Camera
While the iPad Air has a 5-megapixel rear-facing iSight camera just like the fourth-generation iPad, Apple has made some improvements that promise “sharper images and video.” You’re probably not going to use your iPad to take many photos anyway — which is probably why Apple still hasn’t introduced an 8-megapixel sensor or an LED flash — but it’s certainly nice to see some changes.
Don’t expect the iPad Air to replace your point-and-shoot, or even the camera built into your iPhone.
Don’t expect the iPad Air to replace your point-and-shoot, or even the camera built into your iPhone, though. It actually performs pretty well outside and in environments where there’s plenty of light, and you’ll get fairly sharp images and video with good color.
But its low-light performance — as you might expect — leaves much to be desired. Photos taken in dimly-lit areas look washed out, fuzzy, and very noisy, and no matter how much time you spend editing them, the end result will never be worthy of a place on your mantlepiece.
The iPad Air does offer an HDR mode, square photo shooting, and 1080p video recording, but you’ll find a lot of the Camera features that have recently been added to the iPhone are missing. There’s no burst mode, no slo-mo, and no pano, either.
The iPad Air is a half-decent camera in a pinch, if you have nothing else and you’re in a well-lit environment.
As for the front-facing FaceTime camera, it’s passable for video calling, and your kids will love using it to take selfies in PhotoBooth — but that’s about all you’ll want to be doing with it. It does offer 720p video recording as well, plus features like face detection, but you’ll probably scrap the vast majority of photos and videos you take with it.
The iPad Air is a half-decent camera in a pinch, if you have nothing else and you’re in a well-lit environment. But never leave the house thinking it’s the only camera you’ll need; it should be the last one you rely on.
Killian Bell is a freelance writer based in the U.K. He has an interest in all things tech and also covers Android over at CultofAndroid.com. You can follow him on Twitter via @killianbell.
7 responses to “iPad Air Is The Full-Size iPad You’ve Been Waiting For [Review]”
The best tablet ever. Could have been even better with TouchID which people are now saying they can’t live without. Entering a password or drawing a gesture to unlock your phone is so 2012. Might have to wait for the 2014 iPad Mini with Retina, 64GB and TouchID.
quite/quiet… same thing.
seriously, do you guys even bother reading back the shit you write?
WRITING IS REVISION. learn it. live it.
Thx for the nice review!!!
What I’m missing: Touch ID, 32GB for the base model, 2GB of RAM (I don’t like spec sheets but 1GB wasn’t enough on the iPad 4, kicked out apps way too soon, let alone 64bit apps will consume more RAM on average), and I’ve heard the display isn’t laminated and has no anti-reflective coating like most of apple’s recent displays (iPhone 5, rMBP, thin iMac).
These are huge letdowns, but overall its a great product. I’ve always thought of the older iPads as being clunky, to the extend that I never bought one. But the thinness and lightness of the Air make it so much more usable, I’ll go get one.
I’ve ordered the iPad Air but I have not received it yet. My iPad 3 has always been a bit heavy in bed, digging into my chest as I lay reading over time. I expect the lighter weight to correct that. On the couch it has never been an issue.
Another reason I’m upgrading is the charge/sync port. Since I’ve had an iPhone 5 it has been a nuisance going from one cable to another and I will very much like unifying that into one cable.
The increased speed of 4-5 times faster will be welcome as well. Some HD videos I’ve downloaded would stutter and the comic book reading app I use (Comic Zeal) unpacks archives of pages and resizes them if they are too big and there are noticeable delays I expect to be lessened or eliminated. These speed issues have always been there.
So for weight, unified cable, and drastically increased speed I justify the upgrade, all of which will affect my experience profoundly.
The hardware ecosystem of iMac, iPad, iPhone, and Apple TV is truly a marvel that keeps getting better as time goes on. I don’t think enough is written about how each makes the others better. Case in point is the iPad working with Logic Pro X, not only echoing features and acting as a remote but also adding features — I hope this extensibility moves forward, adding a separate visual touch interface and additional features to other apps as well. I would like to see an article comparing other hardware ecosystems from Android and Windows and how they match up to Apple’s unified system.
I agree. Anyway I’ll waiting for 2 GB of RAM, touch ID and a better screen.
Wow, that would be quite a device indeed! I would LUV LUV LUV!!! <3<3<3!!!!