iPad Air
Do you still need the Pro version?
The new iPad Air goes on sale on March 18th.
© spot on news
A new iPad Air will be on Apple shelves starting Friday. Can the new variant compete with the big brothers of the Pro series?
Apple has given its iPad Air, which has so far been somewhat narrow-chested, a makeover. From Friday, March 18th, the 5th generation of the tablet will be available in stores around the world. The news agency spot on news had the opportunity to extensively test the latest version from Cupertino before it went on sale. Although nothing has changed visually, the tech company is bringing the inner workings up to date. How big is the difference to the iPad Pro anyway?
Since the 4th generation, which was presented in autumn 2020, the iPad Air has said goodbye to its visual relationship with the entry-level model and has since been based on its big brother, the iPad Pro. Nothing has changed here in the 5th generation of Apple’s mid-range tablet: the look with harder edges that we’ve been used to for some time from newer iPhones has been completely retained. At first glance, the only difference between the Air version and the 11-inch Pro version is the camera on the back, which looks a bit lonely.
M1 chip now also in the iPad Air
When it comes to inner values, however, the iPad Air makes a quantum leap. As with the Pro versions, the current, extremely powerful M1 chip, which is also known from the 13-inch MacBook Pro, has been installed, which leaves nothing to be desired in terms of computing power. A real rejuvenation for the Air variant, which achieved over 50 percent more performance than the previous models in the first tests. Also because of the identical WLAN speed and the now integrated 5G standard, there are basically no longer any performance differences between Pro and Air.
Otherwise only small deviations
As mentioned, the iPad Air has only one rear camera, now a wide-angle 12-megapixel lens. The iPad Pro uses an additional ultra-wide-angle camera with ten megapixels. The Air display is again a Liquid Retina display with a diagonal of 27.69 centimeters, which achieves a resolution of 2,360 x 1,640 pixels at 264 ppi. For comparison: The iPad Pro with eleven inches has an almost identical diagonal and a negligibly higher resolution of 2,388 x 1,668 pixels.
These variants come onto the market
The iPad Air is available in the colors space grey, rose, violet, blue and polar star (white) with a storage capacity of 64 or 256 gigabytes, each in the Wi-Fi-only or Wi-Fi with cellular versions. It is priced between 679 and 1,019 euros. Here, too, it is worth taking a look at the big brother: The 11-inch Pro is available from 879 euros. The strongest variant with 2 terabytes of storage space and cellular option costs a whopping 2,259 euros.
Is it worth buying?
Conclusion: Anyone interested in an 11-inch model should take a closer look at the iPad Air. If you can do without a lot of storage space – and don’t use the tablet for taking photos – you can decide against the Pro with a clear conscience and go for the mid-range version from Apple for the time being. The technical differences are too marginal. All in all, the 5th generation iPad Air almost completely closes the gap to the big Pro brothers. The iPad entry-level model, on the other hand, falls far behind and should catch up as soon as possible in order not to become superfluous.