Apple

iPad Air and iPad mini 2019 review: Apple’s tablets strike an ideal balance

These are clearly more appealing to most people than Apple’s 2018 iPad or iPad Pro.

Samuel Axon – Apr 16, 2019 8:50 am | 128

The home button remains, unlike in some new iOS devices, and Touch ID is still in place here. Credit: Samuel Axon

Apple’s iPad lineup has had 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 and positioned as a laptop replacement. At the bottom, you had the entry-level iPad, which lacked many of the best features in newer Apple products and shipped with a CPU much slower than what’s in the latest iPhones.

You were either buying a monster of a tablet for a monster price, or you were getting a tablet that compromised 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 Apple was still making an iPad mini last year, but it was woefully outdated.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 but nevertheless saw a tablet as a secondary device, not a replacement for our main workhorses. That meant we weren’t willing to pay iPad Pro prices. As a result, I held on to my aging, first-generation iPad Air (2013) through last year. I probably wasn’t alone.

But with the launch of the new iPad Air and iPad mini last month, Apple finally filled the gap. These two tablets seemingly served up the best the iOS platform had to offer, ditched the pretense of replacing your laptop, and didn’t break the bank (much).

After spending some time with the devices recently, the result seems clear: Apple’s latest tablets are likely the best fits for most people.

Table of Contents

Specifications

These updates are more than a spec bump, but the most notable addition to both the iPad mini and the iPad Air 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 touchscreen for the mini, 2224×1668 10.5-inch (264PPI) pressure-sensitive touchscreen for the Air
OS	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 Air
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)

Apple iPad Air

$469 from Walmart

Apple iPad mini

$399 from Walmart

It’s the same chipset found in last year’s iPhone XS, XS Max, and XR, and apart from the extremely speedy A12X in the 2018 iPad Pros, it’s the fastest consumer mobile CPU on the market right now. We’ll get more into benchmarks later in the review, but performance shouldn’t 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 means the mini has a higher pixel density (326 pixels per inch to the Air’s 264), but that difference is hardly noticeable.

Both displays have a wide color gamut (P3) and a maximum brightness of 500 nits, and both are fully laminated. That last point makes a subtle but desirable difference over the base 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 would be a given on a tablet, but Apple omitted 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 the entire line to USB-C after it did so with the iPad Pro, even though that implementation was half-baked. USB-C is so much more common and more flexible than Lightning.

On the other hand, this means you won’t have to buy new cables and the like if you’re coming from an older iPad.

All told, these are big leaps over the previous versions of either tablet—but that’s not hard, given that neither of these product lines had seen new entries for several years. We’ve already talked at length about the efficiency and power of Apple’s custom silicon, and I’ll get into it a 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 pretty much across the board, and they justify the purchase price for both devices.

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 at exactly one pound (1.02 for the LTE model). The mini is very close to its 2015 predecessor: 8×5.3×0.24 inches, and 0.66lbs (0.68 for LTE).

Both tablets come in three color options. First, there’s the space gray Apple has been offering in most of its new Macs. That finish includes black bezels. The original “silver” color for the back is also available, but that comes with white bezels. And finally, there’s gold with white bezels. The gold is the gold most people know from 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’s no wireless charging, but that’s not a priority for devices of this size anyway.

Both iPads have home buttons with Touch ID, and they lack Apple’s TrueDepth camera-array system used for Face ID. If you were expecting Apple to ditch the home button completely in all new devices, that’s surely a surprise.

While Face ID scores high in the cool factor, and it’s (in theory) 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 neat to never have to even think about taking any specific action to unlock your device (as is the case with Face ID), but the fingerprint reader works so quickly it’s far from a burden.

It does mean you miss out on a few apps that use the TrueDepth sensors in interesting ways, but developers haven’t exactly been cranking those out in huge numbers to date.

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 doesn’t have the rounded screen edges and almost-nonexistent bezels of the iPad Pro or the newest iPhones. But while those things are striking, I wouldn’t expect them in a $499 tablet. I don’t 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 quite dated—so dated that when I brought it out in front of someone who is far from a techie, she immediately commented on how “old” it looked. I know reviewers sometimes get flak for focusing more on bezels than is really necessary, and sometimes that might be fair. 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, though it feels cramped when using the latest multitasking features in iOS. But it’s disappointing that Apple didn’t 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 sizes

I’m consistently frustrated that the devices that get edge-to-edge displays and massive bezel reductions are frequently larger devices that don’t need them as much. If you have a smaller tablet or phone, reducing these bezels for more screen real estate makes a huge difference. But if you have a big tablet, the display is usually already 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 highly portable and flexible device at the same time we enjoy the benefits of a roomy screen.

But when Apple introduced edge-to-edge displays to iPhones, it axed the iPhone SE. And it didn’t 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 was closer to the size of the base iPad’s screen.

