During last week’s media event, Apple announced a new model of the iPad that is lighter and thinner than the previous generation. The iPad Air weighs only one pound and improved internals. The new tablet features the same 64-bit A7 processor found in the new iPhone 5s, support for MIMO Wi-Fi, and an improved FaceTime camera. All of this is packed into a 7.5mm case, a noticeable improvement over the previous 9.4mm fourth-generation iPad.

Tonight, tech writers across the web published their reviews of the iPad Air. The reviews are mostly positive, with much emphasis on the new form factor, battery life, and faster processor. You can find links and highlights for each review below.

Brad Molen – Engadget

Tim Stevens – Cnet

Darrell Etherington – TechCrunch

David Pogue

The Smart Case makes the iPad Air feel quite a bit more bulky, in my opinion, and is fairly difficult to get off once its on. On the other hand, it’s definitely more protective than the Smart Case, and it’s still relatively svelte. Apple has also nailed its leather case designs in terms of putting out a product that feels very high quality, and that’s what they’ve done here, too.

Walt Mossberg – The Wall Street Journal

This isn’t a device that sits or hangs in one place its whole life. It’s not a microwave or a TV. You have to hold this thing while you’re using it, and carry it around when you’re not. So size and weight matter a lot.

Still, at $500, an iPad probably doesn’t need replacing every year or even every other year; if you have a 2012 or 2013 model, stick with what you’ve got.

On the other hand, you’ll find the Air a fantastic leap into the future if you’re upgrading from an original iPad, or if you’ve never owned a tablet before.

 Anand Lal Shimpi – AnandTech

Bottom line: If you can afford it, the new iPad Air is the tablet I recommend, hands down.

Stuart Miles – PocketLint

The second impact on performance is something I only noticed while digging around under the hood of the A7. It seems like the implementation in the iPad Air can, for whatever reason, hold more instructions in flight (over 20% more) than the A7 in the iPhone 5s. It’s unclear to me whether the A7 in the iPad is configured any differently via firmware/microcode or if perhaps we’re looking at a slightly different revision of the core, but the delta was repeatable in my testing.

The third, and likely biggest change impacting the iPad Air’s implementation of the A7 is the additional thermal headroom afforded by the larger chassis. I’m not going to go into details on exactly what this next test does (unfortunately we’re going to occlude some of the low level work that we do in light of all of the benchmark cheating going on), but we’re looking at a curve of performance vs. time for a particularly power heavy mix of code. We’re running the same exact code on both the iPad Air and iPhone 5s here, the only real difference is the size of the chassis:

Clayton Morris – FOX News

For die-hard Apple fans we can see how you would be disappointed in terms of wow factor, there is no stand out feature here that you will want to show your friends the moment they walk through the door in the same way you can with the iPhone 5S and Touch ID, however this is Apple creating the ultimate experience rather than focusing on specs for specs sake.

That’s not to say the iPad Air is lacking. it’s not, but here things just work. It is seamless, and you can see that through and through the moment you pick up the new Apple tablet. You aren’t left questioning why things work, they just do, and do every time and for millions of future customers that is and will be very much welcomed.

The potential “but…” comes when you realise how similar the Air is to the iPad mini Retina in terms of design. As much as that’s great from a power perspective, it knocks both tablets out of their individual defining spaces and that will trouble many as to which one to go for. No longer is the iPad mini the poorer sibling.

Rich Jaroslovsky – Bloomberg

It’s hard to believe Apple managed to shave nearly a half-pound off last year’s fourth-generation iPad while still maintaining exceptional battery life, which in my all-day usage rarely dropped below 30 percent.

Ben Bajarin – TechPinions

I actually grew impatient trying to exhaust the battery in my tests; you should get a lot more than a full day of normal use on a charge.

Lance Ulanoff – Mashable

T3

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