Belum Rilis Asli, Sony Xperia Z4 Sudah ada di Indonesia

Smartphone Android terbaru besutan Sony, Xperia Z3 diperkenalkan resmi di Singapura, Selasa (16/9/2014).

   Sony Mobile diyakini baru akan merilis smartphoneterbarunya, Xperia Z4, dalam ajang Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2015 pada awal Maret mendatang. Sementara, rumor seputar spesifikasi dan bocoran fotonya sudah banyak beredar.

Xperia Z4 yang belum resmi dirilis Sony tersebut ternyata sudah hadir di Indonesia, meski bukan di pasaran. Smartphone Android flagship Sony tersebut diduga kuat tengah diuji oleh Kementerian Komunikasi dan Informatika Indonesia.

Dugaan muncul ini saat KompasTekno memantau situs resmi Ditjen Sumber Daya dan Perangkat Pos dan Informatika Kemenkominfo pada Jumat (30/1/2015). Terdapat perangkat dengan nama model Sony E6533 tertera dalam situs tersebut.

Meski tak disebutkan secara gamblang nama perangkatnya namun menurut Xperia Blog, nomor model Sony E6533 tersebut tidak lain adalah Xperia Z4.

Perangkat tersebut, didaftarkan langsung oleh perusahaan Sony Mobile Communications. Saatditelusuri, saat ini ponsel tersebut baru masuk ke tahap "SP3, Balai Uji" atau dalam proses pengujian untuk memperoleh sertifikat dari Kementerian Kominfo.

Selain Xperia Z4, ada juga dua model perangkat Sony lain yang sedang dalam tahap pengujian. Perangkat tersebut didaftarkan dengan nama model E5333 dan E2352. 

Diduga, kedua model tersebut adalah penerus dari seri ponsel kelas menengah Xperia T2 Ultra dan ponsel low-end Xperia M2.

Rumor perihal Xperia Z4 sendiri sudah banyak beredar di dunia maya. Perangkat ini dikatakan akan hadir dengan layar Triluminos dengan bentang 5,4 inci.

Dari segi spesifikasi internal, ia dikabarkan akan hadir dengan prosesor Snapdragon 805, RAM 4 GB, kamera belakang 20,7 megapiksel, dan kamera depan 4,8 megapiksel. Perangkat ini akan berjalan di sistem operasi Android 5.0 Lollipop.

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DriveClub Exclusive to PS4 review

Exclusive to PS4
It’s no secret that DriveClub’s launch was a disaster. Network issues kept paying punters out of the game, the long-promised PlayStation Plus version was put on indefinitely hold, and complaints about draconian penalties for collisions and corner-cutting were both rife and not unfounded. Sony’s flagship racer arrived to a chorus of complaints.

Since launch, however, Sony and Evolution have worked hard to fix the game. Server stability has improved dramatically, patches have dealt with the major gameplay issues, and free DLC packs and updates have added new tracks, new cars, new events and a range of enhancements. The latest updates have bought us two longed-for features – dynamic weather and a photo mode – and resulted in a tangibly better game.

Weather is – quite literally – a game changer. Rain and snow don’t merely look impressive, but transform the way your tyres interact with road surfaces, affective traction and making high-speed cornering a serious challenge. Both also have an impact on visibility, partly because it’s hard to see what’s coming through downpours and snow flurries, but because every camera, from the cockpit view to the chase view, is affected. Thought driving at night on the Norwegian or Scottish tracks was hard? Now try doing it with the visibility halved again.

The rain and snow effects also give DriveClub’s visuals a drama they might previously have lacked. DriveClub actually simulates the water droplet by droplet, so that light bounces off them authentically, and so that they behave pretty much like you’d expect them to behave in real life. Droplets streak across the windscreen from the effects of airflow and the windscreen wipers. The snow flies towards the windscreen, but also drifts in direction of the wind. Driveclub’s weather effects set a new benchmark for racing games. They make an already good-looking game look great.



It’s still not a flawless experience. For all the astonishing detail in the cars and the environments, there’s still something oddly sterile about the world you race through; something that makes it look and feel more like a film set than a living landscape. You can see the waves ripple on a lake or fjord and watch the trees wave a bit too gently in the breeze, but something doesn’t quite cohere. Yet when you’re racing through the tea-fields of India or tackling sweeping curves down the side of an ice-clad mountain, DriveClub can and does look breathtaking. Throw in rain and the odd flash of lightning, and it’s in touching distance of becoming as impressive as Sony always claimed it would be.

