iPad Air 4

[HLS]

I got the iPad Air 4 in green and love it. I don’t know why but it reading on it is easier than iPad Pro 11” and downloads are 50% faster. I recommend! I am reading outside now and glare is not as bad as I find with other tablets

[tomsem]

The iPad Air 4 has a faster processor than the current iPad Pro 11” and perhaps some other things that make it faster. I’m probably going to get one (to replace my wife’s Air 2) and then set my sights on the next iPad Pro 12.9” (or whatever it will be).

[peaceridge]

Originally Posted by tomsem

The iPad Air 4 has a faster processor than the current iPad Pro 11” and perhaps some other things that make it faster. I’m probably going to get one (to replace my wife’s Air 2) and then set my sights on the next iPad Pro 12.9” (or whatever it will be).

My Ipad Mini 5 is faster than my ipad pro 11" (the 11 is so bad, I seldom use it). I'm waiting for the mini 6, but might consider the Air 4 if I can get Apple to trade my 11 in.

[OtinG]

Originally Posted by HLS

I got the iPad Air 4 in green and love it. I don’t know why but it reading on it is easier than iPad Pro 11” and downloads are 50% faster. I recommend! I am reading outside now and glare is not as bad as I find with other tablets

I really like my iPad Air 2020 (4th generation). I find that WiFi on iPads and iPhones fluctuates per model. Some are very fast and others not so much. It probably depends a lot on the WiFi hardware they put in each, and a bit of luck. The over all processing speed of the iPad Air 2020 is definitely faster than the Pro 11" though. Not sure why the Air seems brighter outdoors than the Pro as they have very similar displays but the Pro has a 100 nits brightness advantage in the specs.

Originally Posted by peaceridge

My Ipad Mini 5 is faster than my ipad pro 11" (the 11 is so bad, I seldom use it). I'm waiting for the mini 6, but might consider the Air 4 if I can get Apple to trade my 11 in.

I suggest calling Apple to see if a local Apple retail store can make the trade for you in person. If you go the mail in route expect it to take 3 weeks to get your Apple gift card in the amount of the trade in. I started my trade in with Phobio (Apple's mail in trade partner) on March 12 and I'm still waiting for the Gift card on March 30. Snails move faster than Phobio!

[Phobio Support]

@OtinG

Thank you for trading with us and referring a future trade-in customer. We really appreciate that. Our timeline does take a couple of weeks to complete. This is so that we fully inspect your device and are able to offer you the full value that your trade-in deserves. If you ever have any questions about the trade-in process you can email me at DianaP@Phobio.com

We hope you continue to trade with us in the future.

Diana with Phobio Support

[HLS]

Originally Posted by peaceridge

My Ipad Mini 5 is faster than my ipad pro 11" (the 11 is so bad, I seldom use it). I'm waiting for the mini 6, but might consider the Air 4 if I can get Apple to trade my 11 in.

yes apple quotes me around $250 in trade in on my 11"

[HLS]

Well a few months later I am still loving it. Reading on it is a pleasure. Not sure why. I generally hate reading on tablets. I also picked up a screen protector at best buy. Like that also. Strange enough easier to clean.


The green is beautiful but I wish it was darker. it's a little too subtle. I went and got the otterbox case in grey and clear backing from the apple website. it shows off the green back and feels solid protection. I first got the dark green Apple Folio case but it was such a dirt and fingerprint magnet and impossible to get completely clean. Got annoyed and bought the otter box. it was insanely expensive but worth it.

[OtinG]

Originally Posted by HLS

WTF. noone traded with you. Spammer????

Actually, I did trade in my old iPad to them, but they took over 3 weeks to pay me. I had to call Apple and log a complaint against them before they finally finished up the trade in. There are a lot of negative posts about them on the internet from disgruntled customers. Once the pandemic eases up and Apple stores will handle trade ins again, that is the best way to do a trade in.

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by HLS

Well a few months later I am still loving it. Reading on it is a pleasure. Not sure why. I generally hate reading on tablets. I also picked up a screen protector at best buy. Like that also. Strange enough easier to clean.

That’s normal. From experience, the oleophobic coating on the fully laminated display iPads isn’t as effective as the coating on the non-laminated iPads or most tempered glass screen protectors.

I installed a screen protector on my mom’s iPad Pro 9.7 because that screen collected oils like nobody’s business. Made screen cleaning so much easier.

[hollowpoint]

OP, glad you had a good experience with the Air. I've been hearing mostly good things about them. Will be curious to hear if your battery life also holds up, that's the one nit I read a few reviews saying that battery life suffered in the 2020 model.

As somebody posted, my Mini Gen 5 has also been fast: both the processor and the wifi speeds are extremely snappy.

Will be curious to hear if anyone tried the new Ipad Pros with the M1 chip, and see what the performance is like on those. For my use, I'm not sure yet but doubting that I'll ever need a 10" - 12" form factor in an Ipad. The Mini is such an oustanding form factor for me, so light, portable, use it for everything from web surfing on the couch to reading ebooks. And when I want more screen, I nearly always want more power, so I just step up to my laptop which is a 2-in-1 I can fold back like a tablet, if I need to do PDF pen editing, or note-taking in Onenote, or sketching.

