iPad Air review: Still going with iOS 10

The iPad Air uses the A7 system-on-a-chip (SoC) that it introduced with the iPhone 5S. It was the company’s first 64-bit mobile processor, which means that the tablet is capable of handling more data and running more complicated apps. For example, we’ve seen the iPad Air running full CAD software, scaling and editing complex 3D models – that’s impressive on a desktop computer, let alone a tablet.

New processor architecture also means that there are larger general-purpose registers and more of them than with previous Apple chips. This means that the processor needs to spend less time dealing with relatively slow system RAM, speeding up apps whether they’re 32-bit or 64-bit.

The A7 has a dual-core CPU. While there are plenty of quad-core CPUs out there, it’s not the number of cores that are the most important thing, or how fast each core is, but how each core is actually used. With that in mind, the A7 is impressively fast. Even now, months after the chip was introduced, it’s on par with some of the chips in newer Android devices. It managed to complete the Sunspider JavaScript test in just 402ms – that’s an even faster score than the iPhone 5S. The slight discrepancy is because for the iPad Air Apple has upped the clock speed from 1.3GHz to 1.4GHz, which is most likely because the iPad Air’s larger case allows for better cooling.

A second part of the A7 SoC is an improved graphics core. With previous iPads Apple had to create a special version of its mobile chip with quad-core graphics; so, the iPad 4 got the A6X, which was a modified version of the A6 used in the iPhone 5. This time around, the A7 is plenty powerful enough as it is, so it comes with the regular graphics core as used in the iPhone 5S.

Again, this is the fastest that we’ve ever seen. We ran the 3DMark Ice Storm benchmark, which maxed out on the Ice Storm and Ice Storm Extreme tests. In the Ice Storm Unlimited test, it got a score of 14,281, which is higher than most devices get in the lower tests. It’s safe to say that no matter what game you want to play, the iPad Air is plenty fast enough to handle it.

Needless to say, the iPad Air is lightning fast in day-to-day use. All of the animations in iOS 7 are super-smooth and the system is always responsive. Android may have made a lot of headway in recent years, speeding up its OS and making it smoother, but the iPad and iOS are still out in front.

As with the iPhone 5S, the iPad Air also has the M7 motion coprocessor. This low-power part receives data from all of the iPad’s sensors. This means that the iPad knows if it’s stationary, if you’re walking or if you’re driving. The data can be used in clever ways. For example, if you put your 4G iPad down and there’s no signal, the M7 knows it’s not moving and there’s no point in hunting for a signal. At the moment there aren’t many uses for the M7, but with the technology there and open to app developers we expect to see it used more and more.

Battery life

One of the main reasons that Apple was able to get the weight of its tablet down was because it installed a slimmer battery. Thanks to the more power-efficient A7 chip, Apple has said that the new model has the same battery life of the iPad 4, quoting 10 hours of web browsing. Apple is typically quite conservative on its battery life figures, so this is really the minimum that we’d expect. Our tests showed this assumption to be true in our video playback test, with the iPad Air lasting 12h 24m hours. By any standards that’s impressive, but for a large-screen table that’s so thin, it’s fantastic, particularly as that’s more than two hours longer than the iPad 4 lasted in the same test.

Using the tablet for months, we have to say that it rarely needs charging, lasting for days of use at a time. That’s brilliant news, as you can carry this tablet with you everywhere and know that you’ll still have charge. It’s worth mentioning that you should use the 2.4A USB charger that’s provided in the box (or another high-power charger), as the iPad is incredibly slow to charge off an iPhone or similar low-power charger. Using the model in the box dramatically cuts charge times, plus you can use the same charger to quickly charge your iPhone.

Wireless and 4G

Apple has upgraded the 4G chip in the Wi-Fi + Cellular version of the iPad Air, so you can now use the tablet on any 4G network in the UK. That’s great news if you want the fastest mobile data. It should also be good news when 4G roaming eventually comes in, as the iPad Air will run on most European networks, too.

There’s no 802.11ac wireless networking, but Apple has fitted dual antennas to its 802.11n chip (dual-band), adding MIMO for the first time. This gives a headline speed of 300Mbit/s, but MIMO also means better reception, so you should get a good signal in most parts of your home.