- I just got back from the Apple store
and picked up a brand new iPad Air 5.
And I wanna know does a new processor,
a new front camera, and the potential for 5G,
make this a worthy upgrade over the iPad Air Gen 4?
Sponsored by ESR.
Hey, I'm Jerry.
And yes, today is the launch day
for the brand new iPad Air 5 that Apple announced
on the March 8th Peek Performance event.
In that event, they talked about the brand new iPhone SE,
the new iPad Air 5, the new Mac Studio,
and the new Mac Studio Display.
And of course, we will no doubt get
to the Mac Studio and Studio Display in another video.
But this guy, this is the iPad Air 5.
So I wanna unbox this guy, take a look at what's inside,
and compare it against the iPad Gen 4
and see if it makes any sense to upgrade
if you have the Generation 4 iPad Air.
So, let's just get started
unboxing this brand new iPad Air 5.
And as you see, I went ahead and got the blue color.
So, let's go ahead and see what this guy looks like.
I'm curious to see what the color looks like
compared to the pale kind of gross colors of the iPads
from last year.
And we are in.
All right, right on top, we have the iPad Air.
We'll look at that in just a moment.
You know what? Let's do it now.
Why wait? I wanna see this color.
So look at, oh my gosh.
So, this color
is nice and blue.
It's like a baby blue or a sky blue.
I don't know, but it actually has some saturation to it
compared to the iPads from last year.
Last year, I had to do a little bit of trickery on my video
to make the green stand out a little bit on video.
Because you can see it in person.
It actually has a bit of colors. It's just pale.
But on video, it really came out almost non-existent
with the color.
So I had to do a couple things in Final Cut Pro
to get that green to stand out.
I don't think I'm gonna have to do that
with this blue iPad Air.
I mean, honestly, just look at that.
Look how pretty that guy is.
Last year, the colors on the iPad's Air
were basically a really light pastel,
almost like yo Easter eggs.
And these ones look like if you were making Easter eggs,
you definitely left it in the coloring a bit longer.
Inside the box, we also get the obligatory Apple stickers
which I have not ever once used on anything, anywhere.
So, all of the boxes that I have for all of my devices
still have all of the Apple stickers intact in the boxes.
I dunno what to do with them.
So, also the Quick Start Guide, which we don't need.
You get a USB-C to USB-C charging cable.
And you actually get this Apple 20 watt charging adapter
inside the box with the iPad Air.
All right, so the iPad Air 5 looks very, very familiar
to the iPad Air 4 from last year.
On the backside of the iPad Air,
you have a single camera and a microphone.
You have the Smart Connector on the bottom
for connecting keyboard accessories.
On the right side, you have this magnetic strip right here
for the Apple Pencil 2.
Which of course was a fantastic upgrade for the iPad Air 4,
which allowed the 2nd Generation Apple Pencil 2,
which charges and connects magnetically
to the side of the iPad,
rather than the first Generation Apple Pencil,
which connected to the bottom lightning port.
Above the space for the Apple Pencil,
you have the volume controls.
On the top, you have the power button,
power, sleep, wake button.
That's also got the Touch ID sensor built in
like last year's.
You have ports for speakers.
And on the bottom, you have the USB-C port.
So these two iPads look extremely similar from the outside.
And on the inside, there are a couple of changes
which we'll get to in just a moment.
But form factor wise, they are almost completely identical,
which is good news for any accessories
that you may have bought for previous generation iPad Air.
And that's where our sponsor ESR comes in.
ESR makes a ton of accessories
for your mobile and tablet devices,
including this Ascend Keyboard Case
for iPad Air Generation 5,
Generation 4, and the 11-inch iPad Pro.
The Ascend Keyboard Case
is kind of a hybrid of other keyboard cases
you may have seen for iPad before,
but this one offers a couple things that others don't.
including Protection for your iPad
when your iPad isn't even connected to the keyboard.
To use this case, all you need to do
is pull back the kickstand
and then you can set it to whatever angle
you want it to sit at.
It doesn't matter how tall you are, how short you are,
what your desk height is, you can set it to any angle
that works for you.
Once connected with Bluetooth,
the keyboard and trackpad work exactly like you expect
with iPad OS.
Including two fingers scrolling for up and down
or left and right.
A three finger swipe will go back to your home screen.
You can do three fingers swipe to go down
between recent apps.
It all works really, really well.
And unlike some external keyboards,
you actually do get a full function row for your iPad.
ESR cases are more than just cases.
They're designed for protection,
but also for work, play, watching, drawing,
whatever you wanted to do.
So if you wanna walk away from working on your iPad
and disconnect from the keyboard,
you can do that and still know that you're protected
with this ESR case from drops and scratches.
And because ESR wants you to work the way you wanna work,
you can actually attach the iPad to the case
in portrait mode.
So now, if you want a tall screen
for writing scripts or documents, you can do that as well.
