iPad Air vs iPad Air 2 Comparison, Specs: Does Newer Really Mean Better?
The iPad Air 2 has been out for barely a month and there are already speculations on whether or not the second iteration of the iPad Air was an improvement over the first one. So far, the iPad Air 2 has been receiving mixed reviews, seemingly shouting out the fact that while the latest iPad Air is still a gold standard for tablets, is it an actual improvement over the first one?
The first iPad Air was hailed as the greatest tablet in the market today and was regarded as the benchmark for other tablets. Not many could rival the iPad Air and the same could be said of the iPad Air 2. However, when it comes to comparisons, the first iPad Air could just be the iPad Air 2's greatest rival.
Both tablets still sports the same 9.7-inch touchscreen with a display resolution of 2048 x 1536 pixels. Instead of four storage options, the iPad Air 2 only has three – 16GB, 64GB, and 128GB – opting out of the 32GB variant.
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Specs-wise, there were improvements on the iPad Air 2's RAM going from the first iPad Air's 1GB to 2GB. The rear facing camera was improved from 5-megapixels to 8-megapixels. Hardware was also upgraded, with the iPad Air 2 sporting the new 64-bit A8X chipset with a triple-core 1.5GHz processor. The first iPad Air only had an A7 chip and a dual-core 1.3GHz processor so it was an improvement.
Yet, even after considering these improvements, most critics would argue that upgrading from the first iPad Air to the iPad Air 2 would mostly make no sense as the iPad Air 2's improvements affected little in the use of the tablet itself. Sure, the upgraded chipset and processor allows users to play more graphic-intensive games, but the first iPad Air did those fairly well anyway.
As it stands, upgrading to the iPad Air 2 would only make sense if the user was coming from the older iPad models like the iPad 2 or iPad 3. Otherwise, an iPad Air user might not even consider the upgrade.
