Apple iPad Air (2020) review: The best tablet for most people
Our Verdict
The iPad Air 4'south screen, charging and performance make it i of the best iPads ever, equally it's essentially a more affordable iPad Pro.
For
- Elegant thin and lite design
- Super-fast A14 Bionic processor
- Bright, colorful and abrupt display
- Excellent webcam
- USB-C charging
- Magic Keyboard and 2nd Gen Apple Pencil support
Against
- No Confront ID
- RIP headphone jack
- Expensive accessories
Tom's Guide Verdict
The iPad Air 4's screen, charging and performance brand information technology 1 of the all-time iPads ever, as it'due south essentially a more affordable iPad Pro.
Pros
- +
Elegant thin and light design
- +
Super-fast A14 Bionic processor
- +
Brilliant, colorful and sharp display
- +
Excellent webcam
- +
USB-C charging
- +
Magic Keyboard and 2nd Gen Apple Pencil support
Cons
- -
No Face ID
- -
RIP headphone jack
- -
Expensive accessories
iPad Air (2020) specs
Bone: iPadOS 14
CPU: A14 Bionic
Storage: 64GB, 256GB
Brandish: 10.nine-inch (2360 x 1640 pixels) Liquid Retina
Rear cameras: 12MP broad (f/i.8)
Video: Up to 4K at upwards to 60 fps
Forepart camera: 7MP TrueDepth
Wireless: Wi-Fi vi, optional 4G LTE
Battery: 28.6 watt-hour
Battery life: 10:29 (tested)
Size: ix.7 x seven x 0.24 inches
Weight: 1 pound
Price: $599
The $599 Apple tree iPad Air (2020) occupies a whole new pricing tier between the $329 ten.ii-inch iPad 9 (2021) and the $799 iPad Pro 2021 (11-inch). Information technology is a mid-range iPad option for those who want Pro-level perks without the need to pay upward to a thousand with the Magic Keyboard. But is this iPad corking enough to spend almost twice equally much as you would on the standard iPad? I'd say then, as it's my new favorite iPad.
Not only does the ten.9-inch iPad Air 4 impress with its apartment-border design (which has the cool colour options of the iPhone 12 in the shell of the 11-inch iPad Pro), merely its Apple Pencil (2d Gen) and Magic Keyboard support hateful it's more capable of replacing your laptop (provided you spend more for those accessories). It'southward also got speedy A14 Bionic functioning and USB-C charging, ii upgrades I wish the normal iPad could become.
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This iPad Air (2020) review will explicate how the tablet'due south only real downsides are comparative problems yous might not notice otherwise. Its screen is bright and colorful, but competitors shine brighter and produce more color. Oh, and its long battery life is outpaced by two of its competitors — which include the normal iPad.
The Apple iPad Air 5 is rumored to go far this Spring with a faster processor and improved cameras. So, should you lot buy the iPad Air 4? Here's everything to know well-nigh why Apple'due south latest iPad might be its all-time nonetheless.
iPad Air (2020) review: Release appointment and cost
The iPad Air 4 came out on Fri, Oct. 23, 2020. It starts at $599 for the 64GB configuration, and y'all can upgrade to 256GB for $150 — which brings you to $749. LTE cellular connectivity costs $130 more, bringing the max price to $879.
That toll looks proficient next to the iPad Pro, but some may feel sticker stupor if they think how the iPad Air iii was $499. Fortunately, nosotros've started to see (minor) sale pricing so far. Currently, Amazon has the best sale, bringing the iPad Air 2020 to $569!
iPad Air (2020) review: Design
The iPad Air iv looks plenty similar an iPad Pro that it could fool you into thinking Apple merely released new colorways of the xi-inch version of its high-terminate iPad. It's bachelor in the green model we tested (a minty fresh option I'd recommend), blue (which I wish I'd seen in person), rose gold, silverish and Space Gray.
Thinking near the iPad Air four as the successor to the iPad Air three, yous tin meet how removing the home button from the lesser of the screen gave Apple tree the power to increase its screen size, equally the iPad Air 4'southward 10.ix-inch screen is bigger than the iPad Air iii'south 10.5-inch panel.