Yet Apple seems to cling to this notion that smaller means entry-level, so smaller devices don’t 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. But Apple’s not giving them all of its best here.

Audio

The stereo speakers are on the bottom of the device, meaning you’ll get stereo audio when holding it in portrait mode. But this speaker placement makes no sense from the user’s perspective. Typically, you’ll care most about sound when watching a video or playing a game, and you’ll want to experience most videos or games in landscape mode. However, that means you have no stereo audio, as all the audio comes from one side of the device.

To make matters worse, you’ll often find yourself covering up the speakers and muffling the audio while holding the tablet in landscape mode. It’s a poor choice on Apple’s part, given that the primary use case here is as a media-consumption device, and that will usually be in landscape.

Admittedly, you might often use headphones in those situations, but you shouldn’t have to in order to enjoy stereo sound while watching a movie.

Accessories

These iPads are designed to work with two notable accessories also sold by Apple: the Smart Keyboard and the Pencil.

There are, of course, numerous third-party accessories available. But since these are marketed together, let’s quickly take a look at how the Smart Keyboard works with the Air and how the Pencil works with both the Air and mini.

Smart Keyboard

Since the iPad Air shares its chassis with the pre-2018 iPad Pro, it has a Smart Keyboard connector, so you can use the same Smart Keyboard accessory you might have used with the smaller iPad Pro from 2017.

It’s the same Smart Keyboard we’ve been using with iPad Pros for a while, and it’s neither awful nor terrific—it’s perfectly serviceable, but it’s not as good as a decent laptop keyboard. For example, I find that I have to hit the spacebar much harder on it than I am accustomed to in order to get the key press to register.

That said, it’s a much better experience than using a Bluetooth keyboard or the on-screen one. But you might find third-party keyboard solutions you like more.

iOS still has issues with easy text editing and selection. I wouldn’t advise writing your novel on this. But it’s good enough for composing short emails, taking down notes, or filling out Web forms.

The mini still doesn’t support the Smart Keyboard, as it has no connector; Apple would have had to make a new one in a smaller size anyway. You’ll have to stick with on-screen or Bluetooth on the smaller tablet, unfortunately.

Apple Pencil

Both new iPads support the first-generation Apple Pencil, so you can take handwritten notes or draw in art apps.

The Apple Pencil is a good product that we’ve written about at length before, but its second-generation successor is much better for a number of reasons. It feels better to use, it has a shape that keeps it from rolling off a table, and the charging and pairing process with an iPad Pro is much better.

With the Air and mini, you’ll have to use the old method of plugging the Pencil into the Lightning port to pair or charge it, and it’s still ridiculous—especially on the mini, as the Pencil looks enormous plugged into the smaller device.

The lamination on the display and the lack of the air gap makes all the difference in the world with the Apple Pencil compared to the entry-level iPad, though. It means that these iPads don’t come with the same number of caveats for creatives that I named in my review of last year’s entry-level iPad, though the 60Hz screen still does make a subtle difference in responsiveness compared to the Pro’s 120Hz.

It’s just too bad we don’t have support for the newer Apple Pencil here, and the iPad mini doesn’t have enough screen real estate to make drawing anything serious with the Pencil practical.

Software

Both tablets run iOS 12 out of the box. It’s an excellent mobile operating system for phones and a good one for tablets that are treated as secondary devices to your laptop or desktop.

iOS 12 has several tablet-specific multitasking features and gestures, and they work on both the mini and the Air. They make things easier, but they don’t turn the devices into full-power productivity workhorses.

I knocked the iPad Pro pretty hard for iOS’ failure to do that, but in my mind (and in Apple’s marketing), these tablets don’t have the pretense of “laptop replacement” that the iPad Pro does. They don’t carry the iPad Pro’s Mac-level prices, either.

These are meant to be consumption devices with only a few casual creation and productivity uses, and they do that well enough. iOS falls down hard when it’s trying to replace macOS or Windows, but it’s quite pleasant to use in this capacity—especially when you compare it to alternatives like Android running on tablets.

Below: Screenshots of the iPad iOS 12 experience from our iOS 12 review.

For more detail about iOS 12 and what’s great and not as great about it, read our full review.

Cameras

Each new iPad has an 8-megapixel, rear-facing camera (ƒ/2.4 aperture) that supports Live Photos, panoramas, burst mode, HDR, 1080p video, and 120fps slow-mo video—the usual iPhone/iPad camera stuff. The front-facing cameras take 7-megapixel photos (ƒ/2.2) and 1080p video at 30fps.

Cameras have generally not been a key part of the tablet experience—most of us don’t consider this aspect much when shopping for a device. But for iPads, the cameras potentially matter for just three reasons: FaceTime call quality, AR app experience quality, and the ability to take photos on the device that you can then edit with iOS photo editing apps and the like.

These cameras are good enough for both of those first two use cases, but as has always been the case with iPads, serious creatives will want to take their photos on another device and copy them over to the tablet to work with them. The photos you take with these cameras won’t be gracing any magazine covers.

