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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stingerman - Sunday, November 3, 2013 - link
Yes, I haven't even seen one of those in use other than commercials. Real failures...stingerman - Sunday, November 3, 2013 - link
lol, you're hilarious! iOS is Unix plus all the major OS X frameworks plus all the new iOS frameworks... It maybe light because of its elegance, but it's a light nuclear weapon...lilo777 - Sunday, November 3, 2013 - link
LOL. Do you know any version of Unix that does not have a file system (exposed to user)?Krysto - Friday, November 1, 2013 - link
Offtopic, but Anand, the announcement of Mali T760 is suspiciously missing from this site.Over 300 GFLOPS, which is more than PS3 and should make it pretty competitive with mobile Kepler, along with ASTC compression by default, much more efficient, and has some interesting features like hardware assisted global illumination.
ARM's announcement:
http://community.arm.com/groups/arm-mali-graphics/...
michael2k - Friday, November 1, 2013 - link
Yeah, the T700 series is for next generation devices, or in other words, products in the next 12 months. The PowerVR6 series is available now for this generation and up to 1000 GFLOPS.Krysto - Saturday, November 2, 2013 - link
Do you see that 1000 GBFLOPS in any smartphone? Just because it can be scaled that much, doesn't mean they WILL for smartphones. This GPU will be used in smartphones a year from now. What does the GPU in Apple's A7 have now? ~100 GFLOPS?Anyway, the Mali T760 seems very competitive with what will be out there a year from now, and Anandtech usually writes about these sort of announcements.
michael2k - Monday, November 4, 2013 - link
I think you've missed the point.1) We aren't in a smartphone thread
2) The PowerVR6 will scale to 1000 GFLOPs; so when the T700 comes out next year, the PowerVR will be ready
3) The Air is at about 115 GFLOPs, about 2x the outgoing iPad 4, and will therefore be approximately 230 GFLOPs in the A8 next year, if 2x, or 340 GFLOPs if 3x
So you are correct that the Mali T760 will be competitive next year, but this article is about this year.
michael2k - Monday, November 4, 2013 - link
You've missed the point.The PVR6 is 115GF today in the Air, and when needed to compete with the T700 can hit 300GF.
Likewise, we are in a thread about tablets, where it is much more likely to scale to the needed 300GF.
Krysto - Saturday, November 2, 2013 - link
What you said also reminded me of how Intel promoted "Haswell graphics"."Hey, look, out "Haswell GPU" (Iris Pro 5200) is 3x faster than IVB!" - and then you only see crappy 4600 in most devices, including the Surface Pro, which is only 20 percent faster than last year's IVB GPU.
Or "look at our awesome new 2.6 Ghz Silvermont CPU's! - and then you only see 1.3 ghz Silvemont for tablets, because the 2.6 Ghz ones are not viable either because of too high TDP or price, which makes them pretty irrelevant. What's relevant is what will be in the market, not their pie-in-the-sky CPU's that never get on the shelves.
ashleyuv - Saturday, November 2, 2013 - link
This is a very interesting review, even for someone without the tech or IT background to follow all of it. In particular, I like the way, in the last part, you show how the increase to 64-bit and the DRAM size (remaining the same), while seeming like a no-brainer and conservative decisions, respectively, are actually a smart play, albeit one with consequences.In agreement with one of your readers, I'd have to say that "review" is really the wrong word for this. It is all but a scientific study. But again, it's written for people who may not have an extensive tech background.
Thank you! I will be reading more in the future (just discovered your site).