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There’s an annoying issue with the iPad Air 5
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OPINION: Apple has unveiled theiPad Air 5, bringing its best all-around tablet up to date with a number of healthy additions across the board.
Like theiPad Pro 2021, the new 2022 edition of the iPad Air is powered by theM1 chipensuring that it’ll be able to chew through all the tasks you throw at it with relative ease based on our experience using other devices featuring the CPU. It matches theiPad Mini 6, by adding optional5Gif working on the go is key and a few camera upgrades too. Oh, and it comes in a downright tempting blue colour.
I’m sure you’ll agree that those are welcome changes and while I don’t think I will be telling those who invested in theiPad Air 4to start saving for the new model, this could very well be the default pick we recommend to most shoppers. After all, I gave the iPad Air 4 the full five stars when I reviewed it.
But I had an issue with the iPad 4 that to my personal annoyance, still hasn’t been fixed.
What gives, Apple?
While the iPad Air starts at a completely reasonable £569/$599, that initial outlay only gets you 64GB of storage. For a device meant to be loaded with movies, games and other apps that is a shockingly meagre amount. And as it’s an iOS device, so you can’t offset this issue with an SD card like you can on theGalaxy Tab S8.
If 64GB is just too low for you, then you’ll have to make the big jump up to 256GB and pay the £719/$749 asking price. While 256GB is more than enough for most people, that price puts its basically on par with the £749/$799 128GB iPad Pro.
The lack of a 128GB option for the iPad Air 5 means that there’s no sweet spot in between the high and low sizes here and it’s a real shame.
64GB might be enough for some, but that storage will fill up far quicker than you might expect. A download of Dune, purchased from iTunes, takes up nearly 7GB, while a film downloaded from Disney Plus takes up roughly the same amount of space.
Once you’ve stored a few films for offline viewing, installed a couple of your favourite games and transferred across your photo library that space will start to feel very small.
There is, of course, ways around this. You could purely stream content or make use of cloud services like iCloud or Google Photos to store your snaps and other files. But unless you’re always connected this isn’t much use. I mainly use a tablet on the go – on commutes, on planes and in places where there’s no Wi-Fi or mobile connection – and tend to have a lot of content stored offline.
For the most part, I think the new iPad Air looks great and the improvements will be great for those who haven’t upgraded their tablet in a while. But starting with 64GB of storage, and not offering a mid-size 128GB option, is a real issue.
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Max is the Editor of Trusted Reviews, and has been a mobile phone and technology specialist for over nine years. Max started his career at T3 straight after graduating from Kingston University. Max ha…
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Founded in 2003, Trusted Reviews exists to give our readers thorough, unbiased and independent advice on what to buy.
Today, we have millions of users a month from around the world, and assess more than 1,000 products a year.
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
