iPad Air review: Still going with iOS 10

The camera is the one part of the system that hasn’t been upgraded, and the same 5-megapixel sensor from the iPad 4 is still used. Comparatively, this is getting a little out-of-date. For the resolution it’s not too bad, producing clear, well-exposed photos in bright lighting conditions. If you think you’ll use the camera a lot, then this is one area where the new iPad Air 2 is clearly ahead of last year’s model, as it has the new 8-megapixel camera from the iPhone 6.

In our test, the iPad Air produced near-identical results to that of the old iPad 4 camera. That’s to say, that outside in bright lighting, shots are well-exposed and colours natural. However, the resolution means that shots can lack detail. It’s also not very good in low-light, with plenty of noise creeping in the image. We get that most people probably take shots with their camera, which is why Apple put a lot of attention and work in the large-sensor 8-megapixel sensor in the iPhone 5S, but a small upgrade in the iPad Air wouldn’t have gone amiss.

The iPad Air (top) produces very similar results to the iPad 4 (bottom)

We also put the iPad Air through our standard photo tests, using our still-life setup of a toy train and cuddly toys inside a photo tent. Again, our tests showed that the iPad Air’s camera is very similar to that of the iPad 4, producing near-identical shots in all of our tests.

As we’ve come to expect from this sensor, the best results were in our brightly-lit test shot. As you can see from the image below there’s very little noise in the picture, and there’s plenty of detail throughout the shot. The train looks great, and the camera’s correctly picked up all of the colours in the scene.

It’s when we start to lower the light that the camera’s limitations come into play. In our low-light test shot, noise is a bit more of a problem, but the real problem is that the detail starts to go. As you can see from the shot below, the fur on the monkey and chicken lacks the full detail. The shot becomes a little soft and the fan at the top-left starts to blur into the background. These photos are perfectly usable online, but they lack the detail that, say, a high-end smartphone can produce.

Moving to the dimly-lit shot, which is very hard for even the best camera to deal with and you can see that the shot is full of noise. Colours vanish and there’s very little detail in the shot. As it stands, shots at this level of light aren’t very good to use anywhere.

Apple has upgraded the Facetime camera in the front of the iPad Air, moving to a 1.2-megapixel sensor with larger pixels and backside illumination, which is the same as the iPhone 5S has. Improving this camera makes more sense, as a lot of iPad users are more likely to use FaceTime rather than take photos.

Video

Video quality is pretty good from the Air. It’s capable of shooting Full HD video (1,920×1,080) and the quality is pretty good in bright-lighting, capturing plenty of detail. Quality starts to deteriorate in poor lighting conditions, which is bound to be a limitation of the comparatively-small sensor. However, for most situations, the Air does a great job. In fact, thanks to its relatively large size, keeping the iPad steady when shooting is easier than on an iPad – you can read our tips on shooting better video for more help. There’s no Slo-Mo mode, as with the iPhone 5S, which is a shame, although you can edit slow motion video shot an on iPhone on an iPad, at least.

Conclusion

The iPad Air is still one of our favourite tablets. It takes everything that the old iPad 4 did and does it better, in a smaller case. However, it’s the smaller size that really starts to confuse matters. Before, the choice between the iPad and iPad Mini was based on the compromises that you wanted to make: the full-size iPad was more powerful and had a larger, higher-resolution screen; the iPad Mini was smaller and easier to carry, at the expense of performance and screen resolution.

Now, with the newly renamed iPad Mini 2 (previously the iPad Mini with Retina Display), you can have the same resolution and performance, so the choice you have to make really comes down to size. If you travel all of the time and want a tablet that you’ll barely notice you’re carrying, the iPad Mini 2 is a clear choice, especially at just £239 inc VAT. If you carry your tablet less often and want the benefits of a larger screen, the iPad Air is the clear winner and it’s not actually that much bigger. In terms of size, price and performance the iPad Air is still our favourite tablet.