When it looks that good, you might be tempted to share the moment. Luckily, the new Photo Mode is brilliant, allowing you to pose your shot and move your angle quite effectively, with advanced tools for setting aperture, shutter speed, bokeh shape and even film grain.  Once you’re done, you can upload your efforts using the PS4’s standard Share functionality.
 

The gameplay is improving too. At launch, DriveClub seemed to be forever hitting you with penalties for going off-track, skipping corner or colliding with the opposition. These still come up, but a lot less frequently and you’re usually the one at fault. The lunatic AI still has its moments, of course, where you’re on the racing line but the git behind you decides to shunt you, throwing you off track and effectively out of contention. It’s enormously frustrating and probably the biggest single remaining reason not to play. We love races and we love driving against tough competition, but DriveClub is the only racing game I can think of where I look forward to the time trials rather than the races. That really says it all.

Overall, the improvements and updates make DriveClub a stronger driving game, and there’s still something lovable about its focus on racing, speeds and lap-times. This isn’t a game for tuners, car collectors, open-world explorers or fans of the Fast and Furious films; it’s a game for those who want intense racing, an even field and the pleasures of knocking milliseconds off a laptime to claw ahead of rivals. The sensation of speed is impressive and the handling consistently exciting. DriveClub can be unforgiving. It’s hard to recover from mistakes and there’s no quick rewind button. All the same, its purist approach can’t help but resonate with a certain kind of driving game fan.
 



Coming back to it, we mostly love it, but a few reservations remain. Because the weather wasn’t built in from the start it’s not reflected in the core Tour mode or even in the free Ignition and Photo-Finish DLC packs – presumably to ensure that past and present race times, lap-times and face-to-face challenges remain comparable. This means that you’ll only get to enjoy the enhancements in multiplayer, where there are specific weather events on the board, and in single events and challenges. Weather will be supported in the next dlc packs – Elements and Readline – but we understand that these will be premium packs, not free.

More seriously, Driveclub still has an uphill struggle winning back a mass audience. Driveclubs set up in the early days have faltered, and when the other members of your club aren’t posting times and setting challenges, it takes some of the fun out of the game. It’s also surprisingly difficult to find a packed event to join in multiplayer – or sometimes an event with any players signed up at all.
 
Final verdict
Driveclub deserves a second chance, but will it get it? We hope so. It might not be a crowd-pleaser like Forza Horizon 2, but it’s a frequently fantastic racer that’s only getting better with time.



Originally reviewed - October 7, 2014
It’s all too easy to damn DriveClub with faint praise. Emerging just after the launch of Forza Horizon 2, it’s less of a crowd-pleaser and more of a slow-burner. It’s a beautiful-looking game, but not as glossy or glamorous as the Microsoft racer, and where Horizon 2 is all about simple thrills and the freedom of the open road, playing DriveClub is a more rigorous pursuit. It’s social aspects are fascinating, but a harder sell than Forza’s on and off-road racing festival. For a game that’s forward-thinking, DriveClub can be surprisingly old-school.

By now, you probably know the basic concept. In fact, the title pretty much sums it up. DriveClub is all about social racing: joining a club, driving for that club, and sharing the glory with your friends. In terms of structure, it’s not dissimilar to a dozen racers of the last generation, with several tiers of events, taking in point-to-point races, circuit races, time trials and drift challenges. Each event has its own objectives, and by completing these objectives you unlock further tiers of events. 



However, in Driveclub you’re not only competing for first position or a lower lap time; you’re competing for Fame - both for you individually and your Club. You get fame for the normal things, of course, but also for beating bit-sized challenges known as Face-Offs, where you’re tasked with cornering better than another player across a section of the track, or beating their average speed. They'll pop up on the track and monitor your score/speed/drift in that section. If you beat your buddy or your nemesis in the Face-Off, you get massive points for you and your team mates. 

As your fame builds you level up, unlocking new cars from the game’s selection. What’s more, your fame contributes to that of your club, pushing it up the ranks and up the leaderboard, so that you’re always contributing to the tally. As your club ranks up, new cars also become available to the members, meaning it’s in everyone’s interest to keep the tally growing.



