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Review: Apple iPad Air 2, Mini 3 - a mixed bag

By Andre Schild, ITWeb contributor.
Johannesburg, 21 Nov 2014

When Apple unveiled the new iPad Air 2 and iPad Mini 3 last month, the new fingerprint reader appeared to be the biggest upgrade.

To find out if the subtle changes offer enough improvements to justify buying one - for business users - we thoroughly tested both versions for a week. We used the devices for office activities like browsing, communicating, editing documents, presentations and spreadsheets. Also, we benchmarked and measured the performance and quality of the hardware, screen and battery, using industry-standard tools and software.

Look and feel

Last year's iPad Air, only 7.5mm thick and weighing a mere 469g, was already a huge step in the lighter, thinner direction. This year, the 9.7-inch Air 2 is even more so - only 6.1mm thick and weighing just 437g. Admittedly, these are tiny differences; they do, however, make the Air 2 the thinnest and lightest tablet in the 10-inch range.

Similar lightweight tablets are the 10.1-inch Sony Xperia Z2 tablet (439g) and the 8.9-inch Google Nexus 9 (425g). The 7.9-inch iPad Mini 3, on the other hand, remains exactly the same as the Mini 2 ? 7.5mm thick and 331g.

Both the iPad Air 2 and Mini 3 feel very solid and durable, and they will have no problem surviving the roughest office days or business trips. The aluminium housing has a very exclusive finish to it and a great feel in the hand, thanks to the slightly curved edges. The backs of both iPads tend to scratch easily because of the relative softness of the aluminium material used, so a protective casing is a good idea.

The most obvious upgrade the new iPads offer is the Touch-ID fingerprint reader. It uses the same technology and, just like with the iPhone 5S and 6 (Plus), is nicely integrated with the Home button. With just a quick touch of your finger, the new iPads can be easily unlocked. The fingerprint reader can also be used to securely buy content from the App Store. Because iOS 8 now allows third-party apps to use the Touch-ID sensor, and the new Apple Pay service will inevitably also reach SA, it will prove a useful new feature.

Under the hood

The second-biggest improvement of the iPad Air 2 is the new A8X processor. Just like with the iPhone 6 (Plus), this A8X is based on Apple's second-generation 64-bit architecture. It is Apple's first chip to use three separate cores, each running at 1.5GHz, to do most of the processing. For graphics, however, a separate and more efficient GPU (graphical processing unit) is used. Apple claims this GPU is now up to 2.5 times faster than the one used in the first iPad Air.

With the Apple SIM, business users will finally be able to easily switch to rival carriers whenever and wherever they want, ultimately avoiding expensive roaming fees.

On paper, the iPad Air 2 houses an impressive array of new internal hardware that should easily outperform previous models. However, when used for typical office activities like e-mailing, Skype, browsing and editing documents or presentations, there is no noticeable difference.

During the presentation of these two new iPad models, Apple clearly put more emphasis on how the new Air 2 can replace the notebook by showing how well it performed when used for heavy photo and video editing.

That new course might also help explain why Apple decided to equip the iPad Air 2 with 2GB of RAM instead of just 1GB that the Air 1 was equipped with. Only when using the iPad Air 2 more like a regular notebook and creating and producing, instead of mainly consuming information and content, will the extra RAM come in handy.

The Air 2 also boasts the new M8 motion co-processor that continuously handles data from various sensors like the accelerometer, digital compass and gyroscope and the new digital barometer. The new iPad Air 2 now also supports the latest 802.11ac WiFi standard offering higher speeds and a more stable connection.

Unfortunately, Apple still equips its basic models of both new iPads with a mere 16GB of storage. Since iOS steals some of those GBs, users are left with approximately 9GB for all their apps, music, videos and photos. Because there is no way to increase the storage capacity afterwards, the only alternative is to stash more content and files in the cloud. Online storage services like Apple's own iCloud Drive or the popular Dropbox can be used, but they only offer a few GBs free storage. If you want more storage, iCloud Drive will set you back R50 a month for 200GB extra.

Having only a few GBs of free storage is also a problem because apps, photos and videos are getting bigger, due to the higher resolution of the new iPads. Also, the prices of flash memory chips have dropped considerably in the last couple of years. Therefore, it's disappointing to see Apple equips its cheapest model with just 16GB.

Where the iPad Air has seen some big improvements under its hood, Apple decided to leave the internal hardware of the iPad Mini 3 exactly as it was. It still features the dual-core 1.4GHz Apple A7 chip, M7 motion coprocessor and 1GB of RAM. For everyday office activities like communicating, browsing and editing documents this is more than enough power. We would have liked to see some kind of upgraded hardware though, if only to make it more future-proof.

