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First Impressions: Apple iPad Air 2 Tablet in Review

Slimmed down. The second generation of the iPad Air got even thinner. The new Apple A8X triple-core processor is a surprise. Not only the additional core makes the iPad the new performance reference, but also the powerful GPU. Many details have been improved, but the battery is smaller. Update 10/26: Measurements for the display and the power consumption

For the original German article, see here.

It is here! The new iPad Air. We want to give you our initial impressions of the review sample before the in-depth review follows in a couple of days. The big changes are happening on the inside. The predecessor is still the tablet reference and we expect nothing else from the Air 2. Apple put some work into that, listened to some feedback and once again significantly improved the performance. The battery runtimes are supposed to be identical. The issues of iOS 8 are supposed to be fixed by iOS 8.1, but we already had problems with the first benchmark.

The biggest competitors for the iPad Air 2 are probably the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.5Sony Xperia Z2 TabletMicrosoft Surface 2 and the upcoming Google Nexus 9.

Initial Impressions

The new iPad is now available in gold as well.
The new iPad is now available in gold as well.

The case of the Apple iPad Air 2 does not really differ from the predecessor. It is only slightly thinner with a height of 6.1 millimeters vs. 7.5 millimeters. It is also slightly lighter and only weighs 444 grams in the heavier LTE configuration. The aluminum body feels good in the hands and is a haptic highlight. Less convenient are the sharp edges that create the transition to the screen. Potential buyers shouldn't worry about the torsion resistance. We are pretty sure you can bend the Apple iPad Air 2 if you try really hard, but that shouldn't be a problem during everyday use.

Apple also improved the connectivity and finally introduces ac WLAN for its tablet. The LTE modem only supports transfer rates of up to 150 Mbps (Cat. 4). We would have expected the newer Cat. 6 standard, which can be twice as fast, from a high-end device. Bluetooth 4.0 is not up to date anymore, either.

NFC is not officially included, but the iPad Air has the NFC chip, only without the according antennas. This means you cannot use the tablet to pay in a store, but it seems that the NFC chip is required for Apple Pay. The security was also improved by Touch ID, which means that Apple's fingerprint scanner is now available in the tablet as well.

Size Comparison

275 mm / 10.8 inch 173 mm / 6.81 inch 8.9 mm / 0.3504 inch 643 g1.418 lbs267 mm / 10.5 inch 168 mm / 6.61 inch 8.9 mm / 0.3504 inch 620 g1.367 lbs266 mm / 10.5 inch 172 mm / 6.77 inch 6.4 mm / 0.252 inch 425 g0.937 lbs247.3 mm / 9.74 inch 177.3 mm / 6.98 inch 6.6 mm / 0.2598 inch 470 g1.036 lbs243.1 mm / 9.57 inch 171.4 mm / 6.75 inch 7.9 mm / 0.311 inch 535 g1.179 lbs240 mm / 9.45 inch 169.5 mm / 6.67 inch 7.5 mm / 0.2953 inch 464 g1.023 lbs240 mm / 9.45 inch 169.5 mm / 6.67 inch 6.1 mm / 0.2402 inch 444 g0.979 lbs221 mm / 8.7 inch 126 mm / 4.96 inch 9.2 mm / 0.3622 inch 371 g0.818 lbs210 mm / 8.27 inch 148 mm / 5.83 inch 1 mm / 0.03937 inch 2.9 g0.00639 lbs

Cameras & Multimedia

Improved: New main camera on the iPad Air 2.
Improved: New main camera on the iPad Air 2.

