The iPad Air Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on October 29, 2013 9:00 PM ESTWiFi
The iPad Air moves to a 2-stream dual-band 802.11n solution, a sort of compromise between where the iPad was with its previous single-stream implementation and some of the newer devices shipping with 802.11ac. Moving to two spatial streams obviously helps improve performance tremendously. Peak performance on 5GHz 802.11n, assuming an equally capable AP, went as high as 180Mbps in my tests. I was able to average 168Mbps during our standard UDP WiFi test on 5GHz.
Cellular
Apple continues to use Qualcomm’s MDM9615 modem in the iPad Air, the big difference this round is there’s only a single SKU (A1475) for the cellular model covering a total of 34 countries across the Americas and EMEA. The LTE iPad Air supports a total of 14 LTE bands (1,2,3,4,5,7,8,13,17,18,19,20,25 and 26). In his usual awesome fashion, Brian speculated that the increased number of supported LTE bands was partially a function of moving to Qualcomm’s WTR1605L transceiver.
| iPad Cellular Speeds | ||||||
| Property | iPhone 3G/3GS/iPad 1 3G | iPhone 4 / iPad 2 (GSM/UMTS) | iPhone 4 / iPad 2 (CDMA) | iPad 3 | iPad 4/iPad Mini | iPad Air/iPad Mini w/Retina |
| Baseband | Infineon X-Gold 608 | Infineon X-Gold 618 | Qualcomm MDM6600 | Qualcomm MDM9600 | Qualcomm MDM9615 w/RTR8600 |
Qualcomm MDM9615 w/WTR1605L |
| Max 3GPP Release Feature | Release 5 | Release 6 | Release 7 | Release 9 | Release 9 | Release 9 |
| HSDPA Category | Cat.8 - 7.2 Mbps | Cat.8 - 7.2 Mbps | N/A | Cat. 24 - 42 Mbps | Cat. 24 - 42 Mbps | Cat. 24 - 42 Mbps |
| HSUPA Category | None - 384 Kbps WCDMA only | Cat.6 - 5.76 Mbps | N/A | Cat.6 - 5.76 Mbps | Cat.6 - 5.76 Mbps | Cat.6 - 5.76 Mbps |
| EVDO | N/A | N/A | 1x/EVDO Rev.A | 1x/EVDO Rev.A | 1x/EVDO Rev.A | 1x/EVDO Rev.A |
| LTE | N/A | N/A | N/A | 100/50 UE Cat. 3 | 100/50 UE Cat. 3 | 100/50 UE Cat. 3 |
From a spec and performance standpoint, the LTE modem in the iPad Air is no different than what was in the 4th generation iPad. Consistent cellular connectivity options remains one of the staples of the iPad lineup. Although WiFi tablets still tend to be the more popular, it’s hard to argue with the productivity benefit to having LTE on a tablet. Being able to just reach for the iPad Air and know it’ll have connectivity regardless of where I am, without having to search for and log in to a WiFi network, is tremendously convenient.
Just as before, there’s no contract commitment necessary to buy an LTE iPad Air. You can manage your account directly on the device itself. Furthermore, at least in the US, the LTE iPad Air isn’t locked to any one network operator. You specify what provider you’d like to go with at the time of purchase, but afterwards you’re able to swap in any other activated nano SIM from a supported network operator. You could feasibly start out with a Sprint iPad Air and later switch to a Verizon, T-Mobile or AT&T SIM and continue using the device. The flexibility offered by a single SKU with support for a ton of bands is pretty awesome.
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dishayu - Wednesday, October 30, 2013 - link
I agree on one tiny point with you. The shortcomings of a device need to be highlighted when it comes out... NOT when the successor is launched. And I've read AnandTech long enough to know that this is not just a problem with Apple reviews. This is the problem with all reviews... Android, PC and storage reviews and so on... As soon as a refresh/next gen product is launched, the previous gen suddenly develops issues/shortcomings. Don't get me wrong, their reviews are still the best and more in-depth than rest of the internet combined, but they seriously need to address this little issue.BlakKW - Wednesday, October 30, 2013 - link
pretty valid observationerrorr - Wednesday, October 30, 2013 - link
I'm not sure people really understand the shortcomings when a product comes out. I appreciate when Anand or Brian use a product for a while and their insights are far superior, but initial impressions on a review are still subject to change gradually.KoolAidMan1 - Wednesday, October 30, 2013 - link
How dare a company improve the performance of its productsandroticus - Tuesday, October 29, 2013 - link
When is that MacBook Pro review coming???? :)FwFred - Wednesday, October 30, 2013 - link
Yep, much more excited about that from a device standpoint, though the A7 investigaton was interesting.tipoo - Tuesday, October 29, 2013 - link
Woah, the Surface charges fast.MarcSP - Tuesday, October 29, 2013 - link
Yeah. Ii is not just a little bit, it is half the time! Of course the review somehow tries not to make it look as a really negative thing or at least something to really improve for the next iPad. In fact it says it is GOOD, compared to ipad 3 and 4, that were ludicrously slow in charging.Of course, in the Surface 2 review there was no mention at all of this fast charging, only of the "average battery life".
And BTW I think battery life in Surface 2 should be retested. It is extremely weird that it got less web browsing time than Surface 1 (and that this discrepancy was not even mentioned in the review). If possible use a different Surface 2 device, just in case it had some problem.
YuLeven - Wednesday, October 30, 2013 - link
And other sites got 14 hours of battery when testing the Surface 2.basroil - Tuesday, October 29, 2013 - link
" The iPad Air crashed a couple of times on me (3 times total during the past week), but no where near as much as earlier devices running iOS 7.0.1. "Not a single W8 device I own has ever crashed from system memory issues (one crashes because the GPU was overclocked too hard and graphics memory suffered from it, but that's hardware failure not software)