Apple iPad Air 2 review - slimmer, faster, better

Last year’s iPad Air was so much thinner and lighter than the previous 9.7in model, the iPad 4, that it was hard to work out where the company could go from there. A year on and the iPad Air 2’s answer is, a lot thinner, a lot lighter, and dramatically more powerful.

iPad Air 2 build quality and size

When we reviewed the iPad Air, we said that it was pretty much a one-handed device and close in usability to the smaller iPad Mini 2. This year, the iPad Air 2 is definitely a one-handed tablet, thanks to its thinner and lighter body.

Impressively, Apple has managed to shave 1.4mm off the previous model’s thickness. At just 6.1mm thin, the iPad Air 2 is even 0.8mm thinner than the impressively-slim iPhone 6. While it still has the same footprint as the original Air (240x169.5mm), its slim body is a lot more comfortable hold.

Weight, too, has been shed, with the iPad Air 2 slimming to a svelte 437g, down from 469g. While 32g less might not sound like a lot, combined with the thinner case, it makes the new iPad so much easier to hold. With the weight being equally distributed, this is a tablet that you can happily carry around everywhere with you and hold for long periods of time one-handed.

Build quality hasn’t suffered in the slightest, with the precision-cut aluminium case just as stunning and as gorgeous as its always been. It also gives the iPad Air 2 the look and feel of a premium tablet, which plastic models just don’t have.

To match the iPhone line-up, this year sees the introduction of the gold model, alongside silver and space grey. It’ll depend on your personal preference as to which model you want, although it’s fair to say that each one has its charms, and the colouring is done subtly and tastefully across the range.

A few minor case changes have been made. Gone is the switch on the side, which could be assigned to rotation lock or mute, depending on your preference. Instead, both of these options are available from Control Centre, which you can slide up from the bottom of any screen.

Arguably, the most convenient use of the switch was for mute, but this is more useful on an iPhone where you’ll get more calls and texts, not to mention that you’ll be more likely to have the device on you. With an iPad, we found that we used the mute option relatively rarely, so having a software control isn’t a bad thing.

Apple has also slightly redesigned the volume buttons, housing them in a recess, rather than having each button poke through its own hole. There’s no difference in the feel, although the new design is a little more attractive and neater than the old.

iPad Air 2 TouchID

Aside from the new size, the one change that’s immediately obvious is the addition of the TouchID fingerprint reader on the front of the iPad. This works in exactly the same way as it does on the iPhone, unlocking your device with the simple tap of a finger. It’s incredibly quick and accurate to use; Apple appears to have improved the technology since it introduced it with the iPhone 5S and we now find that it’s more accurate and will even work with slightly damp fingers.

As well as making it easier to unlock your iPad, TouchID has been opened up to app developers, so you can access password-protected data securely and easily. There’s a relatively small list of supported apps at the moment, but that’s bound to increase rapidly. This is brilliant for security, as TouchID encourages people to lock their private data, as they know that a simple touch will unlock it; forcing people to enter long passwords on touch devices does the opposite and encourages people to turn off security or use short passwords.

TouchID will also work with Apple Pay, which is yet to launch in the UK. When it does, you’ll be able to use your fingerprint to pay for goods online. There’s no NFC chip, so the iPad Air 2 can’t be used for contactless payments in stores. Given the size of the device we don’t see this as an issue, as an iPhone is a far more practical device to use in a shop.

iPad Air 2 screen

Apple has kept the same resolution as on previous iPads from the iPad 3 onwards: 2,048x1,536. This Retina screen has a pixel density of 264ppi, and it looks as good today as it did when we first saw it. Text is incredibly sharp and there’s plenty of resolution to make the most out of images, too.

That’s not to say that Apple hasn’t worked on the display. This time around, it has used a fully laminated display, putting the three layers of the screen (LCD, touch and glass front panel) together. As well as making the screen thinner, it brings the image closer to the front and eliminates all of the air gaps inside, reducing reflections. Combine with the new anti-reflective coating, Apple has said that glare has been reduced by 56%. 

It certainly seems to work well. Under our bright and harsh office lights, the iPad Air 2 picked up a more subtle reflection (top photo) compared to the iPad Air’s much harsher reflection (bottom photo). That makes the new model much easier to use in a variety of different lighting situations.

Internally, the screen still uses an IPS panel, which gives you the amazing viewing angles we’re used too from Apple’s tablet line. You can look at the screen from pretty much any angle without affecting colour accuracy or brightness.

Using our colour calibrator on the display, we tested the screen to see how accurate it was and how good its contrast was. Colour accuracy was pretty much the same as with the iPad Air, with the tablet able to produce 90.1% of the sRGB colour gamut. Brightness of 390cd/m2 was similar, too, with the iPad remaining one of the brightest tablets that we’ve tested. Apple as managed to improve the contrast significantly to 1,015:1 compared to 860:1, while the black level has dropped from 0.45cd/m2 to an inkier 0.38cd/m2. Side-by-side, the iPad Air 2 produces cleaner, deeper images than its predecessor.

