor under-the-hood processes so unneeded drains on the battery can be minimized.
The bottom line, though, is that for anyone who sees an iPad as a supplemental device, the iPad Air is a very compelling alternative to the iPad Mini. It’s so much lighter than the iPad 3/4, both as something to carry when traveling and to hold while using, that it significantly diminishes the iPad Mini’s primary distinguishing feature. For anyone who has spent the last year thinking, Well, I would like something lighter, sure, but I’m not crazy about the idea of such a small display, because I want to use my iPad for things where a bigger display is better, like watching movies, reading magazines and comic books, and touch-typing in landscape orientation — the iPad Air is the device for you.
This smaller size is great. If you have decent sized hands you can type with two thumbs on the iPad in portrait, something I wasn’t really able to do with the last generation iPad without a lot of stretching. Clearly a full-size iPad is not something you will be thumb typing with all the time, but it does give you an idea of how much smaller the iPad Air is.
The iPad Air is a huge improvement over the iPad 4th-gen, or the iPad 2, pictured in the gallery. Its form factor is the best currently available for a 10-inch tablet, and it provides a great blend of portability and usability that leans towards the media device end of the spectrum. When Apple introduced the iPad mini, I feel in love and felt that I’d never be swayed back to the other side. The iPad Air makes the argument anew that there’s still room for big tablets in people’s lives, and it might just help usher in an era of computing where households own more than one kind of iPad, and PCs are harder and harder to find.
But make no mistake: if you buy the iPad Air you’ll be very happy. Apple has created an experience that far outweighs specs on a spec sheet and that will be hard for the competition to match. That in itself makes it the best tablet on the market in terms of performance, apps, and desirability, until the iPad mini with Retina display comes along, and then the fight over which iPad to get really starts.
Pocket-Int
If you found yourself tuning out the last few generations of iPad thanks to their extreme familiarity, it’s time to get yourself dialed back in. The iPad Air is worth getting excited about. Though it brings no new functionality to the table, and we can’t help being disappointed about the lack of Touch ID, the performance increase and solid battery life show that progress is still being made on the inside. It’s the new exterior design, however, that really impresses. The iPad Air is thinner than any tablet this size deserves to be, and lighter, too. The old iPad always felt surprisingly hefty. This one, compellingly lithe.
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