And if a keyboard case is not for you,
then there's also the rebound hybrid case
which offers a full protective case,
along with a folio cover that acts as more protection
and of course, a stand.
Both of these cases are available today,
along with many others.
And you can save 10% by searching ESR iPad Air Case
on Amazon.
Now, we can move beyond the physical similarities
of the iPad Air 5 and 4, and look on the inside.
On the inside of the new iPad Air 5,
you actually have an M1 chip.
And yes, that's the same chip that's in the Mac Mini,
and the MacBook Air, and the 24-inch iMac.
And yes, the iPad Pro.
Making the performance of the iPad Air 5
almost the exact same as the iPad Pro,
which I'm sure I'll get to in another video.
But that's crazy
that they're throwing their biggest, baddest chip for iPads
and even some Mac desktops into the iPad Air.
The iPad Air 4 comes with an Apple A14 chip,
which shipped with the iPhone 12 line of phones.
It's got a 6-core processor, a 4-core GPU,
and four gigabytes of memory.
The iPad Air 5 has the M1 chip with 8-cores,
8 GPU cores, and eight gigabytes of memory.
And as you can see here, there's a bit of a speed difference
between these two iPads.
The performance of the M1 chip
in the iPad Air 5 is very similar
to the performance of the M1 chip in the iPad Pro,
making that actually a pretty significant speed bump
over the iPad Air 4.
However, the iPad Air 4 is not slow in any way.
They will run the same apps almost the exact same way.
And you should not see much
of a difference performance-wise between these two.
They're already super fast.
If you end up going with the cellular version
of the iPad Air 5, you will actually get 5G connectivity.
Whereas with the iPad Air 4, you only got 4G or LTE.
Now, of course, depending on where you live
and how often you use cellular
when you're out and about,
that may make a difference and may warrant an upgrade
from the iPad 4 to the iPad Air 5.
For me, I've not really found any benefit to 5G
in the city where I live or places that I've traveled.
In fact, on my iPhone 13 Pro,
I actually have 5G turned off for the battery life savings.
I just don't see enough of a benefit for me and my use.
But wherever you live and whatever your use case may be,
it may be worth jumping from the 4 to 5 for that 5G.
Storage-wise, both of these iPads start at 64 gigabytes
but can be bumped up to 256 gigabytes, if needed.
The USB-C port on the bottom of the iPad Air 5
is actually twice as fast as the USB-C port on the iPad Air.
So now, you can get up to 10 gigabytes per second
for connecting super fast SSDs
or even for connecting to a dock
and creating a desktop setup with your iPad.
Both of these iPads
have the same 10.9-inch liquid retina display
that gets up to 500 nits of brightness,
which is absolutely perfect for using indoors
and in most outdoor or brightly lit situations.
The bezels on the iPad Air are just slightly bigger
than the bezels on the iPad Pro,
but not big enough to make a difference.
This display is just gorgeous.
It really is.
It's got P3 wide color.
It's fully laminated,
so it looks like you're touching pixels.
It really is just one of the best displays you can get
on any device period.
And you get it on Apple's mid-range tablet.
The rear camera is the same 12 megapixel F/1.8 lens
as the 4th Generation iPad Air.
But the front camera has been updated
to the 12 megapixel ultra wide camera F/2.4 lens
that now allows for Centre Stage on the iPad Air 4,
just like what we got with the iPad Mini last year.
This feature, of course, allows you to have video calls
but if you move around,
the camera will try and keep you centered in the frame.
And if other people come around,
the camera will widen its view
so that the others will be included in the video.
This is a fantastic feature for family video calls
and I wish we had it earlier back in like, early 2020.
But now that it's come to almost all of their devices,
it is a fantastic and I like it.
I haven't used it a whole lot recently,
but it is good to have when you need it.
And I think that that is really the primary differences
between the iPad Air 4 and the brand new iPad Air 5.
On the outside, they are extremely similar,
which means that they can actually use
all of the same accessories
if you do upgrade from the 4 to the 5.
On the inside is where things get a little bit interesting,
including that brand new M1 chip which is super fast
and really has no business being in the iPad Air,
especially when, unfortunately, iPad OS
still can't fully take advantage of that CPU.
But if you need that extra power, and you need 5G,
and you want that ultra wide Centre Stage camera,
then this might be a pretty good upgrade
from the 4 to the 5.
But for most people,
I really just don't see enough difference
between the 4 and the 5 to warrants an upgrade.
If you have the 4, you have essentially the same device,
and it's fantastic, and you should probably hang onto it.
But if you're an idiot like me,
the color alone might make you want to upgrade.
So, what do you guys think?
What do you think of the brand new iPad Air 5?
Is it enough of an upgrade from the iPad Air 4?
Let me know below.
If you're interested in more videos on the iPad Air 5
or on the other new Apple devices
like the Mac Studio and the Studio display,
definitely hit that subscribe button.
Hit the thumbs up button if you liked it.
And I'll see you next time.