IPad Air 4 in 2021 - Don’t BE FOOLED! By GregsGadgets

This video is sponsored by Squarespace, hey, what's going on everyone Greg here and one of the products I didn't get to spend a lot of time going over towards the end of last year was the redesign iPad. Air apple had a bunch of products out at the time like the Apple Watch, SE the series 6 and 4 new iPhone 12 models, not to mention all the m1 max that graced us at the end of the year, and I really didn't get to give the iPad Air that much time or justice. Well now it's a new year and a new take on the iPad, that's supposed to be for everyone, but it may be just a little in over its head and not in the way you're expecting. So, let's get the basics out of the way. The iPad Air now looks strikingly similar to the iPad Pro with a uniform bezel going around the entire device and getting rid of the top and bottom chin from the 2019 iPad Air. This is a more modern design at a more affordable price point.

The air retails for six hundred dollars for a 64 gigabyte model or 749 dollars for a 256 gigabyte model. Personally, I would have much preferred a mid-tier option at 649 for a 128 gigabyte model that would make it the sweet spot, especially for customers in this price range. Now the air is very familiar on the side. You'll find the familiar volume up and down buttons, cutouts for the speaker, ports, an USB-C port and a sleep and wake button, but this time there's a catch, and that is that the iPad Air has touch I'd built into the sleep wake button. The sensor is reliable and fast, but I find this to be a step backwards from the iPad Pro's face.

I'd sensor touch ID works, fine, and it's a great fingerprint sensor, and it unlocks the device very quickly. But it's when you're using the iPad to autofill passwords or pay for purchases that result in a much slower interaction to authenticate the device and on the air. It just requires an extra step where it feels a little more automatic on the iPad Pro. The display measures in at 10.9 inches, which is just slightly smaller than the 11, inch iPad Pro, and it's barely even noticeable, but for the most part, the display in terms of visual quality, is pretty much exactly the same as the iPad Pro with one notable exception, and that is that the screen doesn't get as bright, so it maxes out at 500 nits of brightness, while the pro gets up to 600 nits. The display also doesn't have apple's pro motion technology, which increases the refresh rate to 120 hertz when interacting with the display to create smoother animations.

I think the lack of 120 hertz is fine, though, and after using a 120, hertz iPad Pro as my main iPad for years, when I switched to using the iPad Air, which is again currently the main iPad I use, I was easily able to give up the faster refresh rate. Speakers are improved on this version of the air when you compare it against older iPad models and the stereo sound now comes out of the side of the device rather than just the bottom section. Overall, they sound good enough for tablet speakers, but the quad speakers on the iPad Pro are an improvement. Not everything on the air is a downside, though, and as of the making of this video, the iPad Air currently comes with apple's a14 processor, which outscores the iPad Pro's a12z processor, in single core performance. Overall, the a14 feels snappier for basic tasks that you do every day like for touch, responsiveness or the load time of launching apps.

The a14 is also a little better in the graphics department on paper, but should perform very similarly to the iPad Pro, and you should have no problem playing games on either device for multi-core performance. The pro still edges out the air. So while loading an app might be faster on the air, if you're exporting 4k videos from suffusion, the air will be a little slower. We're talking about 30 seconds to one minute. Differences on average, depending on the length of the video file and battery life, continues to live up to the famous iPad standard of around 8 to 10 hours of battery life and, depending on how you use your iPad, it can last you a few days in between charges.

