The iPad Air Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on October 29, 2013 9:00 PM ESTCamera
Front and rear facing cameras are necessary features on all modern, premium tablets. The usage model for a rear facing camera on a tablet is hopefully not as a primary image capture device but rather a convenient one. The idea being that if you’re on location somewhere using the iPad for work or play and need to quickly grab an image, having a decent rear facing camera can come in handy rather than having to put away your tablet, pull out your phone and then switch back afterwards.
Apple has improved its iPad imaging systems almost every single generation. That being said, the iPad Air is a bit of an exception to the rule as it retains the same rear camera sensor as the 4th generation iPad. We’re still talking about a 5MP sensor with f/2.4 lens, although the iPad Air now has a wider field of view with a 3.3mm focal length (identical to the original iPad mini).
| Rear Facing Camera Comparison | |||||||
| Sensor | Resolution | Aperture | Focal Length | ||||
| Apple iPad Air | 5MP | 2592 x 1936 | f/2.4 | 3.3mm | |||
| Apple iPad 4 | 5MP | 2592 x 1936 | f/2.4 | 4.3mm | |||
| Apple iPad 3 | 5MP | 2592 x 1936 | f/2.4 | 4.3mm | |||
| Apple iPad 2,4 | 0.7MP | 960 x 720 | f/2.4 | 2.0mm | |||
| Apple iPad mini | 5MP | 2592 x 1936 | f/2.4 | 3.3mm | |||
The rear facing camera tends to shoot at lower ISOs than the rear camera on the iPad 4. Since there’s no substantial change in the sensor or lens system however, the result is less noise but a darker image in low light situations. I suspect this might be more of a configuration default for the software layer driving the H6 ISP in Apple’s A7. Image quality is surprisingly good:
Even lower light shots come out fairly well:
Although obviously noise goes up appreciably once you get into really dark scenes:
I took a bunch of photos at the NC State Fair as well as on my trip out to Santa Clara following the iPad launch event in the gallery below.
Despite using the same ISP as the iPhone 5s, there’s no 10 fps burst capture mode on the iPad Air. Similarly there’s no slo-mo video recording mode either. The iPad Air does inherit the other benefits of the new H6 ISP however. Image capture is still insanely quick, which makes me wonder if the A7’s ISP also leverages that large on-die system cache.
| Front Facing Camera Comparison | |||||||
| Sensor | Resolution | Aperture | Focal Length | ||||
| Apple iPad Air | 1.2MP | 1280 x 960 | f/2.4 | 2.15mm | |||
| Apple iPad 4 | 1.2MP | 1280 x 960 | f/2.4 | 2.18mm | |||
| Apple iPad 3 | 0.3MP | 640 x 480 | f/2.4 | 1.8mm | |||
| Apple iPad 2,4 | 0.3MP | 640 x 480 | f/2.4 | 1.8mm | |||
| Apple iPad mini | 1.2MP | 1280 x 960 | f/2.4 | 2.2mm | |||
The front facing camera does see an improvement in sensitivity thanks to a larger sensor format. My understanding is this is the same sensor/lens combination as what’s in the iPhone 5s and 5c. Similarly to its implementation in the 5s, Apple seems to use the new front facing camera system to drive to lower ISOs and/or higher shutter speeds. You typically end up with a lower noise/sharper image, although sometimes there is a brightness/exposure tradeoff.
The other feature leveraged by the new front facing camera is the inclusion of a second microphone for noise cancellation. The goal here is to use the second mic to cancel out background noise and improve the quality of the audio you’re actually trying to record (presumably your voice during FaceTime for example). The impact is pretty noticeable. I ran an iPad 4 and an iPad Air side by side while playing a background track and have embedded the resulting videos below:
In the iPad Air sample video my voice comes across considerably clearer, as you’d expect given the Air’s second mic.
Video
Video capture settings look unchanged from the iPad 4. We’re still dealing with ~17Mbps High Profile videos from the rear camera and ~10Mbps Baseline Profile H.264 from the front camera.
Video quality out of both is pretty good for a tablet. In well lit scenes rear camera quality is definitely sufficient for sharing on the web.
