The ULTIMATE iPad Air 2020 GAMING Test! By Byte Review

The new iPad Air for 2020 is an awesome upgrade over the previous generation. We know it's got that nicer screen. It's got the better design overall, and it's even got the support for the pro level accessories. But what we don't know is how the a14 bionic processor holds up for gaming. So in this video I really wanted to put that to the test and to make things a little more interesting at the end of the video I'm going to test it against the iPad Pro from 2018 as well, because I've made videos about this before saying how it's an absolute beast for gaming, I'm going to take a look at some games across the spectrum as well all the way from the low powered ones like among us and what the golf all the way up to the high-powered ones like Call of Duty mobile to see how the iPad Air handles it. As a side note, I am closing all the apps other than the game itself.

So there's some consistency in the testing and I know it's not going to be the most scientific thing, but I think we should see some interesting points anyway. Let's dive right into it, let's start off with the low powered handheld sort of games, starting with among us. I think this was a given. It was going to perform. Well, it's obviously not a very taxing game, so you can put this on the list of absolutely fine.

If you want to play this game on your new iPad Air, I then moved over to what the golf, which is a graphically more interesting game and there's a few more things going on, but it's obviously not taxing the iPad Air at all. This is totally fine, and it's running it like an absolute champ, no problems there like expected. So let's move on to some more graphically intensive games or the mid power games, as I'm going to call them, and I am using an Xbox controller to play these. Let's start off with dead cells, which might seem like an interesting choice on the surface, because it looks like a simple platformer, but when things do get full on dead cells has been known to drop frames, especially when it came out on platforms like the switch before it got patched as expected, though, there are no problems on here from the iPad Air everything runs smoothly, and the experience is overall, very, very good from there I moved on to skate city, which is a game from Apple Arcade, which I am subscribed to, and not only is it nice and strangely relaxing to play, but it runs absolutely fine on the iPad Air as imagined. The graphics aren't overly taxing, but the visual style is really nice.

I think it's worth checking out if you're on Apple Arcade for sure, but the iPad Air has no problems running this one either. So this is the higher end of the mid power games, and it's another game from Apple Arcade called the last campfire, I'm a huge fan of the graphics and art direction. On this game as a side note, it's really stunning and again, if you're on Apple Arcade, I think it's worth checking out, but I've considered this a mid-power game, because while it's utterly gorgeous to look at there's a lot of static scenes and other than fancy lighting, there's not a huge amount going on graphically. Needless to say, this runs really nicely on the iPad Air, no problems at all. So I think we all knew those games were going to run absolutely fine.

So, let's push on to the high-powered games, the more graphically intensive ones and the first one I wanted to check out was asphalt.9 legends- and I know this video isn't an opinion piece, but these asphalt games are really not my thing. You kind of barely control. What's going on, you just push the car around a little and the whole thing's just riddled with microtransactions. However, I will say it looks absolutely gorgeous, though the graphics and the frame rate are super high on the iPad Air. So if you enjoy these sorts of games, it's gonna look fantastic on the air, and I'm sure you're going to love it.

I was going to test Fortnite in this as I've tested that game before, but unfortunately that can't happen at the moment. So, let's move straight on to Call of Duty mobile Call of Duty mobile, in my opinion, is still one of the best looking mobile games out there and, like everything else on this list, the iPad Air crushes it gameplay is fast and fluid, and sometimes it can generally feel like you're playing a full-on Call of Duty release. Aside from the disgusting amount of microtransactions and on-screen, prompts to make you buy this or that the call of duty mobile game is actually perfect and there are loads of different modes, including a battle royale now, so I do think it's worth checking out for sure, but, needless to say, it runs perfectly on the iPad Air. I just wanted to interrupt here a little to say that 94 of you watching this video aren't subscribed to the channel. That's mad.