[peaceridge]

Originally Posted by ilovejedd

That’s normal. From experience, the oleophobic coating on the fully laminated display iPads isn’t as effective as the coating on the non-laminated iPads or most tempered glass screen protectors.

I installed a screen protector on my mom’s iPad Pro 9.7 because that screen collected oils like nobody’s business. Made screen cleaning so much easier.

So, it would be helpful on the Air 4 and the Mini 5, both of which are fully laminated, to install a tempered glass screen protector?

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by peaceridge

So, it would be helpful on the Air 4 and the Mini 5, both of which are fully laminated, to install a tempered glass screen protector?

It does help lessen fingerprint haze and is good protection from scratching (including microscratches). Caveat, it makes the screen more glarey again.

[OtinG]

Originally Posted by hollowpoint

Will be curious to hear if anyone tried the new Ipad Pros with the M1 chip, and see what the performance is like on those....

MacRumors has an article about the reported issue of bad blooming on the new M1 iPad Pros. Blooming is a halo glowing effect that occurs around very bright portions of the screen when the adjacent background is very dark. I commented on this in that article's Comments area, so I'll quote my own response here:

I'm not going to defend the new screens on the newest iPad Pros, mainly because I have not seen nor used one yet. They are way out of my price range. I had to save a long while to get up the money for my iPad Air 2020! However, I will point out a few things.

First, user photographs of other device screens are never going to look the same to us as the photographed device screen's actual screen does to the user who photographed it. There are simply too many variables including type of camera used, type of processing performed on the images, type of color format and space used, and the wide variety of screens we the viewers will use to look at them. So wait and look at an actual iPad Pro M1 before you decide one way or the other.

Second, high contrast will look bad to most of us regardless of screen type or device it is viewed on. Our eyes can adjust to the difference between bright white and dark black, but it takes time for our brains to process the information. Here is the thing, read a few lines of bright white text on a dark black background, then look away. You will most likely get the so-called "mini blinds" effect where for a while you see blurry dark lines in front of you. So don't ever expect bright white on dark black to look good, period. But if blooming does occur with darker grays and colors contrasted with brightly lit areas of the screen, then that can definitely be an issue worth noting.

Blooming is a big topic on looking for new 4K HDR TVs as so many of the new TVs still experience it to one degree or another. Clearly it is not that easy to get rid of in an affordable manner else more TV manufacturers would have done so by now, at least on their TVs costing $800 or more. Companies like Apple and others will try to use fancy tech names to convince us their screens are better than the competitions's screens, but those tech buzz words are often just BS jargon for "we tried to make it a little less terrible." It is the high tech industry's version of the home health industry's "snake oil."

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by hollowpoint

As somebody posted, my Mini Gen 5 has also been fast: both the processor and the wifi speeds are extremely snappy.

Will be curious to hear if anyone tried the new Ipad Pros with the M1 chip, and see what the performance is like on those. For my use, I'm not sure yet but doubting that I'll ever need a 10" - 12" form factor in an Ipad. The Mini is such an oustanding form factor for me, so light, portable, use it for everything from web surfing on the couch to reading ebooks. And when I want more screen, I nearly always want more power, so I just step up to my laptop which is a 2-in-1 I can fold back like a tablet, if I need to do PDF pen editing, or note-taking in Onenote, or sketching.

It's fast but the A12 is already fast (Mini 5, Air 3, iPad 8) so compared to this, it's just a bit snappier unless you're running demanding tasks (e.g. gaming, video export, etc).

That said, iPadOS is still iPadOS so the M1 iPad Pro is still limited by that. We'll see what changes are made come WWDC.

Mind, I've never really felt that my A10X and A12 iPads were slower compared to my Intel PCs (Kaby Lake and Coffee Lake). Nowadays, when I need to switch to Windows PCs, it's always been because of software or workflow and not because the iPad is slow.

[OtinG]

Originally Posted by ilovejedd

It's fast but the A12 is already fast (Mini 5, Air 3, iPad 8) so compared to this, it's just a bit snappier unless you're running demanding tasks (e.g. gaming, video export, etc).

That said, iPadOS is still iPadOS so the M1 iPad Pro is still limited by that. We'll see what changes are made come WWDC.

Mind, I've never really felt that my A10X and A12 iPads were slower compared to my Intel PCs (Kaby Lake and Coffee Lake). Nowadays, when I need to switch to Windows PCs, it's always been because of software or workflow and not because the iPad is slow.

I totally agree with all of that. My iPad mini 5 with A12 and my iPad Air 2020 with A14 are sufficiently fast for my typical iPad related uses. The main factor in limiting the usefulness of my iPad Air 2020 remains iPadOS. My iPad Air 2020 has enough "horsepower" to be quite capable of doing most of the image post processing I would like to do with it, but iPadOS makes it a royal PITA with its limitations, clunky interface and clunky Files app. Ditto for maintaining spreadsheets. If Apple could sort out the clunky iPadOS interface and Files app, that would make it a lot easier to me rely more on my iPad Air 2020 and a lot less on my MacBook Pro.

ETA: iPadOS still feels like it is trapped in the 20th century. Apple needs to bring it into the 21st century and iron out the issues which still plague its touch interface.