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iPad Who is still rocking the Air 2?

ozshadow said:
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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As long as the iPad's battery life meets your usage, I wouldn't worry about battery health. It's a consumable so of course it's gonna wear down. The question is just whether it still lasts long enough between charges given your usage.

That said, if apps are frequently crashing on you, reckon it's probably time to replace the device.
 
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rui no onna said:
As long as the iPad's battery life meets your usage, I wouldn't worry about battery health. It's a consumable so of course it's gonna wear down. The question is just whether it still lasts long enough between charges given your usage.

That said, if apps are frequently crashing on you, reckon it's probably time to replace the device.
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My Air 2 from early 2015 is at 73% battery capacity according to coconut battery. It’s at home vast majority of the time so it’s not a big issue. I get around 7 hours. The only issue for me is I stupidly bought the 16gb version. It’s really tight on space.
 
Zaft said:
My Air 2 from early 2015 is at 73% battery capacity according to coconut battery. It’s at home vast majority of the time so it’s not a big issue. I get around 7 hours. The only issue for me is I stupidly bought the 16gb version. It’s really tight on space.
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Yikes. Even after I severely pared down my apps, 16GB was already a major pain to deal with back in 2013 and that was when iOS only took around 3-4GB space. Apple really should've gone 32GB minimum after retina iPads were rolled out.

Nowadays, even 32GB is pretty much only good for a streaming-only setup. I can just imagine how much of a restriction 16GB is at this point in time considering System+Others already take up 12+GB on the low end on my iPads (granted, 128-512GB models).
 
rui no onna said:
Yikes. Even after I severely pared down my apps, 16GB was already a major pain to deal with back in 2013 and that was when iOS only took around 3-4GB space. Apple really should've gone 32GB minimum after retina iPads were rolled out.

Nowadays, even 32GB is pretty much only good for a streaming-only setup. I can just imagine how much of a restriction 16GB is at this point in time considering System+Others already take up 12+GB on the low end on my iPads (granted, 128-512GB models).
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So today I upgraded to the 10.2 iPad 32GB. I got $100 for my iPad Air 2 trade in to Best Buy and also got the 10.2 price matched to $299 because of B&H.

It’s nice to have more screen space, I really notice the 10.2 inch screen. 32GB is fine since I mostly stream. The main issue for 16 for me was I simply could not have all the apps I wanted. Now I’m fine.

It’s really speedy and I’m happy with the purchase. iPad Air 2 is still great but it was time to upgrade.
 
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Zaft said:
So today I upgraded to the 10.2 iPad 32GB. I got $100 for my iPad Air 2 trade in to Best Buy and also got the 10.2 price matched to $299 because of B&H.

It’s nice to have more screen space, I really notice the 10.2 inch screen. 32GB is fine since I mostly stream. The main issue for 16 for me was I simply could not have all the apps I wanted. Now I’m fine.

It’s really speedy and I’m happy with the purchase. iPad Air 2 is still great but it was time to upgrade.
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Enjoy your new iPad! 👍
 
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Original iPad Air 2 owner here. For the longest time I had left mine on the last version of iOS 9. It will now sit on iOS 12 the rest of its life. Its my only iPad. I won't put iOS 13 on it because that will bog it down. On iO 12 it will last a few more years. I have also noticed no difference in battery life since day 1 with it.
 
MattMJB0188 said:
Original iPad Air 2 owner here. For the longest time I had left mine on the last version of iOS 9. It will now sit on iOS 12 the rest of its life. Its my only iPad. I won't put iOS 13 on it because that will bog it down. On iO 12 it will last a few more years. I have also noticed no difference in battery life since day 1 with it.
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The air 2 on iOS 13 is not any worse than iOS 12, plus you get some nice features.
 
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I have mine on iOS 13 and it works fine. Problem is the battery life despite having 89% battery life with less than 400 recharges I see battery life dropping fast while using it. But I love the size and feel so I won't replace it anytime soon. Plus after getting the last MacBook 12 on sale at B and H I don't use my iPad Air very much anymore. Reading at night that iOS about it.
 
I am still using an air 2 after about 4-5 years and it is great. Battery degraded a fair bit and only get 3-5 hours use from a full charge but 99% of the time I use it at home so it is no issue as always near a plug. The performance of the ipad is still very good (better than I expected after this long - assumed apple would have deliberately slowed it down by now) and not glitchy. Noticeably slower than my XR which is to be expected but not painfully slow so still really enjoying it. Will keep it until an affordable XR/11 type ipad becomes available or until Apple decide to hamper its performance.
I do remember deliberating hard between the air 1 and 2 when I was about to buy and the advice to get the latter due to it being more future proofed proved to be wise words indeed.

