WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:12.000 This is the new iPad Air, and the big surprise for me is that it now has an M1 chip. 00:00:12.000 --> 00:00:15.920 So that's got a lot of people curious about whether it's worth upgrading to. 00:00:15.920 --> 00:00:19.480 Oh! Like my friend Nicole here. 00:00:19.480 --> 00:00:27.480 Well, let's find out for her. And what I learned in doing so is that there's actually an iPad performance tier list. 00:00:27.480 --> 00:00:39.280 And if you're in the beat here, this may or may not be worth upgrading to. 00:00:39.280 --> 00:00:44.800 When I reviewed the $800 M1-powered iPad Pro last summer, I felt that its price and its 00:00:44.800 --> 00:00:48.520 power were higher than its utility, even for professionals. 00:00:48.520 --> 00:00:53.120 Because iPad OS is still quite limited, and it's really easy to run into workflow walls. 00:00:53.120 --> 00:00:57.040 In fact, I called it a luxury device. 00:00:57.040 --> 00:01:02.320 It really is one, so I don't think that the iPad Air needs all that power. 00:01:02.320 --> 00:01:06.120 The upgrade from the Pro that I think would best trickle down to this is the high refresh 00:01:06.120 --> 00:01:15.880 rate ProMotion screen. An M1 processor might make your device faster, but ProMotion makes your device appear faster. 00:01:15.880 --> 00:01:25.360 But I don't work at Apple, and besides, Nicole's iPad Pro already has ProMotion. 00:01:25.360 --> 00:01:28.480 So why did you reach out to me? 00:01:28.480 --> 00:01:33.920 I reached out to you because I have the 2018 iPad Pro, and it's the 11-inch. 00:01:33.920 --> 00:01:39.160 The 2022 iPad Air is a similar form factor. 00:01:39.160 --> 00:01:46.080 It is also more reasonably priced. It has the M1 processor, and it has more RAM. 00:01:46.080 --> 00:01:51.680 So on paper, looking at those specs, yeah, I was like, ooh. 00:01:51.680 --> 00:01:54.680 So you're just using your iPad really intensely? 00:01:54.680 --> 00:02:00.760 I guess subtle for an average casual user, just using it to browse. 00:02:00.760 --> 00:02:04.520 I think you're more than an average casual user, from what you've told me. 00:02:04.520 --> 00:02:10.800 I'm an average casual user, and then hearing how you use it, I'm like, oh, maybe some people 00:02:10.800 --> 00:02:13.960 are using it more intensely than I thought originally. 00:02:13.960 --> 00:02:19.320 Well, I came from a MacBook, so I wanted to use it for everything I did on the MacBook. 00:02:19.320 --> 00:02:24.160 OK, so I wanted to show me how you use your iPad. 00:02:24.160 --> 00:02:28.000 Above first, how's your battery? Ah, it's not looking too good. 00:02:28.000 --> 00:02:31.000 Oh, 3%. Oh, perfect. Oh, awesome. 00:02:31.000 --> 00:02:43.040 Thanks, Jamie. Wow. Nicole's A12X-powered iPad Pro from 2018 has always confused me. 00:02:43.040 --> 00:02:46.720 It's in the A12 processor generation, which is old. 00:02:46.720 --> 00:02:50.680 But if you look at the processor itself, it looks an awful lot like an M1. 00:02:50.680 --> 00:02:57.080 In fact, the Apple Silicon Developer Transition Kit was essentially powered by one of these. 00:02:57.080 --> 00:03:03.480 And so if there were an iPad performance tier list, I wouldn't know where this would go. 00:03:03.480 --> 00:03:10.320 So how many apps do you run at the same time? Because like, do you sometimes have two apps open, the YouTube app video playing, slide 00:03:10.320 --> 00:03:14.080 over? Yeah. OK, so YouTube is playing. 00:03:14.080 --> 00:03:19.880 You can open up the comments as well. I'll usually open up something like my journal. 00:03:19.880 --> 00:03:24.240 I'll open up Instagram, which is pretty gross on this app. 00:03:24.240 --> 00:03:28.880 Zuckerberg let Instagram make an iPad app. It's not running on so many levels. 00:03:28.880 --> 00:03:34.240 Oh! OK. So then I end up having to like, you know, slide back and forth, back and forth. 00:03:34.240 --> 00:03:37.560 And then I'll usually open up something like Reddit. 00:03:37.560 --> 00:03:40.560 Oh, and then there it goes. Oh, but it's reloading. It was playing before. 00:03:40.560 --> 00:03:44.200 It was playing before. OK. Oh, now it won't even. 00:03:44.200 --> 00:03:48.000 Oh! We had just, this was just open a second ago. 00:03:48.000 --> 00:03:52.000 It was. I know it's, but that is annoying. I can't see the cute cat thing anymore. 