iPad Air and iPad mini 2019 review

Apple's iPad lineup has a gap in it lately.

At the top end, you had the 2018 refresh of the iPad Pro-an immensely powerful, envelope-pushing tablet priced. At the bottom, you had the entry-level iPad, which lacked many of the best features in newer products.

You have been a monster of a tablet for a monster price, or you are getting a tablet that compromises a lot to compete with Chromebooks at the low end. Apple was still making an iPad mini last year, but it was woefully outdated.

Many of us wanted more than the entry-level iPad offered a tablet as a secondary device, not a replacement for our main workhorses. That meant we were not willing to pay for iPad Pro prices. As a result, I held on to my aging, first-generation iPad Air (2013) through last year. I probably was not alone.

But finally, Apple finally filled the gap. These two tablets seemingly served up the best the iOS platform had to offer, said the pretense of replacing your laptop, and did not break the bank (much).

After spending some time with the devices recently, the result seems clear:

Table of contents

Specifications

These updates are more than a spec bump, but the most notable addition to both the iPad and the iPad is Apple's A12 system-on-a-chip, which houses the CPU, GPU, Neural Engine for machine-learning tasks, and more.

Specs at a glance: Apple iPad Air and iPad Mini
Screen	2048 × 1536 7.9-inch (326PPI) pressure-sensitive touch screen for the mini, 2224 × 1668 10.5-inch (264PPI) pressure-sensitive touch screen for the Air
BONE	iOS 12
CPU	Apple A12 Bionic (2x high-performance cores, 4x low-power cores)
RAM	3GB
GPU	Apple-designed A12 Bionic GPU
Storage	64GB or 256GB
Networking	802.11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5 (LTE optional add-on)
ports	Lightning, 3.5mm headphone jack
Camera	8MP rear camera, 7MP front camera
size	8 "× 5.3" × 0.24 "(203.2 × 134.8 × 6.1mm) for the mini, 9.8" × 6.8 "× 0.24" (250.6 × 174.1 × 6.1mm) for the Air
Weight	0.66 pounds (300.5g) for the mini, 1 pound (456g) for the Air (imperceptibly more for the LTE models)
Battery	19.1-watt-hour for the mini, 30.2-watt-hour for the XS Max
Starting price	$ 399 for the mini, $ 499 unlocked for the Air
Other perks	Augmented reality sensors, Computational photography features, Apple Pencil support, Smart Keyboard support (Air only)

It's the same chipset found in the last year's iPhone XS, XS Max, and XR, and the A12X in the 2018 iPad Pros, it's the fastest mobile consumer on the market right now. We'll get more into benchmarks later in the review, but this should not be a problem on these devices any time in the next few years.

The screens are another area of ​​improvement. The Air has a 10.5-inch LCD display with a resolution of 2,224 × 1,668 pixels, and the mini comes in at 7.9 inches and 2,048 × 1,536. That's the highest pixel density (326 pixels per inch to the Air's 264), but that difference is hardly noticeable.

Both displays have a wide gamut color (P3) and a maximum brightness of 500 nits, and both are fully laminated. That last point makes a subtle but desirable difference on the iPad-and it makes a big difference to Apple Pencil support, which we'll go over shortly.

Both tablets come with two storage options: 64GB and 256GB. 64GB is not enough for most people, but 256GB is probably too much for some folks, so a 128GB option would have been nice. (The entry-level iPad offers that, but it comes with many other compromises.)

The port options are either a relief or a disappointment, depending on your priorities. One all-around win: There's a headphone jack. You'd think that it would be a tablet, but Apple missed it in last year's iPad Pro.

But the Air and mini come equipped with Apple's proprietary lightning port for charging, data transfer, and accessories. I'd been hoping that Apple would move on to USB-C after it was so with the iPad Pro, even though that implementation was half-baked. USB-C is so much more flexible than Lightning.

If you're coming from an older iPad.

