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My son is still using his Air 2. It is rock solid except for bluetooth connections don't really work. Everything else on it works great. Will upgrade to ios13 eventually. He also has an iPhone SE and Watch Series 4. I've been looking for an upgrade in case his dies, maybe Air 3?
 
Seeing comments about Safari having to reload tabs from being out of memory in iOS 13 on Air 2 is not good and will keep me off it.
 
How does an air 2 compare to a mini 5, spec wise?
You can do an in-detail comparison on apple’s website. But suffice to say the mini got it beat on all points pretty much. Remember the mini (5) is spec-ed like an ipad Air 3 minus the smart keyboard compatibility. That is not to say the Air 2 wasn’t great spec-wise for its time. Good thing they put 2GB RAM in it when it wasn’t needed for the time being.
 
The main reason I sold my air 2 and replaced it with a pro 9.7 was speakers and, to some extend, speed. I love the lower weight of the air 2 / 9.7 pro, it's the lightest mid-sized ipad and it's nicer in the hand than the 10.5/11 IMO (both without and even more with the smart keyboard attached, which in my case is attached 90% of the time) and still gives much more screen than the mini. And while I have the mini 5, the 10.5 and the first gen 12.9, the 9.7 pro (in the air 2 body) is still the ipad I use most because of what is for me this sweet spot of weight and size, together with speakers and speed (it's fast enough that contrary to the air 2, does not make me want to reach for one of the faster ipads that I have...)
Also the very light smart keyboard really made me use my ipad much more...
 
I gave my iPad Air 2 to my son, i had lot of performance problems on iOS 11 but since iOS 12 it is running great again. It is still a good device.
 
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One of my friends hasn't had any memory problems on their iPad Air 2 running iPadOS 13.1.3.

How heavy of a Safari user is he? It’s super annoying when you have multiple tabs open, like to build a post on a forum, while doing research in other tabs, to come back and find your partially-completed post is now gone because Safari has to refresh the page.
 
How heavy of a Safari user is he? It’s super annoying when you have multiple tabs open, like to build a post on a forum, while doing research in other tabs, to come back and find your partially-completed post is now gone because Safari has to refresh the page.
Yeah, while it's nowhere near as horrible as with 1 GB iPads (on previous OSes that is), it's quite noticeable these days on 2 GB iPads if you run multiple tabs and background applications. 3 GB would be a very noticeable improvement for those of us where this is a problem.

That said, a lot of people don't really notice this with their usage, or else don't care. 2 GB is already good enough.

Also, it's not as if iPadOS 13 is much worse for this than iOS 12. It was a significant issue on iOS 12 as well.
 
I’m still rocking the original iPad Air of all things. 😆
My original ipad air went to my neighbor. I used it the other day and it was super slow. It’s on auto update so whatever the newest ios version it can run is on it. Yikes! I haven’t used my son’s air 2 so I don’t know how slow it is (ios13) but he isn’t complaining. I do notice that the past year or 2 he is using his macbook pro he got in 2015 so maybe his air 2 isn’t doing certain things well.
 
My original ipad air went to my neighbor. I used it the other day and it was super slow. It’s on auto update so whatever the newest ios version it can run is on it. Yikes! I haven’t used my son’s air 2 so I don’t know how slow it is (ios13) but he isn’t complaining. I do notice that the past year or 2 he is using his macbook pro he got in 2015 so maybe his air 2 isn’t doing certain things well.

I simply got used to the slowness of it since my other devices are pretty old. Just upgraded to an iPhone 11 and while the speed is amazingly quick, I still use my “ancient” iPad Air to shop Amazon and other basic things like paying bills etc.

It’s a trooper but yeah, it’s time to upgrade. Perhaps the new iPad in 128GB form or a refurbished larger iPad Pro.
 
I was using my launch day Air 2 up until this past June. The device still ran great, but wouldn't hold a charge anymore. I couldn't justify spending $99 on a new battery when it really wasn't worth much more than that, so I upgraded to the Air 3.
 
I was using my launch day Air 2 up until this past June. The device still ran great, but wouldn't hold a charge anymore. I couldn't justify spending $99 on a new battery when it really wasn't worth much more than that, so I upgraded to the Air 3.
Exactly the same what I did. Still have my Air 2 and I also still use it. But the Air 3 feels so much smoother.
 
Launch day Air 2 here, typing this on it right now. ipad iOS actually made Safari better than 12, less crashing.

I‘m debating getting the 11 pro however simply to be able to use TrueTone on it because I have noticed a big benefit to it on my Xs and my wife's 11 Pro. And the speakers on the Air 2 are pretty awful ...
 
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My mom is using my old space gray Air 2 with a red leather smart case. I used it for almost 4 years until I upgraded to a Pro. I wish Apple would release a red case for the Pro 11. I’d buy it in a heartbeat!
 
So I tried out the 10.2 iPad and wow it flys. Even though the Air 2 is not slow it definitely lags behind when you try a newer iPad. I think I may upgrade to the 10.2 soon. The extra screen size is nice.
 
How heavy of a Safari user is he? It’s super annoying when you have multiple tabs open, like to build a post on a forum, while doing research in other tabs, to come back and find your partially-completed post is now gone because Safari has to refresh the page.
In fairness, even going up to 4GB isn't guaranteed to completely avoid tab refreshes. I get tab refreshes on my 2017 iPad Pros. Granted, looks like I've got 117 tabs open right now.

No idea about 6GB RAM. I'm being wishy-washy and still haven't upgraded iPads. 1TB/6GB is not a pressing need at the moment and the Marvel Infinity Saga 4K box set proved to be more tempting. :p
 
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So I tried out the 10.2 iPad and wow it flys. Even though the Air 2 is not slow it definitely lags behind when you try a newer iPad. I think I may upgrade to the 10.2 soon. The extra screen size is nice.
Sure the difference is noticeable. Same with either the 2016 9.7 pro or the 2018 ipad, you will feel the difference compared to the air 2.
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In fairness, even going up to 4GB isn't guaranteed to completely avoid tab refreshes. I get tab refreshes on my 2017 iPad Pros. Granted, looks like I've got 117 tabs open right now.

No idea about 6GB RAM. I'm being wishy-washy and still haven't upgraded iPads. 1TB/6GB is not a pressing need at the moment and the Marvel Infinity Saga 4K box set proved to be more tempting. :p
Yeah not hard to get refreshes on 4GB devices. My next ipad will have at least 6GB or even 8GB
 
Still using my Air 2 everyday. I bought it October 2014. I am getting a bit worried though. 5 years is a long run and I am not sure how to test the current battery condition.

We have a Mac Mini and I heard about something called Coconut. If anyone has a link to a testing process I would appreciate it.

I can't say for sure battery life is shorter but I do notice apps crashing like they are running out of ram. Scrolling through the FB app on the Marketplace especially it will eventually just crash.

I am considering a 10.5 Pro. I have an X but on my iPad I still enjoy having a Home button.
 
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