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com, Greg's gadgets or clicking on the link in the description below so make sure you check out Squarespace today for all your website, blog portfolio and online store needs, and thank you so much to Squarespace for sponsoring this video now I know I've referred to the iPad Pro a lot in this video and, if you're, just interested in learning about the iPad Air, it can get a little annoying. But honestly, the best way to describe this version of the iPad Air is that it really is just a more affordable iPad Pro and can basically do whatever the iPad Pro can do. And if you look at the pricing structure and think I can get pretty close to an iPad Pro experience for 200 less then. As far as tablets are concerned, the iPad Air is a no-brainer, but the iPad Air comes in a weird spot. Now the price is now high enough that it's becoming less of a device you buy to augment your apple experience with an iPhone and a mac and more of a product you decide to buy instead of a mac for an alternative to mac, OS and laptops in general, and that's especially true if you decide to buy the good but very expensive accessories like the optional 300 magic keyboards, which turns the iPad Air into more of a laptop form factor with a touchpad.

This keyboard experience takes the iPad to another level for someone like me and allows me to be much more productive on an iPad than I was able to be in the past, and it gets me so close to using this as my main laptop, but I'm not using it as my main laptop and that's kind of where my conundrum comes in and where I've been having some epiphanies lately so for years, people have been saying, including myself, that they want Mac apps on the iPad, like if apple, could just port over Final Cut Pro 10 and put it on the iPad. I personally imagined I would be so close to throwing out my MacBook Pro and switching to an all iPad future, but that still hasn't happened, and it's not to say it won't happen. I still firmly believe that apple will eventually put some of their more advanced software on the iPad like final cut, but I had a recent revelation when using the new m1 MacBook Air, with Apple now making their own processors for their laptops. It solved a bunch of issues that I had with mac books over the years that I thought would never be solved because of the form factor and aging architecture that all of a sudden are now seemingly fixed things like the instant on and responsive nature of the new mac books. The finless design, the amazing battery life and the thermals are actually good enough to comfortably use these products, as literal laptops on your lap for hours without ever worrying.

If your pants are going to catch on fire. Now that the MacBook has so many strengths that were previously exclusive to the iPad lineup, it might make you re-examine the reasons you were choosing an iPad over a MacBook in the first place. But, that's not to say the iPad Air isn't a legitimate choice. There's still things an iPad Air can do that. The mac simply can't do the iPad.

Air has a touch screen and the MacBook simply does not. So the air is an amazingly creative device. If you want to use it as a drawing tablet, or even if you simply prefer to take handwritten notes, the Apple Pencil is a smooth, seamless and unique experience that you can't find anywhere else in Apple's ecosystem. That, combined with the keyboard and trackpad, make the iPad a unique and truly versatile experience that, even though I may personally prefer to use a MacBook, I can't deny that, for some, this product would be the better choice. On top of that, some of you, and probably most of you, won't be buying apple's, expensive magic keyboard accessory and will choose to use this as a pure tablet, experience or purchase a wide range of wireless mice trackpads, keyboards or even something cheaper, like Logitech's keyboard case, which is half the price of apples.

That sort of versatility is entirely unique to the iPad Air and even though the new m1 max are great, I can't choose to slap another keyboard on it or tear the screen off to go lay down on the couch. Well, you could, but that's a video for Jerry everything, not Greg's gadgets. That's why it's hard to pin down this iPad? Is it a great tablet, absolutely one of the best ones out there, and is it a good laptop alternative? Yes, and it's getting better with every update, but the increasing complexity and increased prices of the iPad are starting to make these computers a hard choice and when you start doing the math of adding on accessories to make the experience even better you're starting to get up in price ranges comparable to the amazing new MacBook Air and with apple now using their own silicon in the max. It makes the iPad less seductive than it used to be, but still an all-around pleasing device, and it's the best all-around iPad out there for most people, alright everyone and that's what I think of the new iPad Air and its place as a computer in apple's lineup. Please let me know what you think of the iPad Air in the comments below.

If you like this video, be sure to leave me a like, if you want to see more from my channel, make sure you're subscribed. Also, if you want to purchase an iPad Air or some of the accessories I mentioned in this video, makes sure you check out the affiliate links in the description and make sure you check out our sponsor for this video Squarespace and as always, thank you so much for watching, and I will see you all in the next video take care. Everyone.

Source : GregsGadgets