The other central differentiators are in its buttons and security measures. Apple opted to give the iPad Air 4 a Touch ID fingerprint scanner that'southward hidden inside of its lock button. I prefer the iPad Air 4 to the Milky way Tab S7 (which as well puts its fingerprint sensor in its lock button), as Apple's button sticks out slightly, making it easier to detect visually. The Tab S7's fingerprint scanner is slightly recessed, making for a modest search mission each time.
The iPad Air four too dumps the Lightning port for USB-C, which will help me cut down on the number of cables I utilize (retiring another Lightning string for but my iPhone and AirPods). This is a welcome modify and i I wish the regular iPad would also become.
The iPad Air 4 doesn't have a headphone jack, just neither does the iPad Pro nor Tab S7. Apple's letting besides many devices drink from the iPhone'southward fountain of 'courage,' and that's probably annoying for those who haven't jumped to wireless headphones. And while I wish this trend would end, I love my AirPods Pro and I've started to just keep my wired headphones continued to my podcast mic, the only device that truly needs them.
Measuring 9.seven 10 vii x 0.two inches and weighing 1 pound even, the iPad Air iv has the aforementioned measurements every bit the 11-inch iPad Pro, while being slightly thinner and lighter than the 10.2-inch iPad (9.8 x 6.viii x 0.3 inches, 1.ane pounds). The Samsung Galaxy Tab S7 (10 ten 6.5 x 0.two inches, ane.1 pounds) is also a touch heavier.
iPad Air (2020) review: Brandish
The iPad Air iv'southward screen is sharp, but information technology could stand to be brighter. Watching a 4K version of the film Midsommar on the iPad Air four, I saw enough of detail when Florence Pugh'due south graphic symbol hallucinated that her anxiety were made of grass, with blades of grass weaving in and out and poking up. Color reproduction looked good when I watched a sneak preview for The Suicide Squad, where the reds and dejection of Peacemaker's outfit practically popped off the screen.
After, I noticed a broad range of greens in the foliage surrounding the According to our Klein K10-A colorimeter, the iPad Air four produces 102.ix% of the sRGB color spectrum, a rate that falls nether both the Milky way Tab S7's ratings (111% on Natural mode, 152% on Vivid) and the 122.9% from the 12.9-inch iPad Pro besides. The regular iPad comes close, at 97%.
The iPad Air four maxes out at 440 nits of effulgence, a rating that'south good on its own, merely outshined by its competitors. That includes even the normal iPad (484 nits), which is but slightly dimmer than the Galaxy Tab S7 (499 nits). The iPad Pro (559 nits) gets even brighter.
In terms of sharpness, the iPad Air 4 has a 264ppi pixel density, which is the same rate as you observe in the normal iPad and the iPad Pro. The Tab S7's eleven-inch 2560 x 1600-pixel panel has a density of 276 ppi, a pilus better.
The other reason to go for the iPad Air four over the iPad is its screen has a few extra perks. Those include full lamination and an anti-cogitating coating, so it'southward more resistant to glare and fingerprints.
Watching a scene of the documentary You Cannot Kill David Arquette, the hues of the actor'southward pink and blue luchador mask and tights stayed strong beyond the normal xxx degrees to the left and right, and even stayed authentic when I turned the iPad Air 4 85 degrees to the side. And fifty-fifty in the darker scenes of this film, I saw much less of myself reflected in the tablet'south screen than I had on the Galaxy Tab S7.
The iPad Air 4 doesn't offer the smoothness of 120Hz refresh rates that the iPad Pro and Tab S7 do. I don't remember about folks exterior of early adopters volition notice.
iPad Air (2020) review: Touch ID security
The iPad Air 4 feels most like a merger of the iPad and iPad Pro when it comes to the Touch ID fingerprint scanning power button. I don't know why Apple decided to not include the iPad Pro's Face ID selfie camera, when the Air already has the tiny bezels that the iPad Pro fits that sensor into.
