iPad Air

J

JohnJuniorV3

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The iPad Air arrived sooner than expected and will be releasing tomorrow! :)
 
oliverwww said:
The iPad Air arrived sooner than expected and will be releasing tomorrow! :)
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Still happy with iPad 3rd Gen Retina. Don't see a need to upgrade.

But maybe if the Apple iPad Pro comes out.... hmmm.

Then again iPad Pro will have to compete with a computer like a Sony Vaio Flip - 15inches at 2,880x1,620 res screen with Nvidia GPU/i7.
 
Space_Chief said:
Still happy with iPad 3rd Gen Retina. Don't see a need to upgrade.
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Really? I'm finding mine to be quite painful in iOS7 now. It's like...usable and all, but choppy. The scrolling on ebooks just isn't keeping up as well as it should. I can definitely do an A7 class upgrade.

But maybe if the imaginary Apple iPad Pro comes out.... hmmm.
Then again imaginary iPad Pro will have to compete with a computer like a Sony Vaio Flip - 15inches at 2,880x1,620 res screen with Nvidia GPU/i7.
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ftfy :p

Just out of curiosity, what do you envisage as this iPad Pro? An Intel i5 CPU ssd-driven tablet running MacOSX?
 
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cerebus said:
Really? I'm finding mine to be quite painful in iOS7 now. It's like...usable and all, but choppy. The scrolling on ebooks just isn't keeping up as well as it should. I can definitely do an A7 class upgrade.
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Funny thing, I don't get that. The ebooks on programs like Goodreader and Amazon Kindle ebooks scroll smoothly and load fast. I guess because I never upgraded to iOS7. ;) Still have stock iOS which came with my iPad.



ftfy :p
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Yes I know a full blown i7 computer/tablet with a high resolution touch display with Nvida Graphics. Must suck. :)
 
Space_Chief said:
Funny thing, I don't get that. The ebooks on programs like Goodreader and Amazon Kindle ebooks scroll smoothly and load fast. I guess because I never upgraded to iOS7. ;) Still have stock iOS which came with my iPad.
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Yea I shoulda oughta done that too I guess. No, no wait - I didn't do it! I bought it with iOS7 loaded! That's right I remember now.

Yes I know a full blown i7 computer/tablet with a high resolution touch display with Nvida Graphics. Must suck. :)
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It sounds like a nice thing, but I can imagine it not being. It won't happen in any case. The most that I could see happening is them strapping a touchscreen onto a Macbook Air.
 
I would also imagine that the Air is a huge upgrade from a ipad3, almost the weight alone would justify it for me.
 
abandonallhope said:
I would also imagine that the Air is a huge upgrade from a ipad3, almost the weight alone would justify it for me.
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It's the same screen. It's the same amount of storage, unless you get a 128GB version. You get faster Wifi? (which already saturates the cr-ppy 4mb/10mb internet link) faster CPU/GPU. But if you don't play the latest games on it - and there's not a lot to choose from IMHO, it seems a waste of money.

The weight difference is not much. I mean people are happy to lug around 1.5kg "Airs" when competitors make sub-1kg 11 and 13 inch ultrabooks, I dunno. ;)
 
cerebus said:
Yea I shoulda oughta done that too I guess. No, no wait - I didn't do it! I bought it with iOS7 loaded! That's right I remember now.
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The iPad 3rd gen aka The New iPad, came out just after iPad 2 and came with iOS 5.1. I think I upgraded iOS to 5.x something but never went to 6.x because I wanted to keep the Apple Maps app/Youtube app. Good thing I never upgraded the OS. All my stuff runs fine on iOS 5.x. And the thing is fast and good enough.
 
cerebus said:
Really? I'm finding mine to be quite painful in iOS7 now. It's like...usable and all, but choppy. The scrolling on ebooks just isn't keeping up as well as it should. I can definitely do an A7 class upgrade.



ftfy :p

Just out of curiosity, what do you envisage as this iPad Pro? An Intel i5 CPU ssd-driven tablet running MacOSX?
Click to expand...

IOS7 definitely adds a noticeable lag at times but I doesn't bother me that much. The main annoyance for me is the weight on the iPad 3, that thing is a brick and this would probably be my main reason for upgrading.

I must commend Apple on their battery performance though, since installing IOS7 my battery life has definitely improved. On my last charge I had almost 6 days standby and 12 hours usage time.

Regarding the mythical iPad Pro, they wouldn't be able to use Mac OS on there (unless they do a massive overhaul) as it's not designed at all for touch screens.
 