It has to be said that tablets with a Super AMOLED display, such as the Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5, have far better contrast ratios and colour accuracy, but you lose a fair bit of brightness and vibrancy along the way. Overall, then, if you’re looking for a bright and accurate display, there’s a lot to love about the iPad Air 2.

iPad Air 2 performance

If there’s one area that Apple’s gone all out on, it’s performance. With last year’s line-up of products (iPhone 5S, iPad Air and iPad Mini 2), Apple used exactly the same CPU in all three devices, giving them the same performance. This year, Apple has a brand-new A8X chip, designed specifically for the iPad Air 2. This is the first time since the iPad 4 that an iPad has had its own chip.

Based on the A8 SoC used in the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, the 64-bit A8X adds in an extra processor core, making it a tri-core chip, and has bumped the clock speed from 1.4GHz to 1.5GHz.  Finally, RAM has been increased from 1GB to 2GB. Running on the super-efficient iOS 8 operating system, the iPad Air 2 is, hands down, the fastest mobile device that we have ever seen. It ran through the SunSpider Javascript benchmark in 295.8ms, making it the first device we’ve seen to complete the test in sub 300ms. That’s a big improvement over either iPhone 6 models, making this truly the flagship product in Apple’s line-up - not bad considering how slim the tablet is!

Graphics performance has also been boosted, with Apple telling us that the A8X has quad-core graphics. Running 3D Mark Ice Storm on the tablet, the Unlimited version returned a score of 21,548, which is a lot quicker than we’ve seen on any other device.

With Apple pushing developers to use its Metal API, which gives more direct access to the GPU to improve performance and graphics quality, the iPad Air 2 is set to be not only a convenient gaming platform, but one capable of delivering the highest-quality graphics.

Alongside the A8X is the M8 co-processor, which is a low-power processor that can read data from the iPad’s sensors, including the accelerometer, compass, gyroscope and barometer. Arguable, these sensors are more useful on the iPhone 6, which has the Health App to track your activity; the iPad Air 2 does not have this app.

That doesn’t make the M8 useless, though. By monitoring this data, the iPad knows when it’s at rest and when it’s being moved around. When it’s resting, it can stop hunting for networks, as it knows it’s not being used, helping to save stand-by battery life.

iPad Air 2 battery life

With the thinner case, it was inevitable that Apple was going to have reduce the size of the battery in order to fit everything in. This means that the iPad Air 2 has a 7,340mAh battery, compared to the 8,820mAh in the iPad Air. However, the A8X chip is a lot more efficient than the old A7, countering the change in battery size: Apple gives the same 10-hour battery life for its new tablet as it did for the old one.

We put the new tablet through our normal video playback test and the battery lasted an impressive 12h 31m, which is just about the same as the iPad Air. This is still an impressive amount of time for a large tablet and we’ve seen few models that last longer. Combined with the excellent standby time (the iPad Air 2 barely sips power while it’s at rest), you’ll find that you don’t have to charge this tablet too often.

When you do have to charge, it’s good to see that Apple still includes the 2.4A USB charger in the box. This provides rapid charging via the tablet's Lightning connector and you can even use it to more quickly charge your iPhone, which ships with a 1A charger.

iPad Air 2 camera

It’s always felt as though the iPad line-up was a little short changed in the camera department, with Apple sticking to a 5 megapixel sensor for years. Finally, the iPad Air 2 has had an upgrade, with an 8 megapixel sensor installed. This is the same resolution as the sensors used in the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, but while the phones have large 1.5 micron pixels, the iPad Air 2 has smaller 1.12 micro pixels. This means that the tablet has a smaller sensor, so less light falls on each pixel, which could lead to more noise. Likewise, while the iPhone 6 models both have f/2.2 aperture lenses, the iPad Air 2 has an f/2.4 lens, which doesn’t let in quite as much light.

Outside, with bright lighting it’s hard to tell the iPad Air’s shots from the iPhone 6’s. As you can see from the images below, the iPad’s exposure is spot-on across the entire frame, colours are accurate and there’s plenty of detail in the image.

When you move into low-light, that’s where you start to see the differences. Below we’ve lined up three images: the top is the iPad Air, the middle one is the iPad Air 2 and the bottom one is the iPhone 6 Plus. You can click on any image to view the full resolution shot. As you can see, the iPad Air and iPad Air 2 produce similar shots in terms of exposure and noise, although the iPad Air 2’s shot has more detail thanks to the higher resolution. However, the iPhone 6 Plus is leaps and bounds ahead in terms of noise, with its sensor producing a much clearer image, while its OIS helps keep the frame tightly in focus.

Still, the iPad Air 2’s camera is still very good, particularly if you’re planning to shoot outside a lot. It’s also a pleasure to shoot with, with its high-resolution screen making a better viewfinder than you’ll find on any camera.