The Touch on ID sensor in the iPad Air iv allows for fast authentication when using Apple Pay and using passwords, but I wish they hadn't ditched Face ID. Why? Well, the iPad Pro'southward facial recognition just works, provided your hand isn't roofing up that camera (I've had that happen to me a number of times, though).
Either style, the iPad Air 4'due south Touch on ID power button is a nifty pull a fast one on, and pulled off better than the Galaxy Tab S7's as I've said earlier. Samsung gets points here, though, past giving both facial and fingerprint recognition, when Apple only offers one.
The iPad Air iv's fingerprint sensor looks similar one mode Apple tree could requite its iPhone 13 a Affect ID sensor if the company fails to embed the biometric scanner in its screen. The Impact ID sensor makes a lot more sense for the iPhone than information technology is an iPad, at least while nosotros all continue to clothing face masks in public.
The iPad Air 4'south A14 Bionic chip gives it a serious speed advantage over near tablets.
iPad Air (2020) review: A14 Bionic performance
The iPad Air 4 runs on the A14 Bionic chip, which has a hexa-cadre CPU and a quad-core GPU, which combine to give it a serious speed reward over virtually tablets. I saw nil stutter under basic everyday usage — splitting its screen between 12 Safari tabs and a 1080p YouTube video (The Batman 2021 trailer) — with Tweetbot open in slide-over mode. With all of that going on, I opened an image in the Pixelmator Photograph image editor, and saw its ML Super Resolution upwards-rez'ing complete in less than xxx seconds.
The iPad Air iv earned a four,262 on the Geekbench 5 general criterion, which beats its main competitor. The Galaxy Tab S7 (Snapdragon 865+) hit a marking of 3,074 and the iPad 2020 (A12 Bionic) notched two,685. The iPad Pro 2020 (A12Z Bionic) is the only model that did better, at four,720.
The mobile racing game Cobblestone 9: Legends ran super-smoothly on the iPad Air 4, as I drove a Mitsubishi lancer around a snowy hill. I saw nary a stutter or frame drib as I knocked cars off the road and sped through to the finish line in first place.
iPad Air (2020) review: Audio
The iPad Air iv's stereo speakers produce plenty audio to make full not but my small-to-medium-sized habitation office, but besides spill over sweetness tunes to adjacent rooms. As I listened to Fleetwood Mac's "Dreams" on the tablet, Stevie Nicks' serene vocals filled the room around me, taking some of the stress out of my shoulders as I noted the crisp-striking pulsate cymbals.
The big difference between the Air four's sound and the iPad Pro'southward sound is in its smarts. Yous'll get a truthful stereo audio experience on the Air four in landscape mode, while the iPad Pro has a quad-speaker setup that allows y'all to consistently get stereo sound no matter which position information technology'due south in, as it'southward smart enough to arrange to stereo when you've got the tablet in a vertical/portrait orientation.
iPad Air (2020) review: Apple Pencil and Magic Keyboard
My favorite part of the iPad Air four is that it means you don't have to spend $800 to get to use (and buy) Apple tree'southward best iPad accessories. Permit's start with the Apple tree Pencil 2nd Gen, which simply snaps to the top edge of the iPad Air four, and doesn't accuse by plugging it into the port on the bottom edge (every bit the original Apple Pencil does with Lightning port-based iPads).
And that'south of import considering iPadOS 14 gives y'all Scribble. It's the ability to write into text fields with the Apple Pencil and take that handwriting turn into legit text. And information technology even works with my chicken-scratch.
Selling a keyboard for nearly the toll of the entry-level iPad merely doesn't feel right.
More importantly, the iPad Air 4's support for the Magic Keyboard means that typing on this iPad is every bit easy as on the iPad Pro. As I explained in my iPad Pro Magic Keyboard review, its keys make for a much more than comfortable typing experience cheers to increased vertical travel, the motion that makes them experience like you're using a real keyboard, and non clicking the modest sensors of the iPad Smart Keyboard Folio. The Magic Keyboard as well wins because it has a touchpad, which the Smart Keyboard always lacked — and which makes the iPad Air four more similar a real laptop.