Still, for a tablet, the images are decent. And the A12 chip uses machine learning to enhance them on the fly in all the same ways it does on the iPhone XS, XS Max, and XR.

Performance

If you’ve read our reviews of the iPhone XS and XS Max or the iPhone XR, you know what’s coming here. The iPad Air and mini have the exact same system-on-a-chip as those phones—the Apple-designed (TSMC-manufactured) A12. We’ve written at great length about the A12 and its more powerful iPad Pro cousin the A12X. Basically, this is the fastest, most powerful mobile chip in any consumer tablet except for the iPad Pro.

Apple’s first chip made in a 7nm process, the A12 is more than adequate for any current use case. It’s also likely beefy enough for any possible use you can anticipate in the next couple of years, including all current games.

Dig into the charts to see our testing results with the mini and Air: they were exactly as expected, generally in line with other devices that contain the A12. We’re still performing battery tests, but Apple promises up to 10 hours of light use for both of these tablets—the same as with the base iPad. While specific numbers will vary based on the test you do, we can say anecdotally that we’ve so far seen very similar battery life in these two new tablets to what we saw in the 2018 iPad (just as we expected).

Update: Our battery test results are below.

2019 iPad Air and mini battery test results. Credit: Samuel Axon

There may be no new story to tell about the A12, but it suffices to say that performance we’re seeing from these tablets is unparalleled. We played The Elder Scrolls Blades, Civilization VI, Stardew Valley, and several other games, and they all ran and looked great. AR apps work well. Ultimately, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Air and mini won’t be able to run some of the super-powerful Pro apps being developed for the iPad Pro (like Adobe’s upcoming full version of Photoshop for tablets), so if you need to use those, consider the Pro. Otherwise, the performance here is plenty.

Conclusion

When I reviewed the iPad Pro, I was critical in large part because Apple positioned it as a laptop replacement for technical and creative professionals, both in marketing and in price. While the hardware was up to the task, the software was not.

I was also critical when discovering that the 2018 base iPad seemed to rest on its laurels. That device failed to add anything new to entice buyers besides a modest spec bump and suboptimal Pencil support. Apple’s clear priority was to keep costs down at all, well, costs.

It’s a different story altogether with the new iPad Air and iPad mini, which are two differently sized peas in the Apple Store’s pod. These are the ideal Apple tablets for most people who can afford them. And given the stasis of Android tablets and the nascent state of Chrome OS tablets, these might be the best tablets for anyone unless you put some Windows two-in-one laptops in the same category.

The A12 is speedy and makes playing games or using AR apps oodles of fun. And the rear cameras, though unimpressive compared to those in flagship phones, make for much better AR experiences than what we saw on the 2018 iPad.

Smart Keyboard support makes the Air more practical and useful, and its screen size and form factor are a happy medium between price and cutting-edge design. It’s too bad the same can’t be said of the mini, though.

Both new tablets strike a compelling balance of performance, features, and price. Neither one reinvents what an iPad is—that’s for the Pro to (try to) do—but that’s OK. The iPad Pro will be attractive to dedicated creatives with specific needs, and the base iPad is adequate for people who just want to do some light Web browsing or who need to be price conscious.

For everyone else, these small refinements make for the most easy-to-recommend true tablet solutions on the market apart from maybe aftermarket 2017 iPad Pros—especially this new Air.

The Good

Exceptional CPU performance in both tablets
Some of the best LCD displays in any consumer mobile device, especially at this price
Smart Keyboard support makes the Air a much more attractive product than its predecessors
It’s just great to have an up-to-date, small tablet option from Apple again
Pencil support on both tablets is a welcome addition, and the lack of an air gap in the display makes the Pencil much nicer to use than it is on the entry-level iPad

The bad

First-generation Apple Pencil support is good, but second-generation would have been a lot better
Included chargers are a bit slow
Sticking with Lightning over USB-C is a mixed bag at best—it’s time to move forward
Multitasking is cramped on the mini

The ugly

The aging design of the mini, with its enormous-by-today’s-standards bezels, makes it something of a missed opportunity
The speakers only give a stereo experience in portrait mode, but chances are, the times you care about stereo most will be in landscape

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Samuel Axon Senior Editor

Samuel Axon is the editorial lead for tech and gaming coverage at Ars Technica. He covers AI, software development, gaming, entertainment, and mixed reality. He has been writing about gaming and technology for nearly two decades at Engadget, PC World, Mashable, Vice, Polygon, Wired, and others. He previously ran a marketing and PR agency in the gaming industry, led editorial for the TV network CBS, and worked on social media marketing strategy for Samsung Mobile at the creative agency SPCSHP. He also is an independent software and game developer for iOS, Windows, and other platforms, and he is a graduate of DePaul University, where he studied interactive media and software development.

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