Thus in Driveclub you’re always trying to do two things at once: win the race or get the lowest time in the time trial, but also succeed in any challenges thrown your way. To be honest, the challenges will often play second fiddle. The time trails become very tight as you get higher up the ladder, even if you're a skilled driver with a kick-ass car. Face-Offs can become a barely noticed pop-up as you speed through a series of S-bends on your way to the finish line. Yet at other times they can become the focus, allowing you to pull something back from even the most miserable performance, or grab a little extra glory from your latest triumph.

Were Driveclub’s racing no good, all the social stuff wouldn’t make a difference, but past the first hour or two it gets very good indeed. Driveclub’s strength is that, beneath the social layer, it’s a purist’s racer. You pick a car, take it to the course and try and get it to the finish line before anyone else. There’s no tuning or upgrading, no real options for AI difficulty or handling, and no sneaky way to rewind the action and retake the corner you just span out on. 

Some may think that's a pro for DriveClub, especially as developer Evolution aimed to make a driving game that is accessible to everyone. But, it does have its limitations for those who are well-versed in driving games and looking for that edge.



The handling straddles the line between arcade and sim territory, and while first impressions are that it leans too far towards the arcade side, that changes as you move up from hot hatches to executive touring cars, sports cars, supercars and track toys. Driveclub is no Forza 5 or Gran Turismo 6, but it’s a little more realistic than a Ridge Racer or Need for Speed.

The tracks also help its cause. Set across five regions – India, Canada, Scotland, Norway and Chile – they provide a strong selection of high-speed circuits, soaring mountain tracks packed with treacherous bends and twisting, dusty layouts that will have you spinning and drifting with the best of them. The scenery is frequently stunning, especially as the time changes from day to night and there’s no shortage of variety. To go from the brooding landscapes of the highlands to the bright colours and sun-dappled foothills of Tamil Nadu can be a real aesthetic treat. 



Of course, you can argue that Driveclub’s purist approach is a weakness. There’s no framework beyond going from one event to another, and lots of players like to tweak the handling, or have the option of upgrading their car. But then that would be to spoil the social aspect. The intention is clear: to make sure that each race, each time trial and each challenge is met – bar the choice of car – on a level playing field. You win fame for you and for your club by driving better than the other players, not by grinding for credits and upgrades or switching driving aids on and off.

The social stuff doesn’t end with the head-to-head challenges. Finished a race and feeling pleased with yourself? Post it as a challenge to the world, or to the friends in and outside your Driveclub. If they beat it within the challenge period, they get some glory. If they don’t, the glory comes your way. Cleverly, you’re not pushed to post a challenge immediately after racing, but can access a history of recent activities and post from there. When a player takes your challenge you’re alerted, giving you a chance to go back and post an even better time.

That goes for Face-Offs too. You can set mini-challenges for your friends and the world of racers with DriveClub. It could be a corner challenge that you'll need to reach a specific point score on a tricky hairpin, a drifting challenge or even an average speed Face-Off around the twirling bends on the mountainous paths. 

Although there are the more conventional multiplayer aspects, which let you set a race time for you and your buddies if some of you are currently embroiled in a long race. It is far more stripped back than alternate facing titles, and has more of an old school pre-Motorstorm feel to it from Evolution. But to be honest, it feels like working solo for your Club is far more important in DriveClub. It's definitely a more solitary racer, despite its unique social network structure. 



We can’t say enough that Driveclub can be a brilliant racer. It’s fast, thrilling, challenging and (mostly) fair. The sound is fantastic, to the extent that the decision not to cover the engine noise with music by default seems absolutely right. It can feel a little bleak at first, but you'll soon realise the detail that the devs have gone to for a realistic sound. 

The graphics don't have the shine or clarity of Forza Horizon 2, but there’s some superb, atmospheric lighting and an awful lot of detail, particularly in the forests of Canada or the rugged mountain tracks of Chile. The cars are beautifully rendered, both inside and out, with a choice of cameras that should please arcade racers (the external views) and serious drivers (the fantastic cockpit views). 
Yet it's sometimes evident that Driveclub lacks a little soul. For all that scenic beauty, it hasn't quite got the wow factor that a next-gen titles should. Just look at games like Horizon 2 or even The Last of Us Remastered, and their water and lighting effects stand out in a way that Driveclub's don't.  