00:03:52.000 --> 00:03:56.320 See, and then this will just kind of like, oh, OK, well, how am I going to see the cats 00:03:56.320 --> 00:04:01.800 now? How am I going to find this post again if I reopen this, you know? 00:04:01.800 --> 00:04:10.040 I think that RAM might be the biggest issue here. The way iPadOS manages RAM is that it purges apps that you haven't used in a while from 00:04:10.040 --> 00:04:17.240 memory as you open more. This prevents slowdowns in open apps, but it also means that when you do go back, you're 00:04:17.240 --> 00:04:20.600 going to have to wait for those apps to reload. 00:04:20.600 --> 00:04:24.200 This is not the same video. Yeah, it isn't. Oh, no. 00:04:24.200 --> 00:04:27.760 And now. It stopped playing and you can't get it to play again. 00:04:27.760 --> 00:04:30.760 So I just. It changed the progress bar. Oh, it did change the progress bar. 00:04:30.760 --> 00:04:33.760 But it's the wrong video. It is. And then I'll have to disconnect it. 00:04:33.760 --> 00:04:36.760 You have to disconnect. And then I have to reconnect it. 00:04:36.760 --> 00:04:39.760 And we are. Oh, now it's resetting the whole app. Yes. 00:04:39.760 --> 00:04:45.040 So what happens? This is what can happen if you fail your iPad's RAM. 00:04:45.040 --> 00:04:53.000 Nicole's iPad Pro only has four gigabytes. So there's a chance that the eight in the iPad Air might make the difference. 00:04:53.000 --> 00:04:59.440 They do. 00:04:59.440 --> 00:05:04.440 It looks so fast. It's so much like that's crazy how that fast look at this. 00:05:04.440 --> 00:05:07.440 Wow. See. See, do you do you go? 00:05:07.440 --> 00:05:10.440 I mean by like it feels snappier. It does feel snappier. Okay. 00:05:10.440 --> 00:05:13.440 Let's let's rotate it. So this is how I'd usually use it. 00:05:13.440 --> 00:05:16.440 Yeah. Okay. So, okay. 00:05:16.440 --> 00:05:20.720 Yeah, it is snappier. So how does it compare to your iPad? 00:05:20.720 --> 00:05:25.360 If I were to have multiple apps open and I'm just scrolling through them, it will still 00:05:25.360 --> 00:05:30.800 like give it a little moment to reload, but it'll be much snappier. 00:05:30.800 --> 00:05:38.320 I felt one difference that I noticed, but I don't think it would be as emphasized is 00:05:38.320 --> 00:05:49.480 the 120 Hertz refresh rate. Personally, I don't watch a lot on my iPad, but the area I did notice it the most is switching 00:05:49.480 --> 00:05:53.560 between apps. 00:05:53.560 --> 00:05:58.320 It seems that the M1's extra RAM doesn't seem to be making all that much of a difference 00:05:58.320 --> 00:06:04.880 here. So what is? I did a bunch of testing to compare all the recent iPads to each other and that's how 00:06:04.880 --> 00:06:08.480 I came up with the iPad performance tier list. 00:06:08.480 --> 00:06:12.600 They're weirdly grouped together and not according to processor number. 00:06:12.600 --> 00:06:18.360 F tier is easy. It's all those iPads that don't support the latest iOS. 00:06:18.360 --> 00:06:27.640 Above it in the E tier is those powered by an A8X chip, A9, A9X chip and A10 chips because 00:06:27.640 --> 00:06:35.600 of the similar results in Geekbench. D is anything powered by an A10X chip or a 12 chip. 00:06:35.600 --> 00:06:40.040 C tier, which is quite close to D, is the A13 powered iPad. 00:06:40.040 --> 00:06:45.120 The reason for this was when I did my Lightroom raw export test, the new iPad was around two 00:06:45.120 --> 00:06:48.120 minutes faster than the D tier. 00:06:48.120 --> 00:06:51.160 And those numbers showed what was most interesting. 00:06:51.160 --> 00:06:59.920 The B tier. It contains Nicole's iPad Pro, the 2020 model of the same, the outgoing A14 powered iPad 00:06:59.920 --> 00:07:03.840 Air and the A15 powered iPad Mini. 00:07:03.840 --> 00:07:08.360 If you look at all their Geekbench scores, you can see that they're quite close. 00:07:08.360 --> 00:07:12.400 Single cores are slower in the older devices, but multi-core and graphics are virtually 00:07:12.400 --> 00:07:18.200 the same. And when exporting raws, they're all within 15 seconds of each other. 00:07:18.200 --> 00:07:25.680 So what's in the A tier? Well, it's this iPad Air and yeah, while I made these tiers up, it explains why Nicole 00:07:25.680 --> 00:07:33.680 might not be compelled to upgrade. This is only one tier away from her iPad, despite being almost four years newer. 