I'1000 plenty used to typing on the Magic Keyboard (the 2018 iPad Pro is becoming my main computing device when I'm off the clock), and hit 78 words per minute (with 97% accuracy) on my get-go endeavor of the 10FastFingers typing test.
Frustratingly, the Magic Keyboard costs likewise much at $300. I don't know how Apple makes it, merely selling a keyboard for nearly the cost of the entry-level iPad just doesn't feel right. That being said, anyone because the $179 Smart Keyboard Folio should actually pony up the extra $121. It's that much improve of a typing experience. Samsung's Galaxy Tab S7 Bookcover Keyboard may besides offering a touchpad, but its number keys are small and its overall blueprint is a clunky 2-piece design that makes the Magic Keyboard's so-simple attach/disassemble procedure wait fifty-fifty more than seamless than it already is.
1 more than thing nigh that Magic Keyboard, if you're waiting to buy one. We've learned that Apple seems to have a 2d Gen Magic Keyboard, which would likely support both the iPad Pro and Air, in the works.
The $129 Apple Pencil 2nd Gen also is a bit too pricey, and I wish they'd include it for free similar Samsung does with the Galaxy Tab S7'due south S-Pen. That existence said, the Apple Pencil 2 feels a lot more than substantial than the Southward-Pen. Again, though, exercise non buy the $99 Apple Pencil 1 for the iPad Air iv, the actress $30 for the 2nd gen Pencil is more than worth information technology. The Apple Pencil 1 isn't a good fit for the Air iv as it tin can't exist plugged into the base of the iPad Air iv without a USB-C to Lightning adapter.
iPad Air (2020) review: Cameras
Some people will use the iPad Air 4 as a photographic camera, and who am I to say they shouldn't? Apple's definitely encouraging tablet photography by giving the iPad Air a 12-megapixel wide angle webcam. That sensor did a practiced chore of capturing the reds and yellows of a gala apple I ate every bit a mid-review snack, as well, equally the browns, blues and blacks in the Persona 5 gift box I placed the apple upon.
The 7MP front-facing webcam provides sharp and accurate image captures, as I tested with a selfie in my living room. I really thought it captured a bit too much detail of my nose and skin.
But so I put the iPad Air four to the ultimate work-from-habitation-test, on a Google Meet call with my boss. After he said the video quality was "as good as, if not improve than, a real webcam," I continued an external Logitech C920 webcam to my piece of work laptop and joined the call from that device. Lo and behold, my boss' judgment was proven correct, when he could come across their image quality side by side. The iPad Air 4's camera captured stronger greens on my t-shirt and handled sources of lite better, allowing them to illuminate backdrops instead of just render as blown-out white areas in photos.
Just like with the Galaxy Tab S7, the iPad Air 4's camera bump protrudes a bit, and there'south a little back and forth rocking if you lot lay the tablet screen-up on a table — the only style you ever should.
iPad Air (2020) review: Battery life
The iPad Air 4 offers all-mean solar day battery life, going 10 hours and 29 minutes on the Tom'south Guide web-surfing-based bombardment exam. That narrowly beats the iPad Pro (10:16), just the ten.two-inch iPad (12:57) and Samsung Galaxy Tab S7 (13:16) lasted longer. That difference may mean yous're going to charge the iPad Air 4 a lilliputian more often, simply not by much.
iPad Air (2020) review: Verdict
When relatives and friends enquire me what tablet to buy, I'chiliad telling them to get the iPad Air iv. It's not only faster and more stylish than the normal iPad, merely the Magic Keyboard support means the iPad Air is finally a laptop beater. If its battery life was longer, or its display were brighter, Apple might have made the best tablet ever.
For longer battery life, you could get the Galaxy Tab S7, which costs $50 more or the much-cheaper iPad, but the iPad Air 4 beats both on speed. Those who desire the brightest screen out in that location should check out the iPad Pro, only you're spending $200 more to get there, and many might not notice the differences.
Overall, this iPad Air 4 review has shown why it's the best iPad out at that place, thank you to taking most of the iPad Pro features people will really appreciate, and making them available to a wider audience.
Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/reviews/ipad-air-4-2020
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