THREE Weeks with the 2020 iPad Air: The BEST Everyday iPad?

This is the 2020 iPad Air. It’s Apple’s latest iPad, it got a massive face lift, and now looks like its older brother. The iPad Pro. So, what’s the difference then. Is this a better deal than the iPad Pro it took its looks from? How could it look like the Pro and be cheaper? Let’s find out with a little review.

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Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
0:22 Physical Features
3:14 Personal User Experience
6:35 Conclusions

The iPad itself got a major design upgrade, comes in a few new colors, and now resembles the iPad Pro in a bunch of different ways. I will be comparing the Air to the iPad Pro a lot, because it’s borrowing a lot of features from it. The iPad Air now has stereo speakers on both sides of the iPad. It has these flat edges now, just like the iPad Pro, and even the USB-C port just like the iPad Pro. So, because it’s so similar to the iPad Pro in both features and size, you’ll be happy to know, it easily fits in the 11in iPad Pro’s cases, even the Magic Keyboard for the 11in and the 2nd generation apple Pencil that snaps into place. If you want to know more about what using an iPad as a computer is like, check out the Magic Keyboard review I made up here, this video is focused primarily on the iPad Air, so we won’t talk about the magic keyboard as much but that video summarizes the overall experience of using the iPad as your only computer and applies to this iPad as well.

There are some differences between the iPad Air and Pro. The iPad Air has a fingerprint sensor on the Power button and no antenna lines on the WiFi model, while the iPad Pro has FaceID and Antenna lines even on the WiFi model. Oh. The iPad Air display is slightly smaller than the iPad Pro at 10.9in instead of 11in. I don’t think anyone would have a problem with that. In real world usage I noticed no difference in quality of life when using the smaller display. The iPad Air has a single camera on the back and no flash. But the downside for all these new features is the all new price. All these new iPad Pro-like features push the 2020 iPad air from a starting price of $500 it was before to $600.

Great, so the iPad air looks and feels like the iPad pro and costs less, but what’s the user experience like? Well. To put things shortly, this thing is fantastic. The processor in this thing is the A14 chip, which is the latest one in the iPhone 12, and the performance is similar to the 2020 iPad Pros. I’d say performance is great for the price. You’re getting new iphone performance for $100 less. The side speakers push out so much more sound than when you only had the speakers on one side. Because the iPad air has a usb-c port now you can easily connect widely available usb-c dongles into your iPad air to transfer files, connect to a display, or even plug in a mouse. The fingerprint sensor on the power button was a mixed bag for me. It’s a strip now instead of the circular fingerprint scanners you’ll find in other Apple devices but it should get the job done. So one of the few reasons the iPad Air costs less than the iPad Pro is because it has a standard 60Hz display, while the iPad Pro has the ProMotion 120Hz display. What this means is, when you’re scrolling around the screen, it’s just a bit choppier than if it’s on the iPad Pro’s display. Sure, just scrolling around the iPad pro FEELS smoother, despite the chips in these devices performing pretty similarly. If you have them side by side it’s easy to notice the difference, but in real world usage, still noticeable but not by much. You’d have to really be looking for it. But, if you’re an artist or use the Apple Pencil a lot then it just overall looks and feels more responsive on the iPad Pro because the screen updates twice as fast and so, it feels like there’s less lag with the pencil on the Pro. Things like video streaming on youtube, netflix, hulu or even reading a book or comic off these are also not affected by the slower display.

As for gaming, I really only tried to run Genshin Impact on the iPad air and it runs it fantastically. Even with everything on high except for frame rate. No hitches.

So here is my conclusion of the iPad Air. It has a bunch of the great features the iPad Pro has but at a lower price. It fits in real nicely in this lineup as the best iPad for most people. If the base model ipad has everything you need in a tablet, then the iPad Air 2020 has almost everything the average person would WANT in a tablet. And I think that’s it’s biggest selling point. So if you’re looking at iPads start right here.