00:07:33.680 --> 00:07:38.680 Now, this list focuses mainly on processing power, but we could reorganize the list with 00:07:38.680 --> 00:07:43.080 an emphasis on RAM. It's different, but not by much. 00:07:43.080 --> 00:07:47.540 Because of the way iPad OS works, it's hard to feel the impact RAM capacity makes. 00:07:47.540 --> 00:07:51.440 So I think the performance tier list is probably more pertinent for more people. 00:07:51.440 --> 00:07:55.400 Alright, so what's in the S tier though? 00:07:55.400 --> 00:08:01.440 It's the M1-powered iPad Pro if you get 1TB of storage or more, because those models 00:08:01.440 --> 00:08:15.080 get 16GB of RAM. So S means stupid expensive. 00:08:15.080 --> 00:08:21.160 Now while the iPad Air is in the A tier in performance, it's really a B plus compared 00:08:21.160 --> 00:08:23.840 to the iPad Pro, all things considered. 00:08:24.400 --> 00:08:30.280 This $600 price tag is very close to the iPad Pros, which for about $150 more differentiates 00:08:30.280 --> 00:08:35.600 itself with exclusive luxury features like Face ID instead of Touch ID, which is more 00:08:35.600 --> 00:08:41.760 convenient, two rear cameras with flash and LiDAR, Thunderbolt support, and the high speed 00:08:41.760 --> 00:08:45.120 Pro motion screen. That's a really nice feature. 00:08:45.120 --> 00:08:51.080 On the flip side, the basic iPad is almost half the price with less than half the performance. 00:08:51.080 --> 00:08:55.200 And that's become a much bigger gap with nothing in between. 00:08:55.200 --> 00:09:00.680 Otherwise, apart from the M1 chip, the iPad Air gets very little in additional improvements. 00:09:00.680 --> 00:09:04.680 Storage tiers stay stubbornly at 64GB and 256GB. 00:09:04.680 --> 00:09:08.520 The front camera is now an ultra-wide unit with center stage. 00:09:08.520 --> 00:09:12.960 Cellular models have 5G radios, and there are different colors with the abandonment 00:09:12.960 --> 00:09:19.080 of green and the new darker blue and the addition of this purple, which I do kind of like. 00:09:19.080 --> 00:09:23.440 What would you recommend then to perhaps iPad users? 00:09:23.440 --> 00:09:31.000 I feel like if you are currently on a 2018 iPad Pro and you're looking for a step up 00:09:31.000 --> 00:09:38.120 in performance, for example, if you are a professional user and using this for a main 00:09:38.120 --> 00:09:44.640 device to create things, then it would be beneficial maybe to look into the new line 00:09:44.640 --> 00:09:51.720 of iPad Pros, whereas if you are a new user in the world of iPads and you're looking 00:09:51.720 --> 00:10:01.400 to go into using iPadOS, then I would highly recommend looking at the 5th Gen iPad Air lineup. 00:10:01.400 --> 00:10:11.120 So would you upgrade? If I didn't already have an iPad, I would definitely get the 2022 iPad Air. 00:10:11.120 --> 00:10:15.320 There are two things that surprised me when evaluating this new iPad Air. 00:10:15.320 --> 00:10:19.200 The first is that I'm finding an emerging group of people who are switching to the iPad 00:10:19.200 --> 00:10:25.200 as their mobile computing device. In fact, on the day I picked this up, I talked with a guy who switched completely away from 00:10:25.200 --> 00:10:28.840 his MacBook to two iPads, a mini and a big pro. 00:10:28.840 --> 00:10:35.880 And then of course, there's Nicole too. This means that despite iPadOS' limitations, these people are finding ways to push their 00:10:35.880 --> 00:10:43.160 tablets. The other surprise is how close and how clear the performance tier list is. 00:10:43.160 --> 00:10:48.760 I was not expecting to see four completely different models released over four years 00:10:48.760 --> 00:10:55.520 virtually perform identically. It's good to know because you can see how much of an upgrade you'll be getting between 00:10:55.520 --> 00:11:03.320 the models. The iPad Air then is a buy for people in the D tier or below. 00:11:03.320 --> 00:11:07.680 Thanks for ranking this Mac Address. If you think this video is A tier, give it a like. 00:11:07.680 --> 00:11:11.920 And if you think this is S tier, then why not subscribe? 00:11:11.920 --> 00:11:16.240 Then in the comments, you can do a tier list of all Mac Address videos. 00:11:16.240 --> 00:11:20.680 You know, F tier, S tier, I hope there's a lot on the top, right?