The WiFi + Cellular versions of both the iPad Air 2 and Mini 3 come bundled with the new Apple SIM. It's a first-of-its-kind card that easily lets you change you cellular carrier without also having to physically change your SIM card. This means travelling business users can easily select a local carrier from their screen and get online within seconds and avoid expensive roaming fees. For now, the Apple SIM feature is only available with selected carriers in the US and UK.

Performance

To measure how the new internal hardware of the iPad Air 2 performs, we used a set of benchmarking tools and software. Geekbench is a free benchmarking tool that is available for all popular operating systems and platforms. It tries to simulate real-world scenarios to determine how fast the hardware actually is. From Geekbench, we learnt that the iPad Air 2 performs 45% better than the first iPad Air, mainly because of the extra processor core.

Our second benchmark tool is called Kraken (also free and cross-platform), and factors in the browser and operating system as well. It shows us that the Air 2 is considerably faster than similar devices like the Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro 10.1, Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5, Sony Xperia Z2 tablet and the first iPad Air. In fact, according to the specific Kraken test, it is the second-fastest tablet at this moment. Only the new Google Nexus 9 tablet outperforms the iPad Air 2.

The third benchmark tool we used is called Peacekeeper, which is again free and multi-platform. Peacekeeper also measures the hardware, operating system and browser. It shows us that the iPad Air 2 reigns supreme by easily outperforming all other tablets on the market, including the Google Nexus 9 tablet.

Because iOS 8 now allows third-party apps to use the Touch-ID sensor, and the new Apple Pay service will inevitably also reach South Africa, it will prove a useful new feature.

We also benchmarked the GPU of the iPad Air 2 to see how much better it can handle complex 3D-graphics. We used the cross-platform GFXBench software to learn that even in the graphics department, the iPad Air 2 blows competing devices from Samsung, Sony and Google away. When compared to the first iPad Air, the Air 2 can process graphics almost 2.5 times faster.

Since the internal hardware in the new iPad Mini 3 is identical to that of the Mini 2, the processing power is also identical. The Apple iPad Mini 3 performs roughly the same as the first iPad Air, both in generic and graphical processing power. When compared to recent, similar sized devices the Mini 3 simply falls short, mainly because it uses last year's hardware. The 8-inch Sony Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact, 8.4-inch Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro 8.4 and 8.9-inch Google Nexus 9 all outperform the Apple iPad Mini 3 in generic and graphic processing power according to our benchmark test.

Screen

The iPad Air 2 features the same 9.7-inch screen with a resolution of 2 048 x 1 536, resulting in 264 pixels per inch. Both the screen size and high resolution are ideal for reading text, video conferencing, browsing Web sites, displaying photos or video and editing presentations or spreadsheets.

To reduce reflections of ambient light in the office, or the sun, Apple applied a special anti-reflective coating on the Air 2. It also used a laminating technique in the manufacturing process, which should prevent small pockets air from forming between the three layers of the screen. Apple claims, with these two new modifications, reflections should be considerably reduced.

To put this to a test, we took our first iPad Air, placed it next to the new Air 2 and held a typical fluorescent office lamp above the screens. Unfortunately, we still perceived pesky reflections although those on the iPad Air 2 seemed darker than the ones on the Air 1.

To accurately measure the brightness and contrast of the new iPad Air 2 screen, we used our specialised colorimeter. It showed the same brightness, colour accuracy and contrast as the iPad Air 1, which are excellent and one of the best we've come across.

The screen of the new iPad Mini 3 has remained exactly the same as the one featured on the Mini 2, offering the same high resolution as the iPad Air 1 and 2, but on a smaller surface. This results in a density of 326 pixels per inch.

Unfortunately, the screen falls short on brightness, contrast, viewing angle and colour reproduction when compared not only to the iPad Air 1 and 2, but also compared to most modern and similar-sized Android devices. From an absolute point of view, though, the screen delivers enough viewing quality to comfortably perform day-to-day office activities.

Battery life

Battery life is a key consideration for business users. Despite the fact that the iPad Air 2 offers some powerful new hardware, Apple still claims it can last up to 10 straight hours on a fully charged battery. To put that claim to the test, we ran the device through our specialised benchmarking script that uses typical office activities to drain the battery as fast as possible.