The car line-up is pretty special. Driveclub doesn’t try to compete with GT, Forza or even Horizon 2 when it comes to quantity, but with the likes of the Aston Marin V12 Zagato, the Ferrari California and the Pagani Huarya around, the quality is never in doubt. The worst thing you can say is that some of the cars feel a little too skittish – is the Audi TT RS Plus really that prone to rattling around the track? – but in general cars handle as you might expect them too, and the arcade handling makes them brilliant to drive.



All the same, Driveclub doesn’t come without some aggravations. The AI, for example, can be exasperating.  Sometimes it’s perfect, giving you the kind of fast, demanding competition that makes each race a high-stakes thriller. Sometimes it’s pitifully easy. You pull ahead in the early stages, and no-one has a chance of keeping up. At its worst, however, it’s teeth-grinding, temple-throbbing, Dual-Shock 4-through-the-window infuriating. 

In some cases, the early stages of the race become a fiesta of clangs and crashes, as everyone trades place with everyone else and you hope for a miracle to make your way through the pack. Alternatively, you’re pushing hard for first position in the last stretch of the race, jockeying for position with the guy just up in front, when the guy in third steams up behind you, smacks into you as you’re trying to corner, then sends you spinning off the track. And because the AI has a horrible habit of bunching up, you go from 2nd to 8th in roughly half a second. It’s time to hit restart and repeat the whole race. Why? Damn you Driveclub AI, why?



We’re also not so sure about some of the night or twilight races. Sure, it’s good to challenge players with limited visibility, but does the track have to be quite this hard to see? For one event we had to close the curtains and turn screen brightness up to full just to see the tarmac. Either that’s a problem, or the game needs a toggle to set the lights on to full-beam.

It’s testament to how good Driveclub’s racing is that these irritants don’t seriously spoil the ride. It’s the kind of racer that has you swearing that you missed that time objective by 0.2 of a second, or that keeps you coming back to try and beat a friend who’s come in two seconds ahead. It’s the kind of racer where you’ll spend an hour repeating one event, not because you can’t complete it, but because you could complete it a few seconds faster if you could just iron out some mistakes on that sudden uphill corner or fast downhill bend. Like we said, it’s a purist’s racer – albeit for purists who aren’t bothered by an arcade handling model.

What’s more, there’s potential in all this social stuff. True, it’s not entirely unique – EA’s Autolog has been doing this stuff for years – but Driveclub does an impressive job of making it a focus for the gameplay, and of using team cooperation and healthy competition as a spur to keep you coming back to the game. We’ve yet to try the companion app, but it’s not hard to imagine how getting an alert that your challenge has been beaten will push you back to restake your claim.

Verdict
Driveclub’s strength is its killer combo of stripped-back racing and social features, pushing you to keep going back to the track for personal glory and the glory of your team. If it lacks the glamour, freedom and exuberance of Forza Horizon 2, there’s compensation in the fierce competition on the track. The AI can be annoying, and not everyone will get the game’s approach, but if you engage with the game’s strong social angle, there’s a great racer in here to enjoy.

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iMac Retina 5K Display review

Apple’s event on the 16th October wasn’t just about the iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 3. The big surprise of the night was the impressive new iMac all-in-one with a Retina 5K screen. It's the most high-resolution display that's ever been made commercially available – and it fits into the same sleek aluminium body as the iMac 2013.

The internals have also had an upgrade. The basic model comes with a 3.5GHz core i5, 8GB RAM, a 1TB Fusion Drive and an AMD Radeon R9 M290X with 2GB of video RAM. That'll set you back a cool £2000/$2499, but if you opt for the top-spec combo of 4GHz core i7, 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD and AMD Radeon R9 M295X with 4GB GDDR5, you need to shell out £3519/$4399. Any version you get will, of course, come with OS X Yosemite preinstalled. 

It’s the fastest iMac we’ve ever seen, and to power that incredible screen, it needs to be. And it's the display that is the star of the show here.

The iMac with Retina 5K Display comes with a resolution of 5120 x 2880, doubling the number of pixels along the axes of the 2560 x 1440 older model. To put that in a bit of context, the iMac 5K has 14.7 million pixels – that’s seven times the resolution of the 1080p full HD TV you’ve got at home. All in a 27-inch display.

What this high-res screen means in practice is that you’ll be able to edit a 4K video in real size with all the controls of whichever app you’re using – such as Final Cut – surrounding it. Apple market this as a consumer desktop, but the reality is that it’s more of a prosumer computer – you’ll probably need to have a good reason to shell out that much on a computer just to check your emails and create presentations.

