iPad 10 vs iPad Air 5 Comparison

Vemuda Techno - The iPad 10 and the iPad Air 5 looks so much alike to where you might think that you can save 150 bucks and essentially get the same thing. But practically speaking, there are some very meaningful differences that make them quite different.

So let's find out which is the better fit for what you need. And this ended up going in a different direction than I expected.

Source: pocketnow

And by the way, I know that prices outside of the US are sometimes really different than what we have. So if you're reading this from outside the US, let me know where you're from and what the prices are where you live.

1. Display

So the first thing most people consider is the display. And in this case, both iPads have a 10.9 inch liquid retina display with the same resolution, the same pixel density, the same peak brightness, and both are 60 hertz displays.

But then we start seeing some differences. The iPad Air 5 display has an anti-reflective coating, so it's a better choice if you wanna use it outside or in environments where you may have to deal with reflections.

It's also a P3 display versus SRGB on the iPad 10. So we're getting a wider color gamut for more accurate color reproduction.

And finally, it's fully laminated. So the display, the touch layer and the cover glass are fused together into a single display assembly where the image looks like it's painted right on top of the glass.

On the iPad 10, there is an air gap between the display and then the combination of the cover glass and touch layer.

For a lot of things like watching movies, surfing the web or playing games, it's not really something that you're gonna notice unless you actually look for it, but when you're using the Apple Pencil, it does make a difference.

So with the iPad 10, you're going to be able to see a separation between the tip of the pencil and the content that's being created, especially if you're looking at an angle.

With the iPad Air 5, because the image looks like it's painted right on top of the glass, it looks like the tip of the pencil is actually touching the line or the content that's being created and that's, of course, better. There's also another really important difference when it comes to the Apple Pencil.

2. Design

Let's take a look at the design. So like I said at the beginning, these iPads look a lot alike. They both have rounded corners, squared-off edges and uniform bezels all the way around. Both iPads have four speaker grills, but only two speakers, one on each side.

And I sort of assume that they would sound the same, but they don't. The iPad Air 5 speakers get louder. There's noticeably more bass, and the mids and the highs have much more presence to them.

So overall, whether you're watching a movie, listening to music or playing games, the iPad Air 5 speakers are clearly the better choice.

Now, continuing around the edges, we see the power button with builtin touch ID for biometric authentication. And this year, we finally got a USB-C port on the entry level iPad.

Now that means that you can charge both of these iPads more quickly. You can connect USB-C hubs, you can use external SSDs and you can connect an external display. But these ports are not the same.

For external displays, the iPad 10 supports up to 1080P/60 or 4K/30. The iPad Air 5 can go up to 6K/60 hertz. And another interesting difference has to do with file transfer speeds.

So even though both 64 gigabyte models had similar SSD read and write speeds, the same 940 megabyte clip took significantly longer to copy onto the iPad 10 than the iPad Air 5.

Now finishing up the design differences, the smart connector on the iPad Air 5 is on the back versus the side of the iPad 10, and that leads to different types of Magic Keyboard compatibility.

The traditional one works with the iPad Air 5, and then the new Magic Keyboard Folio works with the iPad 10.

3. Accessories

One of the most confusing decisions by Apple has to do with Apple Pencil support. So the iPad Air 5 is compatible with the second-generation Apple Pencil, which pairs and charges wirelessly, and it's stored on the side of the iPad.

Now the iPad 10, which also has a USB-C port, is still only compatible with the first-generation Apple Pencil, which, of course, has a Lightning connector. That means that you need an adapter nd a USB-C to USB-C cable in order to pair and charge the Pencil.

Now to me, that doesn't make a lot of sense, and as much as I didn't like having to plug the first-generation Apple Pencil into the lightning port of my iPad 9, it's still better than having to remember where I put the adapter every time I wanna charge it.

Now, as far as the camera systems, they're identical in terms of the number of cameras, the resolution, the frame rate, 4K, slo-motion, zoom, cinematic stabilization, SMART HDR 3 for photos.

You're essentially getting the same hardware and specs, but of course the two iPads have two different chips with different image signal processors.

Also on the iPad 10, the front facing camera was moved to the longer side, so now you're framed right in the center instead of off to the side like with every other iPad.

4. Hardware

When I was talking about the ISP, I mentioned that we're getting two different chips. And the iPad 10 has A14 Bionic with four gigabytes of RAM, and the iPad Air 5 has the more powerful M1 chip with eight gigabytes of RAM.

