ipad 3 compared to iPad Air 2

[UglyCasanova]

I only use this thing for browsing the Internet but I've become increasingly frustrated over safari load and rendering times. I'm not sure if this is due to ios 8 or just an itch to upgrade, but it is noticible.

I use my iPad more than any other device I own so money put into is ok with me. Will I see any improvement in Safari and webpage rendering speed though? This is my primary concern, not Touch ID or anything else.

 

[Zodiark1593]

The cpu alone is absolutely the very pinnacle of anything ARM based, so browsing should fly. You get 2 GB of RAM, and a more powerful gpu that you likely will ever know what to do with. Just a bit of a difference.

 

[Oyeve]

The Ipad 3 was the worst Ipad ever. Thicker, buggies, uglier.

 

[rudeguy]

The Ipad 3 was the worst Ipad ever. Thicker, buggies, uglier.

Agreed.

OP: upgrade. This one is a no brainer.

 

[UglyCasanova]

Dang. Ok ya'll convinced me... ��

 

[rudeguy]

Dang. Ok ya'll convinced me... ��

I am not an Apple fan but the Air 2 is a hell of a machine. It's pretty much a computer in an ultra slim for factor. And the display compared to the 3 is night and day. If you only used it once in a while I would tell you to wait but you use the thing. Get one that is worth using.

 

[Commodus]

I went from an iPad 3 to the original iPad Air, and the difference was huge -- both in terms of speed and just how much more portable it was. Take that, make it even faster and lighter, and roll in Touch ID... it's a whole new ballgame.

 

[Eug]

The iPad Ar 2 is totally awesome. No-brainer upgrade.

Page loading / rendering will get faster and stuttering will go away. Plus you can load more tabs before they start to auto reload.

And it is oh so light.

 

[poofyhairguy]

I love my iPad Air 2.

 

[Eug]

The Ipad 3 was the worst Ipad ever. Thicker, buggies, uglier.

The iPad 1 was the worst. It was crippled at launch.
The iPad 3 was the second worst.

I bought the iPad 2, then the iPad Air 2.

 

[RGUN]

I owned an iPad 3 until January of this year. App load times and webpage load times were getting rediculous. I bought an air 2 and haven't looked back.

 

[Oyeve]

The iPad 1 was the worst. It was crippled at launch.
The iPad 3 was the second worst.

I bought the iPad 2, then the iPad Air 2.

Ipad 1 wasn't included in my opinion as it was the first one. But yea, compared to the others it is worse.

 

[rudeguy]

The iPad 1 was the worst. It was crippled at launch.
The iPad 3 was the second worst.

I bought the iPad 2, then the iPad Air 2.

You did it right. There wasn't much to miss in between the two. The 1st gen Air wasn't bad but it really wasn't special. The 3rd and 4th gen iPads were worth skipping.

 

[poofyhairguy]

I bought the iPad 2, then the iPad Air 2.

Yup those are the two iPads I have bought too.

A "deal" in iOS-land is buying the products on the correct cycle. That is what I keep telling everyone who buys those dead end iPhone 6+'s.

 

[mmntech]

The iPad 1 was the worst. It was crippled at launch.
The iPad 3 was the second worst.

I bought the iPad 2, then the iPad Air 2.

Lol. I can proudly say I've owned the two worst iPads.

I actually haven't had any issues with my 3, but then again I stayed on iOS 7. The Air 3 will be out by the time I have money to afford a new one. :\

The Air 2 is worth it for the processor alone. It's the first real tablet with some serious grunt. Even the 8-core beast in the Galaxy Note 4 can't touch it.

 

[ControlD]

Lol. I can proudly say I've owned the two worst iPads.

Same here. Those are the only two I have owned. My iPad 3 still gets daily use, but I gave it to my daughter when I moved to a Windows tablet. Maybe it is a "bad" iPad but it still seems to get the job done.

 

[Zodiark1593]

Same here. Those are the only two I have owned. My iPad 3 still gets daily use, but I gave it to my daughter when I moved to a Windows tablet. Maybe it is a "bad" iPad but it still seems to get the job done.

I'd hesitate to call the ipad 3 bad. It's still good (on iOS 7), its simply the Air series is that much improved.

 

[Eug]

Both the iPad 1 and the iPad 3 suffer from Apple's usual early adopter issues.

The iPad 1 was underpowered at launch. It had a single-core A4 CPU and 256 MB RAM. Now it's true that the iPhone 4 had the same CPU, but it had twice the RAM. The RAM issue for the iPad 1 was very worrisome, which is why I waited on the iPad but bought an iPhone 4.

For the iPad 3, it seemed like a rush job. Basically an iPad 2 but with Retina bolted on, hence its performance issues. The iPad 4 was a significant improvement but was still heavy. The iPad Air was a big improvement in performance and form factor, but by that time 1 GB was getting to be under-spec'd and the lack of TouchID was a disappointment, so I waited for the iPad Air 2.

BTW, I suspect if Apple releases a 12" MacBook Retina, something I've been waiting for forever, I may end up still waiting a generation. I predict that they will put some sort of early adopter gotcha in that thing, which will get fixed in version 2.

 

[poofyhairguy]

I'd hesitate to call the ipad 3 bad. It's still good (on iOS 7), its simply the Air series is that much improved.

It is all relative.