Something changed in regard to the cameras. The front camera is the usual FaceTime version that we already know from the iPhones, but the main camera was improved significantly and now takes pictures with up to 8 MP. It seems that Apple uses a combination of the cameras from the iPhone 5s and 5c since the aperture (f/2.4) is similar to the 5c, but the camera of the iPad Air 2 can record slow-motion videos with up to 120 fps. This means it probably cannot keep up with the camera of the iPhone 6, but at least it is flush with the case. There is still no additional light or flash.

iPad Air 2 (HDR, f/2.4, ISO 250)
iPad Air 2 (HDR, f/2.4, ISO 250)
iPad Air 2 (f/2.4, ISO 250)
iPad Air 2 (f/2.4, ISO 250)
iPad Air 2 (HDR, f/2.4, ISO 320)
iPad Air 2 (HDR, f/2.4, ISO 320)
iPad Air 2 (f/2.4, ISO 400)
iPad Air 2 (f/2.4, ISO 400)
Panorama shot with the iPad Air 2 (40 MP, f/2.4, ISO 1000)
Panorama shot with the iPad Air 2 (40 MP, f/2.4, ISO 1000)

Display

The thin case requires new display technology.
The thin case requires new display technology.

According to the specifications, the display did not really change. It is still a 9.7-inch screen with 2048x1536 pixels. However, Apple says they reduced the distance between the panel and the glass. This was actually a criticism in the review of the iPad Air where you could quickly see a ghost effect. A short test already shows that this issue was almost completely eradicated.

Otherwise, we will have to wait for the measurements to see if there are further differences. We hope that the color-space coverage in particular has been improved if Apple wants to compete with Samsung. We will publish the first results in the following days.

413
cd/m²
422
cd/m²
438
cd/m²
412
cd/m²
423
cd/m²
446
cd/m²
425
cd/m²
413
cd/m²
447
cd/m²
Distribution of brightness
Retina-Display tested with X-Rite i1Pro 2
Maximum: 447 cd/m² (Nits) Average: 426.6 cd/m²
Brightness Distribution: 92 %
Center on Battery: 423 cd/m²
Contrast: 693:1 (Black: 0.61 cd/m²)
ΔE Color 2.86 | 0.5-29.43 Ø5
ΔE Greyscale 2.37 | 0.57-98 Ø5.3
88% AdobeRGB 1998 (Argyll 1.6.3 3D)
Gamma: 2.43
Color Management
Color Management
RGB ColorChecker
RGB ColorChecker
AdobeRGB ColorChecker
AdobeRGB ColorChecker
Grayscale
Grayscale
Saturation Sweeps
Saturation Sweeps
Apple iPad Air 2 2014
PowerVR GXA6850, A8X, 128 GB eMMC Flash
Apple iPad Air 1 2013
PowerVR G6430, A7, 16 GB eMMC Flash
Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5
Mali-T628 MP6, 5420 Octa, 16 GB eMMC Flash
Sony Xperia Z2 Tablet
Adreno 330, 801 APQ8074AB, 32 GB eMMC Flash
Microsoft Surface Pro 3
HD Graphics 4400, 4300U, Hynix HFS128G3MNM
Screen
22%
-4%
-1%
-26%
Brightness middle
423
473
12%
290
-31%
461
9%
355.3
-16%
Brightness
427
442
4%
291
-32%
437
2%
338
-21%
Brightness Distribution
92
90
-2%
87
-5%
89
-3%
91
-1%
Black Level *
0.61
0.41
33%
0.59
3%
0.33
46%
Contrast
693
1154
67%
781
13%
1077
55%
Colorchecker dE 2000 *
2.86
2.82
1%
2.37
17%
3.55
-24%
4.72
-65%
Greyscale dE 2000 *
2.37
1.45
39%
2.03
14%
2.58
-9%
6.53
-176%
Gamma
2.43 91%
2.47 89%
2.45 90%
2.78 79%
2.17 101%
CCT
6941 94%
6768 96%
6521 100%
6342 102%
6707 97%
Color Space (Percent of AdobeRGB 1998)
88
100
14%
59.37
-33%

* ... smaller is better

Performance

The fastest GPU is inside the iPad Air 2.
The fastest GPU is inside the iPad Air 2.