When we look at performance, the M1 outperforms the A14 for both single and multi-core performance. It also has four high-performance cores instead of two.

On top of that, we see that the M1 scores higher in GPU performance, where we're getting an 8-core GPU versus a 4-core GPU on the A14.

Now of course, these are just benchmark scores and the differences aren't going to be super meaningful for the vast majority of users.

And whenever you look at benchmark scores or specs, you should always ask yourself, "What does this mean for what I do?"

Well, if you're just surfing the web, watching video and going on social media, then it doesn't really mean very much, other than the fact that with the M1, you have additional processing headroom as the iPad gets older or maybe your needs changed.

On the other hand, if you're doing something like very heavy video editing, then you could benefit from the hardware-accelerated H264 and the HEVC on the M1, as well as a video decode and encode engines.

For general multi-tasking, that's multiple apps open in split view, pop up windows or slide over windows, I have not noticed a meaningful difference. Both iPads perform great and they both support iPadOS 16.

5. Battery

Now, battery life is always interesting because every current iPad has the same rating, up to 10 hours of surfing the web on wifi or watching video, and up to nine hours if you're using cellular data.

But in my experience, the iPad 10 might slightly outlast the iPad Air 5 for similar types of use. And I'm working on a more detailed battery life comparison. So I'm super excited to see the results.

Now, I did notice that the iPad Air charges a little faster, and that's always nice to have. And of course, gaming is one of those things that we know just eats battery life.

6. Performance

Now, in terms of actually being able to run games, both iPads easily chewed through "Genshin," "Asphalt," "PUBG," and every other game that I've tried so far.

I do play "PUBG" a lot and I haven't really noticed a difference in terms of the gameplay itself. It's been smooth. The controls are responsive, and I don't experience any type of lag with either.

Now, both iPads are able to use the same graphic settings, so Smooth or Balanced graphics if I want extreme frame rate, then Ultra HD graphics if I'm willing to go down to Ultra for frame rate.

Now, even though every game ran well, I'm still gonna give the edge to the iPad Air 5 because it has a more powerful chip and it has twice the RAM.

So even though I don't really notice a difference now, game developers are always looking to push to CPU and GPU. And as the games evolve and start to demand more resources, you have additional headroom with the iPad Air 5.

If you wanna stream and play Xbox Games with the Game Pass app, you can pair an Xbox controller with both iPads, and then have an extremely smooth gameplay experience as long as you have a reliable internet connection.

Now I'm going to give the iPad Air 5 the slight edge here. It's not a big one, but the display's a bit better, it's less reflective and the speakers sound better.

Now, neither of these iPads have a headphone jack, so you'll need to either use wireless headphones, USB-C headphones, or you can get an adapter.

Now, when we look at the configuration options, I have to say that I wish Apple did more with both of these. So the iPad 10 starts at 450 bucks, and then the iPad Air 5 at $600.

And in both cases, you're only getting 64 gigabytes of internal storage, which I just don't love. I think that at this point, you should be getting 128 gigabytes on the base model and then 512 on the upgraded models.

These are both incredibly powerful iPads. And for a lot of users, the only reason they would need to upgrade over the next few years would be that they run out of internal storage.

Sure, you can use Cloud and external storage, but iPadOS already takes more than eight gigs of RAM. And with a couple of big games like "Genshin" and "PUBG," you're already at almost 40 gigabytes.

Both tablets can go up to 256 gigabytes of storage. They both offer wifi 6 and support for 5G, and we're getting Bluetooth 5.0 on the iPad Air 5 versus 5.2 on the newer iPad 10.

So here's how I look at this decision. Like I said, if you're buying from Apple, in the US, you're paying 450 bucks for the iPad 10, 600 bucks for the iPad Air 5.

It has better battery life. I like the position of the front facing camera and I really love this color.

A lot of times I think that the entry level iPad is the better value, but for 70 bucks, I would rather go with the iPad Air 5 with a better and fully-laminated display, better speakers, more processing power, faster file transfer speeds and a much better user experience when it comes to using the Apple Pencil. Another option would be to get a used or refurbished iPad Air 4 for even less.

Now you should see how the iPad 10 compares with the iPad 9, which you can get brand new for 300 bucks. You know what I always say, buy it nice or buy twice. Good luck and see you soon. Thanks for reading at Vemuda Techno. 

We have also posted about Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 Pro. 

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