On the iPad scale, the iPad 3 is by far the worst iPad. It has the least amount of power-per-pixel than any iPad except the iPad 1, but unlike the iPad 1 it didn't have the "most magical device in the world" halo for early adopters. It had the shortest shelf life of any iPad for a reason, and it is my favorite example of how blind buying iOS devices in the expectation that they are all good and the specs don't matter is a way to get burned.

But compare the iPad 3 to my Transformer Prime that I bought a few months before and it was a great deal. The Prime is already abandoned- they stopped updating it at 4.1 or 4.2 I think-and even if I manually upgrade the OS with CM there are huge design flaws of terrible eMMC and the fact that the wifi is crippled by an aluminum cover. I paid iPad prices for that thing and it was a complete disaster. The iPad 3 would have been a steal in comparison.

In all honestly what we should be doing is praising the iPad 2. That thing was shrunk (iPad Mini) and leaped (when it was there alongside the iPad 4), but still sold in some form for years and still runs a modern version of iOS today. It will be a mobile device that gets the five years we expect out of a console or regular computer cycle, all in a form factor that hasn't been beat (I mean 10 inches is still a bigger tablet). It is a miracle.

The iPad 2 is what got me to buy the iPad Air 2. It was pretty obvious back in the day the iPad 2's SoC (especially the GPU) was a monster compared to anything else at the time including the weak iPhone 4 that was selling when it launched (or my Prime). Seeing as how the iPad Air 2 has such a beastly SoC it probably will be the next five year iOS device, and I think by the time it no longer runs the current OS the form factor will have finally changed.

Next generation when we get an iPad Air 2-level SoC inside the iPhone 6+S it will be a device that will be very hard to beat, very tempting. I am shocked we aren't there today actually, and that is why I think that today's iPhone 6+ will be the iPad 3 of the iPhone line. Power-per-pixel matters.

 

[ControlD]

I was more disappointed with the original iPad than the iPad 3, mainly because web browsing just sucked on that thing. It was a cool device, but once the novelty wore off the lack of memory really started to show. I found (and still do) the browsing to be much better on the iPad 3. I actually bought mine after the 4 came out, but for a good discount so I still feel like it was a good deal. I'm sure the Air / Air 2 would feel even that much better, but I can no longer justify the price tag for those things. I'd still take one as a gift though!

 

[Eug]

The iPad 2 is what got me to buy the iPad Air 2. It was pretty obvious back in the day the iPad 2's SoC (especially the GPU) was a monster compared to anything else at the time including the weak iPhone 4 that was selling when it launched (or my Prime). Seeing as how the iPad Air 2 has such a beastly SoC it probably will be the next five year iOS device, and I think by the time it no longer runs the current OS the form factor will have finally changed.

Next generation when we get an iPad Air 2-level SoC inside the iPhone 6+S it will be a device that will be very hard to beat, very tempting. I am shocked we aren't there today actually, and that is why I think that today's iPhone 6+ will be the iPad 3 of the iPhone line. Power-per-pixel matters.

I would have been more OK with the original iPad Air if it had come with 2 GB RAM. While the CPU of the iPad Air 2 is great, IMO the 2 GB RAM is even more important.

Just compare how much longer the iPhone 4 lasted compared to the iPad 1 in terms of OS updates. The iPhone 4 and iPad 1 had the same CPU, but despite the fact the iPhone 4's CPU was clocked lower, it had 2 more years of OS updates the iPad 1 didn't get.

BTW, we are still using our iPad 2, although it mainly gets left in the kitchen for greasy fingers, and for watching our kids on the baby monitors. Surfing is tolerable on the thing, but I much prefer surfing on my iPad Air 2 both because of speed and because of the lower amount of tab reloads. (And of course because of the Retina screen.)

Meanwhile my Nexus 7 2012 is largely unused. I even carry my iPad Air 2 to work from time to time, replacing the Nexus 7 in that role. That thing is so damn slow it's ridiculous. I'm keeping it as a toddler tablet though. The iPad Air 2 is just so much lighter than the iPad 2 (and iPad 3/4), that now carrying around a 10" tablet seems like less of a hassle than it used to be.

 

[aaksheytalwar]

I upgraded from iPad 3 to IPad Air 1 and iPad mini 2. Both are night and day upgrades from the iPad 3. iPad 3 is slower than an iPhone 4s.

 

[2is]

I have an iPad 3, the little bit of tinkering I've done with an Air 2 tells me it's in a completely different league. If it's a device you use a lot, it is, without question, worth the upgrade. For me, it's only used for web browsing and youtube videos when I'm on the couch during a commercial break or in bed so not really worth the $800 or so it would cost... Now once Apple makes IOS, particularly on the iPad a bit more functional, I'd use it a lot more and upgrade ASAP.

 

[vi edit]

Same here. Those are the only two I have owned. My iPad 3 still gets daily use, but I gave it to my daughter when I moved to a Windows tablet. Maybe it is a "bad" iPad but it still seems to get the job done.

Heh. Same boat for me. Had the 1st gen, upgraded for a 3rd gen. Screen still looks great on it, battery life is decent, and it's fine for my kids to use in the car or do their school homework apps on (yes, our elementary school has iPad apps they track progress on).

I'll probably snag an Air2 this fall when the Air3 or whatever they call it is released and sell off the old iPad3 for whatever I can get for it. It's not a terrible device. It still skypes, does games, views pictures, ect. Does what I need it to.

 

[midwestfisherman]

Air 2 FTW! You'll thank yourself!