The manufacturer surprised us a bit with the Apple A8X processor. The Californians actually waived the dual-core chips and now integrate a triple-core processor clocked at 1.5 GHz. The amount of memory was doubled to 2 GB. The advertised performance advantage of 40% is easily surpassed in the multi-core tests, but the advantage is not as big in the single-core benchmarks.

Apple claims that the GPU performance compared to the first iPad Air was improved by 150%. We cannot confirm this statement yet, but the performance advantage is definitely enormous and can even beat the Tegra K1. We are actually not quite sure what GPU is used by Apple. The most probable speculation is the PowerVR GX6650; maybe we will have a definitive answer in a couple of days.

Geekbench 3
32 Bit Single-Core Score (sort by value)
Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5
920 Points
Apple iPad Air 1 2013
1479 Points
Sony Xperia Z2 Tablet
915 Points
NVIDIA Shield Tablet P1761W
1127 Points
32 Bit Multi-Core Score (sort by value)
Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5
2712 Points
Apple iPad Air 1 2013
2687 Points
Sony Xperia Z2 Tablet
2327 Points
NVIDIA Shield Tablet P1761W
3495 Points
Linpack Android / IOS
Single Thread (sort by value)
Apple iPad Air 2 2014
1021 MFLOPS
Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5
382.8 MFLOPS -63%
Apple iPad Air 1 2013
558 MFLOPS -45%
Sony Xperia Z2 Tablet
347.9 MFLOPS -66%
NVIDIA Shield Tablet P1761W
673 MFLOPS -34%
Multi Thread (sort by value)
Apple iPad Air 2 2014
2429 MFLOPS
Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5
770 MFLOPS -68%
Apple iPad Air 1 2013
977 MFLOPS -60%
Sony Xperia Z2 Tablet
600 MFLOPS -75%
NVIDIA Shield Tablet P1761W
726 MFLOPS -70%
3DMark
1280x720 offscreen Ice Storm Unlimited Score (sort by value)
Apple iPad Air 2 2014
21707 Points
Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5
13908 Points -36%
Apple iPad Air 1 2013
14858 Points -32%
Sony Xperia Z2 Tablet
18806 Points -13%
NVIDIA Shield Tablet P1761W
33129 Points +53%
Microsoft Surface 2
14281 Points -34%
1280x720 offscreen Ice Storm Unlimited Graphics Score (sort by value)
Apple iPad Air 2 2014
31542 Points
Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5
13791 Points -56%
Apple iPad Air 1 2013
18868 Points -40%
Sony Xperia Z2 Tablet
19518 Points -38%
NVIDIA Shield Tablet P1761W
39590 Points +26%
Microsoft Surface 2
14812 Points -53%
1280x720 offscreen Ice Storm Unlimited Physics (sort by value)
Apple iPad Air 2 2014
10379 Points
Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5
14333 Points +38%
Apple iPad Air 1 2013
8520 Points -18%
Sony Xperia Z2 Tablet
16678 Points +61%
NVIDIA Shield Tablet P1761W
21086 Points +103%
Microsoft Surface 2
12692 Points +22%
Basemark X 1.1
Medium Quality (sort by value)
Apple iPad Air 2 2014
41488 Points
Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5
17779 Points -57%
Sony Xperia Z2 Tablet
25299 Points -39%
NVIDIA Shield Tablet P1761W
36584 Points -12%
High Quality (sort by value)
Apple iPad Air 2 2014
29502 Points
Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5
7846 Points -73%
Sony Xperia Z2 Tablet
12943 Points -56%
NVIDIA Shield Tablet P1761W
28746 Points -3%
BaseMark OS II
Overall (sort by value)
Apple iPad Air 2 2014
1967 Points
Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5
886 Points -55%
NVIDIA Shield Tablet P1761W
1431 Points -27%
System (sort by value)
Apple iPad Air 2 2014
4104 Points
Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5
1555 Points -62%
NVIDIA Shield Tablet P1761W
1012 Points -75%
Memory (sort by value)
Apple iPad Air 2 2014
832 Points
Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5
468 Points -44%
NVIDIA Shield Tablet P1761W
596 Points -28%
Graphics (sort by value)
Apple iPad Air 2 2014
4920 Points
Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5
1032 Points -79%
NVIDIA Shield Tablet P1761W
8065 Points +64%
Web (sort by value)
Apple iPad Air 2 2014
1263 Points
Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5
820 Points -35%
NVIDIA Shield Tablet P1761W
863 Points -32%
Peacekeeper - --- (sort by value)
Apple iPad Air 2 2014
2750 Points
Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5
851 Points -69%
Apple iPad Air 1 2013
1855 Points -33%
Sony Xperia Z2 Tablet
873 Points -68%
Microsoft Surface 2
791 Points -71%
Octane V2 - Total Score (sort by value)
Apple iPad Air 2 2014
10512 Points
Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5
4588 Points -56%
Apple iPad Air 1 2013
5113 Points -51%
Sony Xperia Z2 Tablet
4127 Points -61%
NVIDIA Shield Tablet P1761W
6777 Points -36%
Microsoft Surface 2
3368 Points -68%