Apple claims that the contrast ratios are better than ever, too, and we can’t refute that based on our time with the 5K iMac. Dark scenes look detailed and showed zero banding. The lack of colour bleeding or banding is down to what Apple calls organic passivation – a technology we first saw on the iPad 3.

Organic passivation separates the signals to light up from the pixels. This eliminates cross talk and stops pixels leaking colour into each other. And it works. Colours looked superb – bright and vivid, but realistic. It’s also a lot more energy efficient. Apple claims that the screen on the iMac Retina 5K is 30% more energy efficient than its non-5K counterpart.

Some of that added efficiency comes from the new oxide-based TFT layer. This sends the charge to each pixel, charging them and keeping them charged. According to Apple this was essential to enable the new iMac to deliver consistent and uniform brightness across the whole 14.7 million-pixel display.

Apple has had to manufacture a bespoke TCON for the iMac 5K. The TCON, or timing controller, tells every pixel what it needs to be doing – it’s the brains of the operation. With four times the pixels of the previous iMac, the TCON on the 5K display needed to be four times as powerful.

It’s remarkable that Apple has managed to get a screen that can show this much detail into a body that’s only 5mm thick at its edge. In fact the display panel on its own is just 1.4mm thick.

iMac with Retina 5K Display | Early Verdict

The iMac is still a winner in terms of design, but there’s only one real talking point with this desktop, and that’s the 5K screen. It’s hugely impressive, even at first glance, and will make graphic designers, video editors and camera buffs froth at the mouth with anticipation. 

With a starting price of £2000/$2499 this is not a computer for the masses. But when you consider that the price of a good 27-inch 4K screen is upwards of £1000/$1500, the iMac Retina 5K doesn't seem unreasonable

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iPad Air 2 review

What is the iPad Air 2?

Remarkable for a tablet that is. You won't find the iPad Air 2 pushing the boundaries of innovation. It is rather the pinnacle of what's been done before – the best tablet we've ever reviewed. It’s razor-thin, lightning fast and also comes with the best app selection bar none thanks to the Apple App Store. 

So it's slimmer, lighter and faster than its predecessor, and the screen innovations Apple has brought are just what we’ve been looking for. There's a focus on improving your experience of using a tablet – it's not just about packing as many pixels as possible into the screen.

The most talked about new feature on the iPad Air 2 and the iPad mini 3 is, of course, Touch ID. You can now use your fingerprint to unlock your iPad. It’s about a lot more than that, though. Touch ID on the iPad Air 2 is all about Apple Pay and making it easy for you to purchase securely online at the touch of a button. This is a feature for the future, though. Apple Pay is still limited in its applications in the US and non-existent out of it. 

From left to right: iPad Mini 3, iPad Air 2

iPad Air 2: Design

Last year's iPad deservedly won plaudits for its sleek aluminium design. It’s an ergonomic tablet that also looks and feels premium.

Apple has, by and large, kept the same design for the iPad Air 2, which is no bad thing. But it's managed to improve on that design in some key aspects.

The iPad Air 2 is ludicrously thin at just 6.1mm, and light, too, at 437g. That’s a whole 1.4mm slimmer and 32g lighter than last year’s Air. It’s not an unhealthy skinny, though – the Air 2 is rock solid. There’s no paper-like film of plastic you might find on some other thin tablets. Instead the aluminium back feels strong and robust, with a slight grain that makes it easy to grip.

There has been one casualty in Apple’s pursuit of a supermodel body. The iPad Air 2 is the first iPad without a mute/rotation-lock switch. It’s a sacrifice we’re not too upset by. You can still easily mute the Air 2 by pressing the volume down button for a second, and lock the screen rotation via the settings menu.

Other than that, the controls are similar to previous models. You get the volume buttons on the right edge and the power button at the top – easy enough to access and use.

The Lightning port for charging and data transfer is at the bottom, flanked by the stereo speaker grilles. It’s not the best location for the speakers, as you can muffle them with your hand while holding holding the iPad Air 2 in landscape mode. We’d prefer front-facing speakers like the ones on the Nexus 9.

There’s been a new colour added to the space grey and silver versions – gold. It’s not too bling, though. The back is a light gold, almost champagne, and the front bezels are white. Our favourite colour remains the space grey.