It’s good to see that the iPad Air finally gets some of the iPhone’s tricks. You can now shoot panoramas at up to 43-megapixels, and you can shoot a 10fps burst mode until the iPad’s memory is full. For video, the iPad’s capable of shooting 1080p video, with outside shots clean and detailed, while low-light shots suffer from more noise than on the new iPhones. It’s great to see the 120fps slo-mo mode introduced with the iPhone 5S - it’s brilliant fun to shoot with and the editing tools to choose which section you want in slow motion and which you want at normal speeds are so simple to use. Introduced with iOS 8 is the new Time-Lapse mode, which you can use to speed up time in a documentary-style way. It’s entirely automatic and lets you capture some cool effects with very little effort.

On the front is the new FaceTime HD camera, as used in the iPhone 6. This has a 1.2 megapixel resolution, but its f/2.2 aperture lets you capture more detail in dark rooms, making video chats that much clearer.

iPad Air 2 iOS 8.1

Apple ships the iPad Air 2 with iOS 8.1, the latest version of its mobile OS. It has to be said that it’s the best version yet in terms of features and and looks. Our full iOS 8.1 review goes into more detail, but we’ll cover the basics here.

The biggest change comes from Continuity, which lets you share features across your Apple devices. So, get a call on your iPhone and you can answer it on your iPad, as long as you’re on the same wireless network; likewise you can initiate a call on your phone from your iPad. New to iOS 8.1 is SMS integration. Once you’ve enabled the feature, your iPad can send and receive SMS messages sent to your iPhone, even if they’re not on the same network.

Hand-off is a great new feature, too, letting you send or receive tasks from your iPad to your Mac or iPhone. For example, you could start writing an email on your iPad and finish it off on your Mac later.

It’s these kinds of features that Apple is in a great position to provide, as it owns the entire ecosystem, writes all of the software and makes all of the hardware (though Motorola is doing similar things with the Chrome browser). If you’ve got another Apple device, these kinds of features are great reason to buy an iPad, too.

On top of that, there’s the entire range of iPad-designed apps, with Apple having by far the best selection; Android tablets simply don’t have the range or quality of apps available. With the new powerful A8X, you can do a lot more on your iPad than you may have thought possible. We’ve seen real-time video editing, plus some amazing image editing using the iPad version of Pixelmator. With some amazing games, too, iOS 8.1 on the iPad is a great OS for work and play.

iPad Air 2 wireless

Apple’s completely upgraded the wireless on its new tablet, too. Wi-Fi has been updated to 802.11ac, which means faster download speeds for people with quick internet connections and 802.11ac wireless routers.

On the cellular versions, 4G has also been upgraded, with the new chip supporting more bands and able to run at speeds of up to 150Mbit/s, although this requires LTE-Advanced (carrier aggregation). Even more interesting is the Apple SIM, which comes pre-installed on all cellular versions of the tablet.

This physical SIM lets you choose in software which network you want to use and the package you want to sign up for. As well as letting you save money by only buying short-term packages that suit your needs, it could help save on roaming costs: when you’re abroad you just pick a local carrier and network deal while you’re away. Currently, only EE in the UK and a few US networks are on-board, but as this feature grows, the iPad may just have revolutionised how we buy and use mobile data.

Even in its infancy, the benefit is obvious. At the time of writing EE was offering 30-day data plans from £1 for 50MB up to £30 for 10GB. For those times you suddenly need mobile data, quickly being able to sign up for a package and get it instantly is brilliant.

iPad Air 2 storage options

As with the recent iPhones, the iPad Air 2 comes in 16GB (£399), 64GB (£479) and 128GB (£559) versions, with the 32GB version dropped. Although the 16GB version costs the same as the old version, Apple has reduced the price of the 64GB version to what the 32GB model used to cost, and the price of the 128GB model down to the 64GB’s price. You can also buy a Wi-Fi + Cellular version of the tablet for £100 extra per model. It's a pity that Apple didn't also raise the £399 model up to 32GB of storage, but maybe that was too much to hope for.

iPad Air 2 Conclusion

The iPad Air 2 is now back where it belongs in Apple’s line-up: right at the top. While last year’s Air had a brilliant design, it was no faster than the iPhone or the iPad Mini 2; this year, Apple redresses the balance with a proper custom-built A8X SoC, an even thinner design and an improved screen. With a better camera, too, the iPad Air 2 feels like a true evolution of the product, with the power, screen size and resolution to make it brilliant at everything from gaming to video editing. Hands-down this is our absolute favourite tablet.

Existing iPad Air owners won’t find enough here to make the upgrade worthwhile, but for everyone else looking for the best and most powerful tablet, you can't get better than the iPad Air 2. The only downside is that it's becoming increasingly hard to recommend the 16GB version of the iPad, as the operating system and apps become bigger and bigger, plus it now has a good camera you'll likely want to use, all this makes the £479 64GB version a more sensible choice for most users.