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michal1980 - Wednesday, October 30, 2013 - link
Did you read? I was talking about windows 8.1, you know the big upgrade given away 2 weeks agoI know that in iSheep land windows doesn't exist.
abazigal - Saturday, November 2, 2013 - link
He's probably writing it even as we speak, and it will likely be posted in a matter a time.Anand has a ton of devices to review, so they have to set a priority. Not to mention that he has pretty much stated that he works on an iMac, so I imagine using Win8 actually takes away from his productivity time.
algalli - Wednesday, October 30, 2013 - link
Your right Windows 8.1 will be used by tens of people not hundreds of millions of people, at least in the tablet worldjecastejon - Wednesday, October 30, 2013 - link
And by the same standard, objectiveness and evidences you present I say you are paid by Apples's competitors.darwiniandude - Wednesday, October 30, 2013 - link
Really?? Strange... The detailed review I just read complained (politely) about Apple not letting them dissect (cut open) review (loan) units. It also mentioned GUI performance frame rate drops in the multitasking UI and complained that due to 64bit they really need to ship with 2GB ram rather than the 1GB they come with. I can guarantee most other reviews out there will not mention these particular technical negatives. Anandtech reviews are thorough.Rickschwar - Thursday, October 31, 2013 - link
Although I haven't seen too much Apple bias from AnandTech in the past, this is one of the most biased reviews I have ever read. This is surprising because normally AnandTech is the “gold standard” for all things technical. The reviewer talks about the iPad Air like it’s a revolutionary product, when there is little new about it. Apple was playing catch up in many ways and other tablets have many advantages over it. For example, the iPad 4 was thicker than many Android tablets. In fact, at least ten Android tablets were thinner than the iPad 4. The Air is only 1.9 mm thinner than the iPad 4 and tablets like the older Sony Experia Z are still significantly thinner than the iPad Air is (7.5mm vs. 6.9mm). Of course this wasn't mentioned in the article. Even when it comes to weight, the iPad Air isn’t dramatically lighter than the Experia Z (469g vs. 495g). That’s not mentioned in the article either.Since I’m in the market for a new tablet and I’ve owned two iPads in the past, I was hoping for big things with the new iPad, but for me and others it was a “meh” release. The same old display, the same A7 processor, and little real innovation. CNET agrees saying “Functionally, the iPad Air is nearly identical to last year’s model, offering only faster performance and better video chatting.”
The most ironic part for my is the fact than more 90% of this article is based on benchmarks -- even though AnandTech has made it clear how easy it is to game benchmarks and others (including an article I wrote over a year ago published at Mostly-tech.com) have made compelling cases that benchmarks do not predict real world performance. This article mostly ignores real world performance and pretends that Android tablets don’t exist.
After this article I will never look at AnandTech the same again. At least the CNET and Engadget reviews covered some of the limitations of this product.
- Rick
abazigal - Saturday, November 2, 2013 - link
The ironic thing about your statement is that for the moment at least, only Android OEMs have been found guilty of gaming benchmarks, not Apple. So doing any benchmark tests at this juncture would actually favour Apple's competitors, despite this being a review of an Apple product. So I don't see what reason you have to complain, when the odds are stacked in Android's favour anyways.Besides, Anand has thoroughly dissected the A7 chip in his 5s review, and concluded that it is actually faster and more power-efficient compared to the higher-clocked, quad-core processors found in Android phones and tablets. The fact remains that Android and most mobile apps generally aren't optimised with 4-cores in mind either. So for all intents and purposes, Android tablets may as well not exist, since they will likely lose to the iPad in terms of real-world performance anyways.
Also, the thing with these products is that they are ultimately a package deal. People don't just look at 1 single defining factor and buy a device based solely on that. Likewise, I am definitely not going to blindly buy the thinnest tablet in the market without first considering other factors like specs and availability of apps. You are not going to find that mythical Android tablet which is thinner, lighter, has a longer battery life, better screen, while boasting a larger market of apps and content.
I am sorry, but you are not going to find a more objective and detailed review anywhere else. You want the iPad air to be bashed, go hand out at some pro-android forum instead.
ADGrant - Saturday, November 2, 2013 - link
"Same old A7 processor". You look like a complete idiot when you post something like that. The A7 was announced less than a month ago.sunflowerfly - Thursday, October 31, 2013 - link
Anand biased? I do not believe that. They have no trouble pointing out Apple's flaws, and every product has them, nothing is perfect. The best products should win, and right now that happens to be Apple a lot of the time.ssiu - Tuesday, October 29, 2013 - link
No 2GB RAM; hope dashed :(Does that mean an iPad 4 (which can only run 32-bit code) will end up "less RAM starved" than iPad Air running 64-bit code?