Legend

 
Apple iPad Air 2 2014 Apple A8X, PowerVR GXA6850, 128 GB eMMC Flash
 
Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5 Samsung Exynos 5420 Octa, ARM Mali-T628 MP6, 16 GB eMMC Flash
 
Apple iPad Air 1 2013 Apple A7, PowerVR G6430, 16 GB eMMC Flash
 
Sony Xperia Z2 Tablet Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 APQ8074AB, Qualcomm Adreno 330, 32 GB eMMC Flash
 
NVIDIA Shield Tablet P1761W Nvidia Tegra K1, NVIDIA Tegra K1 Kepler GPU, 16 GB iNAND Flash
 
Microsoft Surface 2 Nvidia Tegra 4, NVIDIA GeForce Tegra 4, 32 GB eMMC Flash

Energy and Battery Runtime

The runtime of the Apple iPad Air is supposed to be up to 10 hours if you browse the web via WLAN. The runtime is one hour shorter when you use the LTE connection. We will check Apple's claim over the next few days since both the processor and the graphics solution are much more powerful, but the battery capacity was reduced by 15% to 27.6 Wh. This means Apple had to reduce the power consumption of the panel dramatically to meet the advertised runtimes.

Power Consumption
Off / Standbydarklight 0 / 0.1 Watt
Idledarkmidlight 1.2 / 5.1 / 5.4 Watt
Load midlight 7.9 / 11.1 Watt
 color bar
Key: min: dark, med: mid, max: light        Voltcraft VC 960
Currently we use the Metrahit Energy, a professional single phase power quality and energy measurement digital multimeter, for our measurements. Find out more about it here. All of our test methods can be found here.

Preliminary Verdict

The iPad Air 2
The iPad Air 2

The Apple iPad Air 2 leaves a great first impression with small drawbacks, even though this is complaining on a very high level. We don't expect any bad surprises during the review, but the latest device from Cupertino won't surpass the display of the Galaxy Tab S 10.5. In terms of performance, it will be neck and neck with Nvidia's Tegra K1 SoC.

As usual, Apple follows its own path and therefore it shouldn't be a surprise that you don't always get the latest communication modules, USB or even a slot for memory cards. The configurations were adjusted to the iPhones and the 32 GB version is not available anymore. The entry-level price was raised by 10 Euros (~$12). Still, the iPad Air 2 is a good package and definitely feels very good in terms of ergonomics and design. The tablet is on a good way to defend its top position.

We will update this article over the next couple of days and add our latest insights, measurements and benchmarks. Stay tuned!

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Daniel Schmidt, 2014-10-26 (Update: 2014-10-27)