Lol, poor iPad 3 (A5X/1GB).
That said, yep, A7 is still supported albeit unlikely to get iOS 12. That puts the iPad 4 and iPad Air (both 1GB RAM) on even footing as far as functional lifespan is concerned.
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iPad iPad 2018 2 GB RAM - Good enough?
- Thread starter jbunker7
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That said, yep, A7 is still supported albeit unlikely to get iOS 12. That puts the iPad 4 and iPad Air (both 1GB RAM) on even footing as far as functional lifespan is concerned.
Oh, I didn’t realize that the iPad 3 had 1 GB, but that just goes to show what I’m saying. Consider that the iPad 3 and iPad Air have the same amount of RAM, and then tell me that it’s RAM that defines the lifespan of these devices.
In fairness, Apple has cut off support based on memory before but that was on 128MB and 256MB RAM devices which were truly RAM-starved.
Yes infact this is exactly the same experience I have been getting but never paid much attention to it, and kind of kept ignoring so far. Why does it happen so ? If I have 4 tabs of safari opened and I am on one tab, go to another tab and come back to the first tab that tab again reloads. is this an Apple iOS feature does it happen with everyone or what ? or does it only happens with devices that are old and do not have much RAM ?
IMO You cant really compare the old CPU with the new ones. It is true that the A4-A6(A7) eventually ran into ios updates that pressed the CPU to the max and slowed down the ipad and lessened the user experience. Although I would argue that the ipad 2 was hurt equally by the 512mb ram in the case of surfing, streaming and e-mail-use. This was especially true for the ipad air 1 which should never have been released with only 1gb ram.
However the new CPUs are lightning fast, and well beyond anything you will max out during normal media consumption. The A8 in the ipad air 2 is still going strong. The A10 was compared to a laptop CPU, the A11 even faster and the next A12 is gonna improve on that. The limiting factor in the near future is if you are stuck on 2GB ram. Of course if you are a power user using the ipad for video editing and now AR then you want the fastest CPU, but then you’ll also want to max out on ram.
I suspect in the future we will look back and say the same thing about a 2gb ram ipad in 2018 as we do about the ipad air 1 now and its 1gb ram.
For non-MacRumors members, the iPad Air has been holding out well enough. We're a picky bunch. It's better than the iPad 2 on iOS 8+ in any case. That said, the iPad Air still does have an anemic GPU and a CPU that's around half the speed of the A9. More RAM will help reduce app reloads and Safari tab refreshes so quicker switching for stuff kept in memory but it's not gonna magically make the iPad Air faster.
Mind, I expect support for the original iPad (A4/256MB) was cut off in part due to the paltry amount of RAM. The iPhone 4 (A4/512MB) with lower resolution received up to iOS 7, iirc (albeit it was pretty darned slow).
That said, both Windows 7 and Windows 10 list 1GB RAM for 32-bit and 2GB RAM for 64-bit for minimum system requirements (and I've found both to run surprisingly adequately on 2GB). Mayhaps we're reaching a similar paradigm with iOS.
Im still hanging on with my Air 1 and while its been great to me I really am starting feel its lack of proper hardware these days. It still runs thing but I know they could be smoother and faster. Its just geting old now. Heck, in computer years its ancient!
This weekend Im heading to my Local BB to try out the new 6th gen iPad base 9.7" and a 10.5" pro to see how big the difference is. Im sure the pro is better but Im going to have to decide if its really twice-the-price better.
I just sold my air2 and git the new ipad 6
There are a lot of reviews out there and most of them does nit notice the diference in ram compared to the pro.
The screen and speaks are a lot better in the pro, but the price diference is a lot to.
(I am writing on it, hello!)
There are a lot of reviews out there and most of them does nit notice the diference in ram compared to the pro.
The screen and speaks are a lot better in the pro, but the price diference is a lot to.
(I am writing on it, hello!)
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With iOS devices, it's strange how Apple relentlessly ramp up CPU and GPU performance, but generally drag their feet with "adequate" RAM capacities.
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I expect it's the same reason they held off on upgrading base storage on iPhones and iPads - higher costs/penny pinching.
Yes - drives me crazy. Ram is so cheap now too. It wouldnt add much to the cost of the ipad to throw another few GB in there, would it? I'd pay more for the extra RAM!
$10 x 10 million iPads = $100 million
You might be willing to pay higher but the masses probably prefer the lower price point. It's the masses that Apple cares about. I expect Apple's marketing department has done their research when they chose the $329 price point and concessions were made in order to hit that price target.
