UNBOXING the iPad Air (2020) & My Thoughts - Do You even Need the Pro? By Samuel Suresh

You uh, so so so is hello. Welcome back to another video. This is the iPad Air, and I've been using it for the past couple of weeks, and I thought I might talk a bit about it today. Maybe share some of my thoughts, my experiences and hopefully answer some questions. You've been asking me about it along the way and the reason I wanted to talk to you about the iPad Air was because when it was released for the first time- and I remember reading about it, I was very intrigued by some of the decisions that were made with it as a product. So I was very interested, but I was also a little skeptical at the same time thing that got my attention when I saw the iPad Air for the first time or the design of it was that looks exactly like an iPad Pro in fact, take a look at this right now.

This is the design of the iPad Air 4, the 2020 model, and this is the design of the iPad Pro 2018 11 inch model, as you can see, they're basically the same size. They look almost identical and if I stack one on top of the other, they match up very interesting, and I remember thinking whoa, that's big so now with the air, you've got the really cool home, buttonless sleek, looking design of the iPad Pro you've got the magnetically attaching pencil which charges by itself, which is a huge feature by the way. There was a time when I had the old Apple Pencil and I just kept losing it. So I actually didn't even use the pencil that much, so that's a big feature, and also, if you're, a student, and you're considering the potential that maybe one day down the line, you might get the magic keyboard. You have the option, because the iPad Air is now compatible with the magic keyboard because it has the same design as the pro which I think is amazing, and I remember thinking like that's a great deal, you're, basically getting an iPad Pro for less.

It's almost too good to be true- and I guess that's why I was skeptical at the same time. I remember asking myself, as I was sort of reading up on it and saying like what's the catch here like what's the sacrifices that have been made to make this a more affordable iPad, every single time like there is a more affordable version of a product there. There is always this one feature that the pro model has that makes you want to upgrade from the affordable version to the pro, and so I decided to do my research to find out. You know what sacrifices have actually been made to make this product more affordable for students. So essentially, what are the differences between the iPad Air and the iPad Pro 11 inches? So I discovered five notable differences between the two, so starting with number one.

There are camera differences, there's actually a few differences under this category. So, firstly, if you go to the back of the iPad Air, you don't have the second camera or LIDAR sensor, that's found in the iPad Pro now. For me, I didn't see that as an issue. I only ever use the camera for scanning documents, so I can annotate on them myself, and I'm happy with the stock standard.24 millimeter camerae that comes near it light out is great for things like augmented reality, but at the moment it's not essential to what I do as a student. Also, when you look at the back camera, there is no flash on the air uh.

Once again, I don't mind, and also you don't have portrait mode on the front-facing camera, which is honestly something I don't care about in the past three years of using an iPad Pro. I don't think I've taken even one selfie with my iPad, purposely um difference number two, and this might be pretty big for some people, but there is no face ID on the iPad Air, but- and this is a big, but you do get touch ID so now, if you look at the top of the iPad, the power button is now a tad longer than before, and it also acts as a fingerprint scanner. It's quite clever. Actually, in fact, I know quite a lot of people who'd like to see that on other products as well, and it works really well, you just push it and rest your finger on the button, and it just works. Difference number three, the bezels.

Now, although the iPad Air is in the exact same form factor as the 2018 iPad Pro, it does have ever so slightly larger bezels than that model, which means it has an ever so slightly smaller display. So the 11-inch iPad had an 11-inch screen, as the name suggests, and the iPad Air has a 10.9-inch screen which isn't much of a difference, but you do notice it. So that's something to keep in mind. I personally don't care, because when you're using it as a tool, you just forget about it in the process. Difference number four storage options, so the iPad Pro comes in four different storage configurations, 128, 256 512 and one terabyte and the iPad Air only comes in 64 and 256.

Now I don't care about the one terabyte end of things that the iPad Air is missing out on, but it would have been great if the iPad Air came in 128 gigs, because you know, I think 128 gigs is the perfect amount of storage um for a student, because it gives them all the room. They need to store all their files, but it also gives them the freedom to add. Maybe some videos and photos as well. That means, if I was to get it I'd, probably be going with 256 gigs, because these days, 64 gigs, is definitely not enough. Difference number five, the final difference, which is also the biggest difference I noticed between both these models, is the refresh rate of the display.

So the iPad Air does not have a 120 hertz pro motion display. Now. What does that mean for those of you out there who don't know? Well, every single time you see movement on the iPad screen, so whether that's swiping on the home page, you know pinching in and out to zoom on something browsing through the web or, most importantly, writing with the Apple Pencil, which is something that's integral to the iPad Pro experience. The screen is actually refreshing itself, a certain number of times per second. So if you use an iPhone, for example, when you're swiping between apps on the home page, the screen refreshes itself 60 times every second and that's the same for the iPad Air 60 times per second now.

The really cool thing about the iPad Pro, if you didn't know, is that it has the ability to refresh its screen up to 120 times per second, so that's double the refresh rate um and that's the thing that gives the iPad Pro. It's really smooth buttery performance when you're swiping pinching in pinching out, and especially when riding with the Apple Pencil- and I guess that's the most important question when considering the iPad Air and the iPad Pro it's does. The lack of that 120hz pro motion display actually make a difference. Like does, it add any friction to that process of using the Apple Pencil and does do it make it a lesser tool, and so I've been testing it with that in mind over the past couple of weeks, and you'll be glad to hear that I was pleasantly surprised now. I have two things to say about this um.

Firstly, if you go straight from writing an iPad Pro and then immediately start riding on the iPad Air, you can tell that there is a slight difference and initially I did find that slightly off-putting, and I was a little disappointed. However, moving to point number two, when you actually start using this device by itself like for you, know, half an hour, then an hour then a day and then a week, you completely forget about it, you're sort of immersed in the experience um- and I guess it's that tiny bit of an adjustment that your mind needs to make to that ever so slight lag, which takes less than half an hour by the way, and then you don't see it, and then you don't notice it anymore. You just use it as a tool, and I've used it for the past couple of weeks and the experience is just as good as an iPad Pro 11 inches. You know the thing that excites me the most, and I guess it's more than just this product but like if you consider the whole lineup of iPads. The really cool thing is we're, starting to see a lot of the features that were exclusive to the iPad Pro for such a long period of time start to trickle down into the lower end models like there was a time when iPad pros were the only devices that had the Apple Pencil like there was a time when the only way you could use the magic keyboard that premium accessory was, if you bought up into the pro line- and I think it's great- that a lot of these features are now available to the iPad Air because for students at least now you have the option of getting the magic keyboard.

If you ever want it, you don't need to worry about missing out on it by not buying an iPad Pro, and so for me, that's the biggest positive um. That's coming out of this. Someone did ask me: are there any negatives about the iPad and um? Well, firstly, that's a big question, but I guess if you were to consider it as a tablet, you know it's, it's pretty good and there's nothing bad. I can say about it as a tablet: it's only when you start comparing it to a computer where a lot of issues start arising, and I guess that whole section of analysis deserves its own video. So if you're interested in that, please let me know if you'd like a comparison between the iPad and a laptop.

That is a big and great topic that I might discuss, but that is all for today. I have nothing else to say: thank you for watching, and I'll see in the next. You.

Source : Samuel Suresh