Running ios12 and intend to for as long as I can - no desire to infect it with the shambles that is ios13.
 
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Mac2019 said:
I am still using an air 2 after about 4-5 years and it is great. Battery degraded a fair bit and only get 3-5 hours use from a full charge but 99% of the time I use it at home so it is no issue as always near a plug. The performance of the ipad is still very good (better than I expected after this long - assumed apple would have deliberately slowed it down by now) and not glitchy. Noticeably slower than my XR which is to be expected but not painfully slow so still really enjoying it. Will keep it until an affordable XR/11 type ipad becomes available or until Apple decide to hamper its performance.
I do remember deliberating hard between the air 1 and 2 when I was about to buy and the advice to get the latter due to it being more future proofed proved to be wise words indeed.

Running ios12 and intend to for as long as I can - no desire to infect it with the shambles that is ios13.
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In fairness to Apple, I don't think it's deliberate. Reckon it's just hardware that can't keep up with advances in software (both iOS and apps themselves).

Besides, older chipsets just weren't fast to begin with. People just tend to remember them with rose tinted glasses. With the iPad 3, I remember counting 3-5s for each single thumbnail to generate on my comic reading app when I need to switch pages (ComicGlass). iPad 4 each thumbnail took 1-2s. On new devices, thumbnail generation is practically instantaneous.

Based on Geekbench 4 scores. This is just CPU. I believe improvements in GPU are even more exponential.

Performance as a multiple of iPad 3rd gen and iPad Air 2:

Single Thread
vs iPad 3rd gen​
Multi-Thread
vs iPad 3rd gen​
Single Thread
vs iPad Air 2​
Multi-Thread
vs iPad Air 2​
iPad Pro 11, A12X16.732.52.84.3
iPad Air 3, A1216.020.52.72.7
iPad Pro 10.5, A10X13.016.92.22.2
iPad 6th gen, A1011.310.71.91.4
iPad Pro 9.7, A9X10.09.11.71.2
iPad 5th gen, A98.38.01.41.0
iPad Air 2, A8X6.07.61.01.0
iPad Air, A74.34.20.70.5
iPad 4th gen, A6X2.72.40.40.3
iPad 3rd gen, A5X1.01.00.20.1
 
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My Air 2 is running great on iOS 13.1.3. Battery is showing its age, though. 65.1% for 867 cycles according to Coconut Battery.
 
rui no onna said:
Besides, older chipsets just weren't fast to begin with. People just tend to remember them with rose tinted glasses. With the iPad 3, I remember counting 3-5s for each single thumbnail to generate on my comic reading app when I need to switch pages (ComicGlass). iPad 4 each thumbnail took 1-2s. On new devices, thumbnail generation is practically instantaneous.

Based on Geekbench 4 scores. This is just CPU. I believe improvements in GPU are even more exponential.

Performance as a multiple of iPad 3rd gen and iPad Air 2:

Single Thread
vs iPad 3rd gen​
Multi-Thread
vs iPad 3rd gen​
Single Thread
vs iPad Air 2​
Multi-Thread
vs iPad Air 2​
iPad Pro 11, A12X16.732.52.84.3
iPad Air 3, A1216.020.52.72.7
iPad Pro 10.5, A10X13.016.92.22.2
iPad 6th gen, A1011.310.71.91.4
iPad Pro 9.7, A9X10.09.11.71.2
iPad 5th gen, A98.38.01.41.0
iPad Air 2, A8X6.07.61.01.0
iPad Air, A74.34.20.70.5
iPad 4th gen, A6X2.72.40.40.3
iPad 3rd gen, A5X1.01.00.20.1
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Yup. I have the iPad Pro 10.5" with A10X and iPad Air 2 with A8X. The iPad Air 2 is OK, but the difference in performance vs. the iPad Pro 10.5" is quite noticeable.

The other issue here besides the GPU differences you mentioned, is the memory. IMO, 1 GB is often painful, 2 GB is OK but showing its age, and 3 GB is decent. For those who don't know, the iPad Air has 1 GB, the iPad Air 2 has 2 GB (which is why I waited for it and refused to buy the iPad Air), and my iPad Pro 10.5" has 4 GB.

I will be buying the 2020 iPad Pro 11" in a few months.
 
Icaras said:
The iPad Air 2 is definitely impressive. My parents are still rocking it. However, seeing as how the Air 2 is the oldest iPad model that iPadOS supports, I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple dropped support for it in iPadOS 2(?) next year.
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This is very true, I get the feeling Apple may drop it next year, this is why I am rely to buy the new battery as I think I’ll just by the Air 2019 next year at a discounted price.
 
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