Ipad Air????? $150 for me

[Tailgate]

Couple of good deals this weekend... Best Buy has $100 off the new Air..or Target has $100 gift card with purchase.

Is it worth upgrading from the iPad 2 to a new Air? Faster? Better?

fyi, Amazon Electronics Exchange will give me $150 for the iPad 2.. Gazelle offer is only $87. That would make the iPad Air investment only $150 for the 16gig Wi-Fi.

I just upgraded to iPhone 6's from our old iPhone 4S models... Amazon is giving me $80 for each phone..Gazelle's offer was a whopping $37...

 

[Chuckanut]

My iPad 2 works OK with the newest OS, but it does not do many of the things the OS can do on the new Air 2 model. Make sure that the older Air model can do all you want. some of the features require the latest hardware.

 

[mpeirce]

I was previously using an iPad 3 (until last year I used an iPad 2, but upgrade when my son upgraded to an iPad Air).

I recently upgrade to an iPad Air 2.

IMHO, The upgrade from iPad 2 to iPad Air 2 is pretty noticeable. Adding the retina (much higher resolution) makes a noticeable difference. That's why I moved from iPad 2 to iPad 3 last year and while the iPad 3 is flawed in some ways (underpowered for driving a retina display and too heavy), it was worth it to get the crisp clear text, graphics, and movies.

The iPad 2 was 601g, while the iPad Air 2 is 437g. Enough to notice especially when I'm holding it/balancing it as I read or watch a movie. The iPad 3 was even more - 650g.

Finally, the iPad Air 2 is quite a bit faster. Which frankly doesn't matter as much to me, but might if you are playing lots of demanding games. I play Jeopardy a lot and it's not a CPU or GPU demanding game ;-)

And the memory doubled from the iPad 3 (quadrupled from the iPad 2) to 2 GB of RAM. Again, not a huge differentiator unless you switch apps a lot or notice Safari tabs needing refreshing lot. More memory is good future proofing as apps get more memory hungry and future iOS versions may use the extra memory for new features.

If you are very frugal, sticking with the iPad 2 is OK and should serve you as well as it has in the past. But the Air 2 is a pretty all around nice upgrade. Worth getting it it have the funds to spare.

I'm happy I have one.

 

[Tailgate]

I was previously using an iPad 3 (until last year I used an iPad 2, but upgrade when my son upgraded to an iPad Air).

I recently upgrade to an iPad Air 2.

IMHO, The upgrade from iPad 2 to iPad Air 2 is pretty noticeable. Adding the retina (much higher resolution) makes a noticeable difference. That's why I moved from iPad 2 to iPad 3 last year and while the iPad 3 is flawed in some ways (underpowered for driving a retina display and too heavy), it was worth it to get the crisp clear text, graphics, and movies.

The iPad 2 was 601g, while the iPad Air 2 is 437g. Enough to notice especially when I'm holding it/balancing it as I read or watch a movie. The iPad 3 was even more - 650g.

Finally, the iPad Air 2 is quite a bit faster. Which frankly doesn't matter as much to me, but might if you are playing lots of demanding games. I play Jeopardy a lot and it's not a CPU or GPU demanding game ;-)

And the memory doubled from the iPad 3 (quadrupled from the iPad 2) to 2 GB of RAM. Again, not a huge differentiator unless you switch apps a lot or notice Safari tabs needing refreshing lot. More memory is good future proofing as apps get more memory hungry and future iOS versions may use the extra memory for new features.

If you are very frugal, sticking with the iPad 2 is OK and should serve you as well as it has in the past. But the Air 2 is a pretty all around nice upgrade. Worth getting it it have the funds to spare.

I'm happy I have one.

thanks for the great explanation.. Target has the Air 2 for regular price but includes a $140 gift card..Walmart has them for $389.. here's the link to 'all things Apple' sales this weekend...

 

[mpeirce]

Two other items to consider.

The iPad Air 2 comes with either 16GB, 64GB, or 128GB of storage. I'd highly recommend not getting the 16GB. Even with storage in the cloud, that's not a lot for apps and documents (esp music or movies). And you need some free space at times for things like upgrading to new iOS versions (it needs free space for the updater file). I think 64GB is a good size.

Finally, if you only use the iPad at home where there is WiFi certainly get the WiFi only version, but if you take it with you when you travel, consider the version with the cellular radio. The iPad is unlocked and T-Mobile offers a very cool free data plan. It's only 200 MB per month, but you can purchase more ala carte or switch to another carrier. if you want. And it really handy on the road when you want light duty internet access - like in a hotel with messed up WiFi. I have this and it's quite handy. Of course it costs an extra $129 up front plus more for larger buckets of data if you want that.

 

[mpeirce]

Unlocked Tablets | Tablets with Free Mobile Internet Data | BYOD | T-Mobile

Do I have to be on a plan or a contract in order to get the free data?

In order to get the 200 MB of free data per month, you need to activate a Mobile Internet account and register your tablet on our network. You don’t need to pay for an additional data plan.​

It works fine with the iPad Air 2 - I have this plan. When you access cellular on the iPad 2 using the "Apple SIM", it gives you a choice of ATT, Sprint, or T-Mobile. For this, select T-Mobile - one of the options they offer is the $0 200MB plan. You can switch any time to Sprint if you like. And back again.

Think twice about ATT, ofifyou choose them, they lock the SIM to ATT. the first time you use them. The iPad isn't locked, but you need to buy another SIM to use with another carrier and swap the old one out. Dumb. Of course Verizon requires their own SIM and do not work the provided Apple SIM. Even dumber.

 

[Caniac4ever]

I just bought my first iPad this weekend, an iPad Air 32GB.

Staples regular price for this is $449. They had them on sale for $100 off and were marked at the display for $349. The flyer just inside their door had a $100 coupon good for tablets, excluding the iPad Air 2 but not the iPad Air. I asked the sales person if I could apply the $100 off coupon and they got the manger. The manager said he didn't think I could be he would try it. Low and behold it took the coupon and I walked out of there kicking my heals with a new iPad Air for $249.

I heard later that corporate was emailing their stores telling them it was either the sale price or else the coupon, but not both so it might be a hit or miss type of deal.