Apple iPad
A superlative all-rounder, at a price that shames Android rivals – Apple's original tablet is still the best
The iPad kicked off the whole tablet craze – and more than seven years later, it’s still the brand that defines the market. For a while it was known as the iPad Air, but this year’s model is once again simply called the iPad.
Outwardly, though, it’s nearly identical to its predecessor, the iPad Air 2. You get a Touch ID-enabled Home button, an 8MP rear camera, a front-facing “FaceTime HD” camera and – to the relief of iPhone 7 critics – a 3.5mm headphone socket.
It also comes in the same three colour schemes as the old Air 2. You can have a white front with silver or gold casing on the rear, or a black front with a “Space Grey” back. Whichever you choose, the metal and glass construction feels rock solid; it’s thicker than its predecessor, at 7.5mm versus 6.1mm, but it’s comfortably slim to hold.
Another subtle difference is that the screen doesn’t have the premium anti-reflective treatment of the old Air 2. This makes the iPad more susceptible to glare than the older model – but it’s still fantastically readable, even on the sunniest days. With a maximum brightness of 520cd/m2, it's one of the most luminous screens we’ve seen. And of course, the Retina screen ensures everything looks impeccably sharp.
The screen’s only real weakness is its unexceptional 861:1 contrast ratio. There's still more than enough tonal depth to make films and games look good, but for a properly cinematic experience you’ll need to step up to the iPad Pro – or perhaps pick an Android alternative.
Performance has always been a strength of the iPad, and it whizzed through the Geekbench 4 CPU test with an excellent single-core score of 2,490 and a multi-core score of 4,204. That trounces most of the Android contingent, but it's questionable whether many people even really need this much power. Still, it ensures that even demanding apps such as Adobe Lightroom are snappy and responsive, and provides some reassurance that overall performance should remain smooth for a good few years, even if future iOS updates make greater demands of the hardware.
Gaming performance is similarly strong. At the iPad’s native 2,048 x 1,536 resolution, the GFXBench Manhattan benchmark motored along at 26fps. Apple isn’t the only way to go for gamers, mind you; devices from Google and Samsung achieved even higher frame rates, as did Nvidia’s Shield K1 tablet.
Finally, in our battery test, a single charge yielded an outstanding 14hrs 47mins of full-screen video playback, seeing off all rivals save for the
“In our battery test, a single charge yielded an outstanding 14hrs 47mins of full-screen video playback”
compact Huawei MediaPad T3. That’s enough juice to keep you entertained on even the longest flight.
What makes all of this especially impressive is the price: at £339 for the 32GB model, the iPad is considerably cheaper than many 10in Android tablets. True, the Asus ZenPad 3S 10 offers a similar look and feel at a lower price. But its battery life is far behind the iPad’s, and gaming performance is dismal. For a real rival you have to jump up to the £479 Google Pixel C, although that tablet does come with double the storage.
On that note, remember that Apple doesn’t offer a microSD card slot. There’s no way to add storage once you fill the iPad up with apps and files. So it might make sense to opt for a larger capacity – and since there’s no longer a 64GB option, that means paying a steep £90 premium for the 128GB model, which feels like a bit of a rip-off.
That sour note aside, the iPad is a fantastic package. If you’re already set up on an Android smartphone, it might make more sense to choose a tablet that runs the same OS. But all things being equal, the iPad is a superb tablet that outperforms its rivals and undercuts them on price. For anyone not tied to Android it’s the obvious choice.