Gone are the days when there was only one kind of iPad to worry about if you were considering about investing in one. If your existing iPad breaks in 2019, then you’re faced with one of three choices to make – the basic iPad, the iPad Air, or the iPad Pro. That presents you with a decision to make – which one is right for you? If you’ve never had an iPad Pro before, chances are you won’t need one now. Well put that to the side for one moment and focus on the other two options; the iPad, and the iPad Air.
Although a broken iPad (or an iPad in need of replacement) is undoubtedly bad news, we might have a bit of a silver lining for you – right now is a great time to get a replacement in terms of price. There have been persistent rumors of two new iPads being launched imminently, and that appears to be driving down the prices of existing stock as retailers prepare themselves for the new products to arrive. That means the iPad Air isn’t as expensive a choice as it may have been in the past – but is there a reason to go for it ahead of a standard iPad? Let’s compare them head to head.
Technical Details
There’s only one winner here, and it’s the iPad Air. It’s more expensive than its basic cousin for a reason! The current version of the standard iPad contains the A10 Fusion chipset, which is now in its third year of operation. That doesn’t make it ancient by machine standards, but it’s definitely becoming something of a veteran. By contrast, inside the current model of the iPad Air is the A12 Bionic chipset, which was hailed as a major step forward when it was launched last year. If you’re just using your iPad for ‘day to day’ operations – i.e., browsing the internet, looking at pictures or scrolling through social media, you probably won’t notice much difference. If you want to do anything more intensive, though,(let’s say for example you use your iPad for business purposes, and want to run your emails through it) you’ll probably benefit from that newer chip.
Other than the chip, it’s worth mentioning the camera. The front camera of a standard iPad offers 1.2 megapixels – more than enough to capture a nice, clear image. Despite that, it’s feeble compared to what’s mounted on the front of the iPad Air – a 7-megapixel camera which captures every single detail it’s exposed to. If you’re relying on your iPad camera to make yourself an Instagram star, then this bears thinking about.
Storage
The iPad Air not only has a more powerful chip at its heart, but it also has more room to store your files. The standard iPad offers 32GB of storage – not a great deal in the modern age of computing. If you’re someone who takes a lot of high-resolution photos or videos – or downloads movies – you’ll find yourself running out of space quite quickly. You don’t have to worry about that with the iPad Air.
The more powerful machine starts off with double the storage of the standard iPad on its base model – 64GB as opposed to 32GB. If that isn’t enough for you, you can opt for an upgrade which will push it to 256GB – which really should be enough to store anything you could possibly want.
Storage needn’t be the whole story here, though. More and more people are turning to the cloud for storage, because it means important files are safe and backed up in the event of device loss or failure. If you’re a cloud storage user, then it doesn’t matter how big the hard drive of your iPad is, and the iPad Air’s advantage is worthless.
Performance
As we alluded to earlier, you’ll only notice a difference in the performance between the two devices if you ask them to perform power-intensive tasks. That’s when the A12 chip in the iPad Air gets its chance to shine. Video editors will notice a difference, as will gamers. You’ll have no issue playing low-intensity games like online slots on a standard iPad. By design, mobile slots and other online casino games don’t put a strain on the processor of a device, because mobile slots websites are built to load easily. If your gaming interests are limited to mobile slots and similar activities, you shouldn’t experience any issues. If you’re playing something with cutting-edge graphics and features, though the iPad Air will run them smoother and faster.
Other than that, performance is on par. There’s no extra functionality that the iPad Air offers which you can’t get with a standard iPad, and any app, attachment or other compatible devices that work on the iPad Air will also work on a standard iPad.
In Conclusion
Even though there’s been a drop in the price of both models of iPad recently, there’s still a difference of at least $100 (and often more) between the price of the standard iPad, and the price of the iPad Air. As you’d probably prefer than $100 to be in your bank account rather than anybody else’s, we’re happy to reassure you that the standard iPad is still a perfectly serviceable model for most people. We’d only recommend paying for the upgrade to the iPad Air if you’re someone who works with graphics, plays a lot of games, or does something else with the device which calls for high performance. If you’re going to do that, though, why not go the whole hog and buy an iPad Pro?
We have no idea how long the currently-reduced prices will last – if the rumors of new iPads arriving in the fall prove to be unfounded, they could shoot back up again. If Apple does have something up their sleeve when it comes to new devices, we expect to know about it by the start of September at the latest. That gives you the rest of August to get your hands on an iPad at a reasonable price – so don’t let us hold you up any longer!