On Friday Apple, plans to start selling its fifth-generation full-size model, called the iPad Air, and this one significantly extends the iPad's advantages, at the same $499 base price of its predecessor. Apple has slashed the iPad's weight by 28%, made it 20% thinner and 9% narrower, while increasing its speed and retaining the brilliant, 9.7-inch Retina display.
The new iPad weighs just 1 pound, down from 1.4 pounds for the previous top-of-the-line model, the iPad 4, which is being discontinued.
And it has done all this while maintaining the iPad's industry-leading battery life. In my tests, the iPad Air far exceeded Apple's claim of 10 hours of battery life. For over 12 hours, it played high-definition videos, nonstop, with the screen at 75% brightness, with Wi-Fi on and emails pouring in. That's the best battery life I've ever recorded for any tablet.
I've been testing the iPad Air for about a week and found it a pleasure to use. This new iPad isn't a radical rethinking of what a tablet can be, but it's a major improvement on a successful product. It is the best tablet I've ever reviewed.
That isn't just because of its slimmer, lighter design, but because Apple boasts 475,000 apps optimized for tablet use—far more than any other tablet platform. (The iPad also can run all of the million or so apps available for the iPhone.) By contrast, the vast majority of apps available for rival Android tablets are just stretched versions of phone apps.
The battery performance of the iPad Air simply blew me away. In my tough tablet battery test, where I disable automatic screen dimming and other power-saving features, and combine video playback from the device's memory with leaving Wi-Fi on and email working at normal settings, the iPad has almost always met its claims and beat competitors by a wide margin, clocking a battery life of 12 hours and 13 minutes, which exceeded Apple's claim by more than 20%. The company says its A7 chip, combined with the fact it controls its own operating system, gives the new iPad the ability to tailor under-the-hood processes so unneeded drains on the battery can be minimized.
Bottom line: If you can afford it, the new iPad Air is the tablet I recommend, hands down.
By Walt S. Mossberg Wall Street Journal
