The Apple iPad Air 2 Review
by Joshua Ho on November 7, 2014 9:30 AM EST- Posted in
- Tablets
- Apple
- Mobile
- iOS
- ipad Air 2
CPU Performance
Now that we’ve managed to take a good look at the changes between the A8 and A8X, we can get a good idea of what those differences translate to in some real world performance. While we’ve already seen pure CPU performance, such differences can be small when viewed from real applications. To this end, we use a few browser benchmarks and similar benchmarks. I definitely want to caution against comparing SoCs across platforms though, as rendering engines have a significant effect upon the performance of the device.
There's really not too much that needs to be said here, as the extra core and minor clock speed bump make for ridiculous amounts of performance. The A8X is class-leading here despite generally having fewer cores and lower clocks than the rest of the competition. However, in comparison to A8 we don't see a massive jump in performance. This seems to suggest that even a third core will invoke diminishing returns in general, although these changes mean that it's enough for the iPad Air 2 to be one of the fastest ARM-based devices on the market. One can see an odd regression in the Basemark OS II storage test, but this is likely to be production variances in NAND quality rather than anything notable.
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KoolAidMan1 - Tuesday, November 11, 2014 - link
And because iOS is where the technical userbase is.Professional applications flourish on iOS. Android apps are categorically limited and low end. The ones that aren't are ports from iOS that took months or years to come over.
Also, people talking about Android usage being "technical" is hilarious. There is nothing technical about tinkering with your tablet. Next you'll be saying that messing around with your game console is "technical".
techconc - Friday, November 7, 2014 - link
That's a rather ignorant assumption. Many highly technical people prefer iOS. There are many legitimate reasons for this choice including the hardware, the software, the overall ecosystem, etc. Claiming technical people prefer Android is just as ignorant as claiming you prefer Android because you're poor. Though stereotypes do exist, these generalized claims never hold up.sonicmerlin - Friday, November 7, 2014 - link
To be fair iOS's lack of a file system makes something as simple as e-mail attachments a headache.ws3 - Saturday, November 8, 2014 - link
Of course iOS has a file system, it's just not available to the user.carloshehe - Sunday, November 9, 2014 - link
I don't know what you mean by file system and attachments.Are you having issues finding documents in your iPad?
I have Documents 5 installed. It is a complete file browser for iPad. Works like Explorer on windows. And you can add Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, etc.
NEDM64 - Sunday, November 9, 2014 - link
Ftp, sftp, and with now with iOS 8 additions, is unstoppable...akdj - Monday, November 10, 2014 - link
What can't you attach to an email?Usually directly from the app you can email, post, tweet, message or FB
Hold your finger down while composing an email and you can insert what you need (native iOS mail app, but I like Mailbox for other reasons, and that's the cool thing, if the ios native app doesn't do want you want there's doxens, hundred or thousands of choices from developers ...not the case in the Play Store). It's been an option for a while and continues to get better
If you need different results look around The App Store for a third party option. They're abundant
tralalalalalala40 - Thursday, November 13, 2014 - link
Any file can be emailed. Dropbox/onedrive/box etc. you just email a link to a file. It's all very easy, takes 5 min to learn.robinthakur - Monday, November 10, 2014 - link
I'm technical, I develop in SharePoint and Drupal and support Applications and I use a Macbook Pro and an iPhone 6 Plus, as do most people in my team, so no, you are way wrong there. I also own an HTC One M8 which is fun to play around with and customise, but for a day to day phone I rely on for business, it has to be the iPhone and by extension the iPad.melgross - Friday, November 7, 2014 - link
Too bad you can't get any really good serious apps for Android.