Also note, Apple made the switch to faster LPDDR4 RAM with the A9 rather than cheaper LPDDR3 used with the A8. They chose speed over adding more memory.
Yes, I'd like more RAM, too. After a decade of buying iOS devices though, I'm just used to Apple being very stingy with RAM. They couldn't even be bothered with putting more RAM on flagship devices (iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPad, iPad Air, iPhone 6/6+, iPad Pro 9.7), it's really not a surprise they'd cheap out on the lower cost iPads.
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Because, again, must users won't even notice the difference in RAM. CPU and GPU more directly affect how fast and smooth the device performs.
Except that RAM is pretty much always the reason the device runs slow after just a few iOS versions.
Says who? That doesn't explain the wide variation in performance and lifespans of devices with the same amount of RAM.
Having owned:
iPhone 126MB
iPhone 3GS 256MB
iPhone 4 A4/512MB
iPod touch 4th gen A4/256MB
iPhone 4S A5/512MB
iPhone 5 A6/1GB
iPhone 5S A7/1GB
iPhone 6 A8/1GB
iPhone 6+ A8/1GB
iPhone SE A9/2GB
iPhone 7 A10/2GB
iPad 2 A5/512MB
iPad 3 A5X/1GB
iPad 4 A6X/1GB
iPad Air A7/1GB
iPad Air 2 A8X/2GB
iPad Pro 9.7 A9X/2GB
iPad mini 4 A8/2GB
iPad 5th gen A9/2GB
iPad Pro 12.9 2nd gen A10X/4GB
Nope, it's not always RAM that's the problem and the RAM issue is not so much slowdown as it is out of memory crashes, background app reloads, Safari tab reloads, etc.
It should be noted that RAM increase has often been accompanied by notable CPU (and GPU) leaps:
- 256MB on iPhone 3GS - Cortex A8 600MHz from ARM11
- 512MB on iPad 2 - dual-core A5 (Cortex A9) from single-core A4 (Cortex A8)
- 1GB on iPhone 5 - A6 (Apple's first in-house design)
- 2GB on iPad Air 2 - tri-core A8X from dual-core A7 paired with massive GPU improvement
- 2/3GB on iPhone 6S/6S+ - significant improvement in single-core CPU performance and GPU performance over non-X A8.
I stand corrected then. Doesn't change the fact that the A9 was a pretty significant improvement over the A8. I think that might have been when they switched to NVMe, too.
Top 6 important:
1. Chip or Motherboard for example (A5, A6, A7 to A11 onwards)
2. Processor (Power Efficiency which A7 lacks)
3. Ram Speed
4. Clocked Speed
5. CPU
6. GPU
iPad 3 with 1GB Ram i suppose it should be handle iOS 10 just Fine along together with iPad Air or iPhone 5 same 1gb ram.. but Apple Realize it is using the same chip as iPad 2 with A5 which is soo underpowered. So to make fair they drop them at the same time, iPad 3 is the second fastest device in iOS 9 while iPad Mini 1 is on the Lead..
Even iPad 3 has 1GB Ram and A5X, is just like iPad Air 2 or iPad Mini 4 i don't think they will have 1 year longer than iPhone 6 or 6 Plus. Look at iPad 3 it doubled the ram of iPad 2. but did not Get iOS 10. So i guess All A8/A8X will be dropped at the same time on iOS 12/13. Unless iOS 13 is Rumored to have Performance Stability LOL, just like iOS 9.
before updating any of my A8(x) devices to ios12 I will be reading comments and reviews very carefully as to how these chips perform with the new ios version
Yeah, you’re probably right. I guess I’ll just have to splurge for the pro or stop fretting over numbers and just accept the fact that the regular iPads will only have 2GB of ram. They do cost a lot less than the pro so that’s a plus.
I recommend the "stop fretting" option.
Yesterday I traded in my Air 2 for a 2018 iPad. Nice upgrade at a nice price. It is the "SE" of iPads, IMO. After going all around and owning various iOS devices, for me, the iPhone SE/iPad 2018 combo will give me the biggest bang for the buck. By introducing the 2018 iPad, Apple has managed to get me to stick with them a bit longer. And THIS coming from someone who has been a big proponent of catching the upgraded RAM wave.
Don’t know if it’s just me, but with more recent versions of iOS reloading seems to be an issue even with 4GB - I think they just aren’t optimising as thoroughly as they used to (both developers and Apple) and things are getting more ram hungry anyway. Having said that I don’t think we will see ram inadequacy in the same way amounts under 1GB caused issues. Not for a long time anyway...