Apple iPad Air 2 in summary

Pros:Thin and light, powerful hardware, excellent screen, fingerprint reader
Cons: Only 16GB in basic model, slightly shorter battery life than iPad Air 1
Dimensions: 240 x 169.5 x 6.1mm
Weight: WiFi-only version: 437g, WiFi + cellular version: 444g
Storage: 16GB, 64GB, 128GB
Screen: 9.7-inch (2 048 x 1 536, 264ppi)
Connectivity: USB, WiFi, Bluetooth, 3G/4G/LTE (WiFi + cellular version)
Processor: Apple A8X (triple-core, 64-bit architecture) + M8 motion coprocessor
Rating: 9/10
Price: R6 699 (WiFi only, 16GB), R8.499 (WiFi + cellular, 16GB)
Availability: Now
Product page: http://www.apple.com/ipad-air-2/

We found the iPad Air 2 survived for only seven hours in our test. In real-life, this would roughly translate into nine to 10 hours of typical business activities like communicating, reading and editing documents, presentations or spreadsheets. With the significantly improved hardware performance and slightly thinner construction in mind, this is quite an achievement.

Both the Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro 10.1 (11.5 hours) and the Galaxy Note 10.1 (2014 edition) (8.5 hours) easily outlasted the iPad Air 2.

The iPad Mini 3 was able to survive for nine full hours, roughly the same as the iPad Mini 2. In real-life, this would relate to 11-12 hours of office productivity. The internal hardware of the iPad Mini 3 clearly manages its energy resources very efficiently. Also, the lower brightness, contrast and overall performance aid in prolonging its battery life. The only similar sized device that lasted longer than the iPad Mini 3 in the same test was Sony's 8-inch Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact (10 hours).

Camera

Apple has fitted the Air 2 with an 8MP rear camera, where the first iPad Air could only handle 5MP. Unfortunately, it didn't go all the way by putting in a LED camera flash. The overall quality, however, was identical to that of the iPad Air 1.

Using the rear 8MP camera, the iPad Air 2 can capture some good-quality 1 080p Full-HD video. It can now also shoot 120 frames per second slow-motion video in 720p resolution and make time-lapsed videos. To top it all off, the Air 2 features the new burst-mode that takes 10 photos a second and suggests the ones you might like best afterwards. Video quality was already quite acceptable on the first iPad Air. Due to the new sensor in the Air 2, it handles low-light situations slightly better without getting too grainy. The 1.2MP front-facing camera has also been slightly improved so it can better handle low-light situations.

Apple iPad Mini 3 in summary

Pros: Thin and light, great battery life, high-resolution screen, fingerprint reader
Cons: Lacks innovation, too expensive compared to previous model, screen lacks Retina quality, only 16GB in basic model
Dimensions: 200 x 134.7 x 7.5mm
Weight: WiFi only version: 331g, WiFi + cellular version: 341g
Storage: 16GB, 64GB, 128GB
Screen: 7.9-inch (2 048 x 1 536, 326ppi)
Connectivity: USB, WiFi, Bluetooth, 3G/4G/LTE (WiFi + cellular version)
Processor: Apple A7 (dual-core, 64-bit architecture) + M7 motion coprocessor
Rating: 5/10
Price: R5 499 (WiFi only, 16GB), R7 299 (WiFi + Cellular, 16GB)
Availability: Now
Product page: http://www.apple.com/ipad-mini-3/

Both the 1.2MP front camera and the 5MP rear camera on the iPad Mini 3 remain completely untouched. It's adequate for most situations, except low-light ones, but don't expect anything spectacular.

Verdict

At first glance, the iPad Air 2 might not look that spectacular. The already excellent design and screen are practically unchanged and the only visible upgrade is the fingerprint reader that made its debut on the iPhone 5S.

But never judge an iPad by its appearance; the Air 2 is a genuine powerhouse and a beast at complex 3D graphics. Demanding business users who plan to do some serious photo and video editing, or like to play the latest 3D games during their lunch break, will profit most from the powerful A8X chip. Users simply looking for a future-proof device will find the Air 2 to be the right choice because of its cutting-edge hardware and excellent fingerprint reader.

Those using it for typical office activities will never reap the benefits of the new hardware. The only significant upgrade ? the fingerprint reader ? hardly justifies spending R6 699. These business users will find the iPad Air 1, which has been reduced in price starting at R5 299, to be an attractive and adequate alternative.

And then there's the iPad Mini 3. The only improvement this new version has to offer is the fingerprint reader. For that, Apple now charges R5 499 for the 16GB WiFi-only version. A price that simply cannot be justified by the hardware you get in return. The best alternative is the much cheaper (R3 999) and still excellent iPad Mini 2 (Retina).

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