If you want to see more videos like this one- and you want to help me out- please consider subscribing to the channel, it does help a lot more than you think it does. Anyway, let's get back to it, it's no real surprise that the a14 bionic chip in the iPad Air can run all those games. No problem. Of course, it can, it's the brand new one from apple- it's gonna, be great, so to push it graphically a little more, I decided to hook the iPad Air up to my 48-inch 4k TV and to run all the more graphically demanding games on there and to see how that went, while it's quite difficult to show in these clips. This is where things really started to change, quality, wise, and it displayed in the mid powered games straight away.

Dead cells lost its fluidity, and it was for sure dropping noticeable frames when things got a little more chaotic and everything just felt a bit more loose, which is easy to notice on such a tightly controlled game. Skate city also showed some very slight chugging throughout gameplay, but it didn't seem to matter massively what was happening on the screen. It was just slower overall and felt a little more clunky. However, the last campfire did hold up really, really well, and I think that's because it's a slower moving game in general, and it was harder to spot those frames dropping out. I didn't notice any visual quality drops, though so that was really nice to see so moving on from those mid-power games up to the high-powered ones and things pretty much continued down the same trajectory I saw frames dropping out pretty much everywhere Call of Duty mobile, noticeably stuttered graphically, especially when a lot was going on, and it felt much slower than it had done before when it was just being played on the iPad.

However, it did remain playable. None of the frame rate drops made it unplayable or horrid to play. You know far from it, I still managed to enjoy a few matches with no major problems, but it was a really noticeable drop. Interestingly, on the other side of that on asphalt, 9 legends, I actually noticed there wasn't a huge difference between playing on the TV and on the iPad alone, and I can't help but think a lot of that's because most of the game feels so on rails that it's all loaded before you even jump into it. So the experience here was actually rather good.

Overall, I don't think you'll have any problems if you want to hook that game up to a big TV, I took the high power games a little further as well with some of my favorite iPad titles, and the experience was pretty much the same across the board sky. Children of the light performed quite well with some frame rate drops here and there, which I expected a little as it's a slower paced game and cyanide wild hurts was definitely dropping frames all over the place, but that title is totally mad. I can't help but think after running this long test, that if the iPad could just push all of its graphical power to the TV and not display it on the screen as well, then those frame rates could be improved and the overall experience of an iPad on an external monitor could be improved. But that's just not here yet, and I think that's a huge shame. Hopefully, Apple will implement that later in a new update or something, but for now, if you're going to play games on an external monitor of any kind, it displays it on the iPad and on that external screen to round this test off, I did want to test out Call of Duty mobile on my 2018 iPad Pro, while it's hooked up to the TV and to see, if there's any difference between this and the iPad Air.

And yes, there is even though the a14 chip in the iPad Air is a lot newer. The a12x chip in the older iPad, pro in my testing at least, performs better for graphics and for frame rates. Call of Duty ran just as well on the TV as it does on the iPad Pro itself, which was really impressive. To see it's important to remember that the a12 series of chips are outscore compared to the 6 core on the iPad Air. So some of those cores must be helping out in the graphics performance.

It doesn't mean that the chip in these are better. Overall, it just means they've got a little more grunt when it comes to graphics, at least from what I've seen. So don't let that put you off if you're thinking about getting an iPad Air so that pretty much rounds up this entire gaming test. I hope it was useful for you. I hope it gave you some information.

What I will say is if you're planning on gaming on the iPad, air, and you're not planning on connecting it to a 4k monitor. This will run any game you throw at it, and it will run it at a really nice smooth frame rate. It's only when you connect it to a 4k TV. Do you start seeing some stuttering? However, I will say, after all that testing the games are still totally playable and if you want to do that sort of thing, you totally can, if you're really really really serious about gaming, though, and you want to have the absolute best possible experience ever, you probably shouldn't buy an iPad, but if you are then consider getting the iPad Pro, I think graphically. It still stands just that little above the air, so that pretty much rounds up this entire test if you've enjoyed it pop a like and consider subscribing to the channel, as I said before, it helps me out massively and, most importantly, it will mean I'll keep making videos like this one anyway.

Hopefully I will see you all in the next one. You.

Source : Byte Review