I’m looking at this and 64GB is plenty for me. I’ll be upgrading from a iPad Pro 9.7 32 GB and I still have space.
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iPad Air iPad Air 5 comes with M1 and 8GB RAM
- Thread starter TigeRick
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That’s a solid upgrade. The only things you’ll be losing from your 9.7” Pro will be quad speakers and rear camera flash. Everything else should be an improvement.
It will be. The flash I never had a need for it and I didn’t know the 9.7 had quad speakers ?
And ProMotion. I upgraded my 10.2" Pro to a refurb 2018 Pro rather than a new Air for ProMotion (did not want to splurge for M1 iPad Pro... iPad doesn't need that chip anyways).
So, a $1300 13" Macbook PRO base has the same amount of RAM as a $600 consumer iPad.
Come on Apple, this is embarassing. Time to put 16GB RAM as STANDARD on all Macs.
Come on Apple, this is embarassing. Time to put 16GB RAM as STANDARD on all Macs.
What's embarrassing is how long Apple skimped on memory in iOS devices. 8GB standard is looong overdue. Notice how they started listing the amount of memory on M1 iPads? They never listed it before because it would look quite stingy (which it is). M1 MacBook Pro is really a MacBook Air, so I don't what the problem is with 8GB standard.
Ah, but ProMotion didn’t get introduced until the 2017 Pros. The 2015 12.9” and 2016 9.7” Pros didn’t have ProMotion.
An iPad with hobbled iPadOS gets 8GB of RAM, while a mac with macOS also only gets 8GB of RAM? Come on. We're talking about a $1000 computer here. If Apple sold the Macbook Air for $600-$700, sure, 8GB is okay, but at $1000? And it was released in 2020 mind you while maintaining the same price.
Not really, unless you must have 5G, or you just must have center stage and willing to spend hundreds of dollars for that. The rest of typical user experience will be the same. Still the same screen, same dual speaker, same iPadOS.
IMO, no, but it depends on the individual.
If the addition of Center Stage and the upgrade to M1 with 8GB RAM is enticing, perhaps so.
I would have liked a little more additions, but wasn’t really expecting them.
Even the addition of 5G doesn’t excite me much. I can’t think of anything about the Air 5 that would change my iPad experience over the Air 4.
If they gave it ProMotion and/or quad speakers, it would have my attention. It makes it much easier for me to wait for the next iPad Pros later this year.
In fairness, swap on macOS makes 8GB RAM Macs more flexible/reliable compared to iOS without swap.
Do you have any complaints with your Air 4? If you don’t, then something newer and faster than the Air 5 will be released eventually so might as well wait for a bigger jump.
But starting with 64GB of storage at the same starting price of $599...Really weird and compare to iPad Mini 6 with 4+64, it is double man
Guess Apple has big plan on iPadOS going forward, we will see
I see nothing weird about it. And I certainly wouldn’t build up any expectations that iPadOS is going to change dramatically either.
An iPad hobbled with iPadOS gets
iPadOS is crippled compared to the hardware, but that doesn't make the hardware bad. The M1 MBA and MBP have solid specs for entry-level computers. iPad has extremely overpowered specs for its OS, except for memory, where it was sorely lacking- until now. The real problem is not that the Macs have bad specs, its that the iPad has a crippled OS.
The only version of the air that makes sense is the 64gb version. If you need more storage than the pro makes more sense. Truthfully they should drop the air and offer the pro 11 starting at 64gb for 649.
Agreed. That, and memory compression. iOS performs memory compression as well (it's much less expensive than swap in terms of performance cost), but once iOS runs out of memory, it just starts killing apps.
Mac OS being able to swap memory is fundamentally a huge difference. And it doesn't impact performance severely until it starts swapping actively used memory, so an 8GB Mac vs. an 8GB iPad isn't quite apples to apples.
Probably not for most people. But, it is an individual choice. If you sell your Air 4 you can put it towards an Air 5 and pay the difference. I know some people who do buy on a yearly cycle, always part-funding purchase with the sale of their old item.
Personally I work on a 4-year upgrade cycle, so it would be too soon for me. I think at 4 years you see substantial hardware differences.
Me guessing that's Apple's intention, to upsell people to the Pro so they spend more money in the end. They're just so good at this upselling strategy ..
I agree with the other comments. It’s almost never worth upgrading from 1 generation Ago unless there’s a new design you really like, which isn’t the case here.
I would wait and see if WWDC brings M1 exclusive software features to iPadOS. As @Digitalguy mentioned not likely but we’ll see
I agree but I’m afraid I’m hoping again. Interesting was the iMovie mention. Maybe Final Cut Pro at wwdc?
as for the mini, personally I don’t think that’s a device that needs to be capable of desktop mode monitor support. Same with iPad 9.
it’d be more than ok with apple releasing some “pro” features to iPadOS that are exclusive to M1 iPads Or iPads with 6GB ram and higher
That may suck for 2018 pro / 2020 Air users but the 2018 pro is now old enough for them to get away with it in my opinion
I fail to see a reason a tablet wold need more power than the M1: minor upgrades beyond this point are most likely planned for the AIR over the next 5 years. M1 in the iPad Pro is almost too much power to ever be used in a tablet, but i keep finding ways to push it. Still, I’ve never been able to really push it anywhere close to its limits.
true at this point but it allows for more powerful software. But in order for devs to start developing that, apple needs to show them that it’s possible.
Best way to do that is to bring pro software and capabilities to the device. Something Samsung has been much better at in the last few years even though in benchmarks their top tablets would obviously loose against the iPad Pro and now Air as well.
Best way to do that is to bring pro software and capabilities to the device. Something Samsung has been much better at in the last few years even though in benchmarks their top tablets would obviously loose against the iPad Pro and now Air as well.