Space_Chief said:
It's the same screen. It's the same amount of storage, unless you get a 128GB version. You get faster Wifi? (which already saturates the cr-ppy 4mb/10mb internet link) faster CPU/GPU. But if you don't play the latest games on it - and there's not a lot to choose from IMHO, it seems a waste of money.
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I upgrade my PC constantly for less of a speed bump than the A5x -> A7 upgrade would give me:
ipad-air-benchmarks.jpg


That plus half the weight for something I carry around with me constantly? Sure ok.

As for games... PvZ2, XCom: Enemy Unknown, Limbo, Rayman Jungle Run, Infinity Blade 2, Dead Trigger 2, Baldur's Gate, Year Walk, RR3, Kingdom Rush 2 - there's plenty from what I can see.

heck just being able to play a proper 1080 movie without stuttering would be wonderful.
 
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cerebus said:
I upgrade my PC constantly for less of a speed bump than the A5x -> A7 upgrade would give me:
ipad-air-benchmarks.jpg
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Good for you. If it benefits you great. As said the device is snappy for all I use it for. My computers are also still fast enough for Photoshop CS4 and FCP 7.

That plus half the weight for something I carry around with me constantly? Sure ok.
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660 g to 478 g.

As for games... PvZ2, XCom: Enemy Unknown, Limbo, Rayman Jungle Run, Infinity Blade 2, Dead Trigger 2, Baldur's Gate, Year Walk, RR3, Kingdom Rush 2 - there's plenty from what I can see.
Click to expand...

Most of these run on the iPad 3rd Gen. And many other games still run well - they haven't been updated - on the iPad 1 or 2.
 
cerebus said:
I upgrade my PC constantly for less of a speed bump than the A5x -> A7 upgrade would give me:
ipad-air-benchmarks.jpg


That plus half the weight for something I carry around with me constantly? Sure ok.

As for games... PvZ2, XCom: Enemy Unknown, Limbo, Rayman Jungle Run, Infinity Blade 2, Dead Trigger 2, Baldur's Gate, Year Walk, RR3, Kingdom Rush 2 - there's plenty from what I can see.

heck just being able to play a proper 1080 movie without stuttering would be wonderful.
Click to expand...

I've played most of those games on my iPad2 without any issues. It is however time for me to upgrade my wife's iPad 1.
 
cerebus said:
heck just being able to play a proper 1080 movie without stuttering would be wonderful.
Click to expand...

iPad 3rd Gen supports 1080p in H264 up to 30fps. Now 720p MKVs also play well. I can watch 720p fansubs without problems. 1080p fansubs would be a problem, but I don't download those, as most are upconverted and not native 1080p, besides file sizes are huge and not worthwhile. 1080p can however be re-encoded to M4V and will then play smoothly.
 
Space_Chief said:
iPad 3rd Gen supports 1080p in H264 up to 30fps. Now 720p MKVs also play well. I can watch 720p fansubs without problems. 1080p fansubs would be a problem, but I don't download those, as most are upconverted and not native 1080p, besides file sizes are huge and not worthwhile. 1080p can however be re-encoded to M4V and will then play smoothly.
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Can't say I have ever had issues playing back 1080p with my iPad. Always been smooth.
 
DrJohnZoidberg said:
Can't say I have ever had issues playing back 1080p with my iPad. Always been smooth.
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It depends on the format. Native 1080p plays smoothly. Non-native H.264 1080p files may not play smoothly on iPad 3. Usually one needs a third party player like AVPlayerHD to play them. That player then usually plays them in software mode - especially if subtitles need to be extracted and rendered and the format or container is not typical. I've seen some MKVs with subtitles also play with hardware decoding, but this does not always work.
 
Space_Chief said:
It depends on the format. Native 1080p plays smoothly. Non-native H.264 1080p files may not play smoothly on iPad 3. Usually one needs a third party player like AVPlayerHD to play them. That player then usually plays them in software mode - especially if subtitles need to be extracted and rendered and the format or container is not typical. I've seen some MKVs with subtitles also play with hardware decoding, but this does not always work.
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Yeah I think this is pretty accurate. It really depends on the encoding format of the 1080. Actually I've seen even non-native h.264 720p files can choke on the iPad3. And hardware encoding is normally a disaster.
 
cerebus said:
Yeah I think this is pretty accurate. It really depends on the encoding format of the 1080. Actually I've seen even non-native h.264 720p files can choke on the iPad3. And hardware encoding is normally a disaster.
Click to expand...

That's why I use Plex. I always know what I'm going to get smooth playback.
 
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