All told, these are big leaps over the previous versions of the tablet-but that's not hard, given that neither of these products had new entries for several years. We're already talking about the efficiency and power of Apple's custom silicon, and I'll get a little bit more in the performance section of this review. But it suffices to say that these are extremely fast, energy-conscious tablets.

Apart from sticking with the Lightning port, the specs are a win over the board.

Design

Neither of these tablets has a brand-new design in Apple's lineup.

The Air's design is pretty much the same as that of the 2017, 10.5-inch iPad Pro. That means 9.8 × 6.8 × 0.24 inches, weighing in exactly one pound (1.02 for the LTE model). The predecessor is 8 × 5.3 × 0.24 inches, and 0.66 lbs (0.68 for LTE).

Both tablets come in three color options. First, there's the space gray Apple has been offering its most recent Macs. That finish includes black bezels. The original "silver" color is available, but that comes with white bezels. And finally, there's gold with white bezels. The gold is the gold Most people know of the iPhone 8 (among other things), not the striking PVD (physical vapor deposition) stainless steel gold of the iPhone XS and XS Max.

Below: Photos of the iPad Air.

As is the case with other iPads, the backs are made of aluminum and the fronts are made of glass. There is no wireless charging, but that is not a priority for this type of device.

Both iPads have home buttons with Touch ID, and they lack Apple's TrueDepth camera-array system used for Face ID. If you have been expecting a lot of things, that's surely a surprise.

While Face ID scores high in the cool factor, and it's more secure in many situations than Touch ID is, it's not a distinction that's going to matter to most users. Both technologies are responsive and secure enough for the vast majority of people. Yeah, it's the case with your face ID, but the fingerprint reader works so fast it's far from a burden.

It does not mean that you need to use it, but you do not have exactly the same.

Of course, these iPads support all the same touch gestures and swipes that the home-button-free iOS devices do. So you're not missing out on any functionality at all.

The iPad Air's design looks quite modern. No, it does not have the rounded screen and almost nonexistent bezels of the iPad Pro or the newest iPhones. But while these things are striking, I would not expect them in a $ 499 tablet. I did not think anyone was complaining that the 2017 iPad Pro looked dated-at least, I wasn't-and 10.5 inches is a happy medium size for a tablet display.

The mini, on the other hand, looks very much dated-so much so that when it comes to it, it's going to be done. I know how to get better, and sometimes it can be done. But in this case … it really does look like a design from the past.

Having an up-to-date small tablet option in Apple's lineup is very handy-it's the perfect size for reading books and magazines, I'd argue. And the 7.9-inch display is certainly adequate, but it feels cramped when using the latest multitasking features in iOS. But it's disappointing that Apple did not find a way to (or choose to) get more screen real estate out of this chassis for an even more optimal small-tablet experience.

A short rant about device and screen

I'm consistently frustrated that the devices that get edge-to-edge displays and massive bezel reductions are often larger than you need. If you have a smaller tablet or phone, you need a huge difference. But if you have a big tablet, the display is usually so big enough to be comfortable. So you're just adding icing to the cake.

I have a dream sweet spot in my head where we could have a convenient, small form factor but an edge-to-edge display. Then we could enjoy the benefits of a flexible device and the same time we enjoy the benefits of a roomy screen.

But when Apple introduced edge-to-edge displays to iPhones, it axed the SE iPhone. And it did not reduce the bezels at all in the iPad mini. Imagine what an iPhone SE would have been like with an edge-to-edge display. Imagine what an iPad mini would be like if its screen is closer to the size of the base iPad's screen.

Yet it seems to be more important than this notion that smaller means entry-level, so smaller devices do not get the top-level features. I personally find that endlessly disappointing, even though I understand the business reasons for it. Yes, the iPad mini has the A12, and that's welcome. But that screen is smaller and less usable than it needs to be.

Some users want small devices with high-end features, and they would be willing to pay for it. Aim Apple's not giving them all of its best here.

Listing image by Samuel Axon