Apple iPad Air: Lighter and more powerful than ever before

Apple continues to dominate the tablet realm and despite worthy efforts from the Android camp, no one has been able to truly knock them off the pedestal. Rather than just getting a beefed up version of the iPad 4th Gen this year, we got a completely overhauled iPad, heavily influenced by the iPad mini. The iPad Air is currently the lightest 10-inch (9.7 to be specific) tablet in the market and manages to beat the Sony Xperia Tablet Z as well by a good margin. But is the drastic weight shedding and new internals worth the higher starting price? Let’s see if the Air can make a strong enough case for itself.

Design and Build

First off, we’re really glad Apple has decided to give the new iPad a proper name, rather than going with something like ‘new’ or just ‘iPad’. The Air also has many visual differences to distinguish it from its predecessors. For starters, it looks like a bigger iPad mini so there’s no mistaking it for any of the previous versions. As with any Apple product, there’s a sense of overwhelming premiumness to the Air and that anal attention to detail can’t be missed. It looks good in white or black frankly and the chamfered aluminium bezel completes the look nicely. The Air is quite thin at just 7.5mm however; the Sony Xperia Tablet Z remains the thinnest at a ridiculous 6.9mm. Still, the Air is big improvement over the out-going model and is light as well at 469g (for the Wi-Fi model).

Media

The music and video player is similar to what we saw on the iPhone 5c, the difference being, you have to scroll a lot less due to the larger screen real estate. There aren’t any Ear Pods bundled along with the Air. Audio quality is pretty good through earphones and equally good via the speakers. There’s no stereo effect like some of the other tablets in the market but it’s loud and clear. The new music player gets a complete cosmetic overhaul while still remaining functionally similar to the previous version. The stock video player only supports MP4 files so any other format will need to be converted, unless you use a third party app.
Connectivity

 The version we’re reviewing today is the Wi-Fi-only model so there’s no LTE/3G or GPS even. You do get dual-band Wi-Fi ‘n’, Bluetooth v4.0 and TV-out via the Lightning jack. Siri is also at your beck and call, whenever you need something. It’s not as accurate as Google Voice in understanding Indian accents but it works after a couple of tries. Apple bundles a whole bunch of apps with iOS 7 like Newsstand, Photo Booth, Game Center, iBooks and you also get a prompt during initial setup, to download additional free Apple apps like iPhoto, iMovie, GarageBand, etc.