iPad Buying an iPad Air 3, any advice?

[s2mikey]

I haven't really bothered to monitor anymore. I've just resigned myself to the fact that stuff will reload likely at the most inopportune time.

Ouch. That’s not good. Fairly soon I was going to upgrade from my current iPad which has 2GB of ram and you’re saying that double that RAM still isnt good enough? I’m not a power user and don’t generally have several tabs open at the same time if that matters.

 

[BigDO]

IPad Air 3 is a really solid buy right now. Very good value.

 

[*~Kim~*]

I have noticed that reloads generally happen when the iPad has been plugged in to charge, or when I had been on WiFi and had switched to Cellular. Not sure it’s a RAM issue at this point (although I generally only have about 4 Safari tabs and 2 or 3 other apps open at one time.) This is a Mini 5, so same internals as the Air 3.

I can’t see the Air/Mini getting 4GB until the 2GB iPads are dropped from support, so at this point I would probably go refurb Air. That will be a while as they were still selling the 6th Gen less than a year ago, and Air/Mini/base iPad only got 3GB in 2019. If you wanted a Pro I would wait for the A13X model, though it seems overkill for most uses.

 

[EugW]

I have noticed that reloads generally happen when the iPad has been plugged in to charge

I haven't noticed this at all with my 4 GB iPad Pro.

or when I had been on WiFi and had switched to Cellular

I can't comment here, since my iPad Pro is not a cellular model.

I can’t see the Air/Mini getting 4GB until the 2GB iPads are dropped from support, so at this point I would probably go refurb Air. That will be a while as they were still selling the 6th Gen less than a year ago, and Air/Mini/base iPad only got 3GB in 2019. If you wanted a Pro I would wait for the A13X model, though it seems overkill for most uses.

Apple went to 4 GB with the iPhone 11 in 2019, yet continued to sell the 2 GB iPhone 8 into 2020.

 

[Smoovejayy]

Apple went to 4 GB with the iPhone 11 in 2019, yet continued to sell the 2 GB iPhone 8 into 2020.

Apple released the XS and the XS Max with 4 GB of RAM in 2018. Why Apple put a phone out in 2017 with 2 GB of RAM still baffles me...

 

[rui no onna]

Apple released the XS and the XS Max with 4 GB of RAM in 2018. Why Apple put a phone out in 2017 with 2 GB of RAM still baffles me...

Cheaping out on RAM is pretty much par for the course for Apple.

Last I recall, they sell around 200 million iPhones a year. Even if they save just $5 per unit on say 50 million of those by skimping on memory, that's still a quarter billion.

 

[*~Kim~*]

It seems as though they buy RAM in multiples of x. X was 2, now it is 3. iPad Pro might well have 8GB when the Mini/Air get 4GB then...

There was nothing Pro about the 2GB RAM in the Pro 9.7” in 2016, the Air 2 already had it. Cheaping out on RAM as rui no onna says.

 

[snipr125]

Yes Apple do cheap out of RAM no doubt, but in their slight defence they do ‘optimise’ RAM use within iOS so that 3gb of RAM is used in the same way 6gb of RAM would be used in equivalent android device. 1 gb ram in the iPhone 6 took the proverbial p@#s though, no excuse for that.

 

[Dizzler]

It was nice having that mute button option, but at least it's easy to do now via the Control Center.

It's not easy. Why replace a one tap button with a 3 tap function? three taps as in 1) Open iPad; 2) Go to Control Panel; 3) Fiddle with volume control to get it to mute. Ridiculous! I thought apple was always the designer of simple-to-operate things. This is way more complicated. BRING BACK THE EXTERNAL MUTE BUTTON!