The iPad Air Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on October 29, 2013 9:00 PM ESTDisplay
In building the iPad Air Apple shrunk all elements of the tablet’s design, including the thickness of the display. We’re still dealing with a 9.7-inch 4:3 2048 x 1536 IPS LCD panel with true RGB stripe rather than some weird subpixel structure. Viewing angles are still great, and overall the display remains the best you can get at this size.
The iPad Air continues Apple’s recent history of shipping color calibrated displays. Color accuracy on my iPad Air review sample is better than on any previous iPad I’ve ever tested, in fact it’s more accurate than any other tablet I’ve ever tested. The numbers are easily backed up by images that show a vibrant and, more importantly, accurate display.
The iPad Air gets pretty bright at 426 nits, although black levels aren’t all that impressive at 0.44 nits. Overall contrast ratio is in line with what we’ve seen from previous iPads. My only complaint on the display front is I would like to see Apple laminate the cover glass to the LCD display. Reducing reflections would go a long way towards improving the usability of the device, not to mention the impact that would have on improving display quality in dark movie scenes.
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doobydoo - Friday, November 15, 2013 - link
The hardware in the HDX is slower, and it is finished in plastic. So which part was inaccurate?melgross - Wednesday, October 30, 2013 - link
There is no such thing as 100% RGB gamut. Which gamut are you talking about? sRGB? Adobe 1998 RGB? Pro RGB? There are a lot of RGB standards out there.Theard - Wednesday, October 30, 2013 - link
what Cindy implied I didn't even know that people can earn $6894 in four weeks on the computer. look at this site ... jobs23.comLizbeth - Sunday, November 3, 2013 - link
and is several price points less that the ipad airKrysto - Wednesday, October 30, 2013 - link
> is probably the higher clocked Z3770I don't see that in any tablets today, let alone smartphones. So don't say it like that, as if it's already happened. As it is, Intel's chips aren't very competitive, in both CPU and GPU performance.
> while Qualcomm will probably pass Apple's GPU early next year.
They are equal right now, at least in smartphones. The others, perhaps with the exception of Nvidia, don't really make separate "tablet chips". They make one chip for both smartphones and tablets.
Speedfriend - Wednesday, October 30, 2013 - link
"As it is, Intel's chips aren't very competitive, in both CPU"You obviously have a problem reading, given the Transformer T100 which is very close to the iPhone 5S and iPad Air in the benchmarks above, uses the Atom Z3740, which is only the second fastest. So the Z3770, which is clocked 33% higher, should be at least equal if not better than A7 in CPU benchmarks.
How in your mind that equates to not competitive I don't know..
Homeles - Wednesday, October 30, 2013 - link
Not to mention that a lot of A7's strength isn't in the silicon, it's in the software stack on top of it. All of the CPU benchmarks are done through the stock web browser -- that's something Apple can fine tune, while Intel cannot. Therefore, the A7 outperforming Atom doesn't point to Atom being weaker at a silicon level, and instead shows the advantages of being able to hand tune your OS and applications and squeeze more out of your hardware.raptorious - Wednesday, October 30, 2013 - link
I'll give you one reason: the fact that Anand omitted the iPad 4 from the latency graph in the "An Update on Apple’s A7: It's Better Than I Thought" page. Why is the iPad 4 in the bandwidth graph and not in the latency graph. I'll tell you why: because the iPad 4 has better latency and Anand doesn't want to make the A7 look bad, so he left it out. No bias? Right.syedjalalt - Tuesday, November 5, 2013 - link
Apple iPad is a great product. No doubt. The word selection for writing such important reviews has been good here. IF you go The Verge and see the iPad review, you will notice how biased and predictable they have become. Nilay Patel doesn't know anything. The guys @verge always mock Android and especially Samsung.Last year's Nexus 4's review score had 8 for camera and 9 for ecosystem(as far as I remember). This year, ecosystem is 8 and camera is 5. Great!!!1
doobydoo - Friday, November 15, 2013 - link
Yep it's ridiculous that the Nexus 4 got 8 for camera. Should have been 3/4.Ecosystem scores can vary over time so don't see the problem there. Android hasn't moved on much in the past year.