New Air! Apple renews its iPad Air tablet. Fifth generation of the ultra-thin slate of the apple brand, now in Wifi and 5G, the newcomer advances with a partly revised technical sheet. Aim: to optimize uses, all uses, whether they relate to simple entertainment or production. Are Apple’s promises kept? 20 minutes took the time to test it and gives you its verdict!
Light and pleasant in the hand
10.9 inches, 6.1 mm thick, 461 grams: the new Apple iPad Air has measurements that flatter the retina. But not only. Very pleasant in the hand, the slate, which comes in five colors (including a new blue), is a truly beautiful object with perfect finishes. Like the iPad Air 4, the fifth iteration of the slate is rid of the Touch ID button on the front, which this time goes to the upper right edge. Handling is a little less easy, but fingerprint unlocking is extremely responsive. Another benefit: the black side borders around the image are downright twice as thin.
Frustrated Gamers
This gives the display more breath. As always with Apple, the image is perfectly calibrated, fine and in bright colors. But we would have frankly appreciated that for this new iPad Air, an OLED screen replaces the proposed LCD screen. The contrasts would have been all the better. In addition, Apple offers on a tablet which is also made to play a panel with a refresh rate of 60 Hz, where 120 Hz would have made the hearts of gamers.
Consolation: the two integrated speakers broadcast a frankly canon, meaty and ample sound, which really makes you want to put down your headphones or earphones to watch your movies and series in streaming.
The M1 chip to create in the big leagues
But the real change is inside. The iPad Air benefits from the Apple brand’s M1 processor, the one on which we are full of praise. The processor is the engine. It already equipped the MacBook Pro, MacBook Air and Mac mini. 60% faster than the A15 Bionic chip of the iPad Air 4, it is also twice as fast in terms of display.
Composed of 16 cores, the neural processor (ie the brain) is capable of performing 11 trillion operations at the same time (one billion billion). Which gives this: 11,000,000,000,000,000,000!
Question of uses
In use, it shows. Or not. Everything depends on the uses, precisely, and it seems wise here to warn potential future buyers: if you are looking for a state-of-the-art tablet for your entertainment alone, the iPad Air will not disappoint you, but you risk offering yourself a Ferrari to drive on small country roads.
On the other hand, if you are creative and need resources for some demanding applications (like Lightroom, Photoshop, ProCreate…), it is for you! Welcome, then, to the most demanding video games, 3D modeling, photo editing in RAW format, 4K HDR video editing and all that joy that ultimately makes the iPad Air a halfway tablet. between the slate for entertainment… and the professional tool.
Center Stage innovates
We will not necessarily offer the iPad Air to take photos. If Apple now integrates a 12-megapixel photo sensor on the back (can shoot in 4K up to 60 frames per second), the photo quality offered is worthy of that of an iPhone 11. It’s not so badly, but the results obtained become perfectible when good light conditions are not met.
At the front, there is now a 12 megapixel ultra-wide-angle sensor, compared to 7 megapixels previously. With him, the idea is not to take group selfies, but to take advantage of the new Center Stage function offered by Apple thanks to machine learning. With it, the user is recognized and his face is tracked and always placed in the center of the screen during visios (now in 1080p). It works perfectly with FaceTime, but also with other apps, like Zoom. We also found that the built-in noise reduction system was quite effective when conf calls.
For its part, the autonomy of the iPad Air does not change and remains stuck at around ten hours. However, we see that the M1 chip is on the move and saves battery power on demanding applications, such as video editing. Still, the charging time of the iPad Air with the supplied 20W charger remains quite long: around 2h30 according to our tests, via the now USB-C port of the tablet.
Very quickly more expensive than a MacBook Air
Sold from 699 euros in Wifi version with 64 GB of memory, the iPad seduces as much as it challenges. Why, in 2022, not offer 128 GB storage (we switch directly to the 256 GB model)? Why only offer an LCD panel on a super-powerful machine that is also/especially aimed at creators? And what about the price of accessories: 135 euros for the 2nd generation Apple Pencil stylus and 339 euros for the Magic Keybord keyboard. Which can raise the bill to 1,173 euros… where a MacBook Air with M1 chip in 256 GB costs 1,129 euros…