Macworld (2019-06)

78 MACWORLD JUNE 2019

FEATURE REVIEW: iPAD AIR (2019)

The battery lasts a lot longer, too. In our
Geekbench battery rundown test, the
regular iPad ran for 6 hours 8 minutes
while the new Air ran for 8 hours 19
minutes—35 percent longer!
For $170 more than the 9.7-inch iPad
you get a slightly larger yet thinner and
lighter tablet with double the performance
and storage space. That’s a good deal!

LESS THAN AN iPAD PRO
While the new iPad Air resembles the
10.5-inch iPad Pro from 2017, it is distinctly
not a Pro model. Apple reserves several
key features for its Pro tablets that you
won’t find here.

There’s no ProMotion display—instead

of the variable refresh rate that tops out

at 120Hz, you get a fixed 60Hz refresh

rate. That means you don’t get crazy-

smooth scrolling and reduced Apple

Pencil latency. Oddly enough, the Air

does have a couple other display

features you’ll find in iPad Pros. It has the

wider DCI-P3 color gamut and True Tone,

both of which are missing from the least-

expensive iPad.

The iPad Air supports Apple Pencil, as all

iPads now do, but not the slick new wireless-

charged Pencil that works with the iPad Pro.

Rather, it works with the old Apple Pencil that

charges by sticking the back end into the

The iPad Air is slimmer and lighter than the iPad.