Now to the additional feature we’ve already mentioned – Touch ID.  

iPad Air 2: Touch ID

Touch ID is Apple’s fingerprint scanner. It works by securely storing your fingerprint on the device, so you can unlock the iPad Air 2 with a simple touch. It’s super-slick but it’s less of a boon on the iPad than it is on the iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus. Phones are unlocked a lot more often and are used one-handed, so it’s a neat feature on the iPad Air 2 rather than a game-changing one.

Where Touch ID makes a lot more sense on the iPad Air 2 is that Apple has now allowed developers to hook into it. So these days you can secure all your data on Evernote, for example, behind the peace of mind of your unique biometrics.

Apple’s key reason behind adding Touch ID it to its latest tablets, though, is Apple Pay. Unlike on the iPhones, which come with NFC, you won’t be able to use an iPad to tap and pay in a physical store. Where Apple Pay does impact iPad use is with buying things online.

Add your credit card details to the iPad Air 2 and you'll be able to use Touch ID to make purchasing dead simple. There are some limitations, though. Currently Apple Pay only works via apps, so you won’t be able to make purchases through a browser. 

The other problem is that it’s not yet available in the UK unless you have a US credit card you can connect to it. This should change rapidly as retailers clamour to join up to Apple Pay and make it as easy as possible for you to part with your cash online. Although we've already seen some major US retailers refusing Apple Pay in favour of a rival payment system.

iPad Air: Screen

Some observers have wagged a finger at Apple, citing a lack of recent innovation. Looking at specs alone, it also looks like its devices lag behind Android ones. Specs can be misleading, though – Apple champions user experience. To this end it's made the sort of improvements to the IPS LCD screen that we like to see.

There’s no increase in the 2048 x 1536 resolution. It’s the same Retina pixel density the iPad 3 wowed us with in 2012 and it’s still more than adequate. You’ll have to put the iPad a couple of inches from your face to notice any pixelation. But having the same resolution doesn’t mean that this is the same screen. Apple has made some important changes to it since the iPad 3 to improve colours and contrast ratios, especially this year.

A number of panels combine to create the final display. Most screens have small air gaps between each panel, but on the iPad Air 2 these are fused together. Not only does this make the screen thinner, which helps the design of the tablet, but it also helps to reduce reflections. And this is where Apple's really made inroads.

Apple claims a 56% reduction in reflectivity of the iPad Air 2 by bonding the display and adding an antireflective coating to it. It’s an improvement that we didn’t realise we needed until we got it.

The light above the iPads reflects a lot less on the iPad Air 2 compared to the mini 3

It makes a huge difference. Whether you’re using the iPad Air 2 on a sunny day in the park or just in a room with awkward lighting, the screen manages to keep reflections to a minimum. This helps you enjoy reading content online or watching a movie more than ever before.

The iPad Air 2 trumps its predecessor with its colours, too. They're bright, accurate and vivid, while contrast is greater, too, with deeper blacks and more detail in dark scenes. There’s only one area where the iPad Air wins out, and that’s with the whites. The Air 2 we looked at had a light pinkish tinge. It was faint, though – just a little worse than its predecessor, and only a minor issue.

Apple also claims that the responsiveness of the display has improved, leading to quicker reaction speeds. iPads have never had a problem in this area and we haven’t been able to notice any difference between the iPad Air 2 and the Air before it.

All in all the iPad Air 2’s screen is brilliant, with the bonded display looking almost painted onto the glass. This is a big step up from previous iPads and only the Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5 and its Super AMOLED screen can eclipse it.

 

iPad Air: Speakers

Supporting the iPad Air 2’s credentials as a superb multimedia tablet are its stereo speakers. These pack a punch and are much louder than those on last year’s model. They’re better in other ways, too. Dialogue is richer, voices sound accurate and there’s a mite more bass. Stereo separation remains poor, though, because the speakers are so close together.

This is easy to forgive, however. The speakers, coupled with the great screen, make the iPad Air 2 a perfect tablet for watching movies on the go.

Pad Air 2: Performance

The 64-bit A7 processor introduced on the iPhone 5S was altered to provide a power boost to last year’s iPad Air. Called the A7X this chip was similar in performance to the A7 – up 5-10% in our benchmark tests.

This year Apple has gone further and designed a processor specifically for the iPad Air 2. The A8X has a tri-core CPU running at 1.5GHz and a quad-core graphics processing unit coupled, for the first time, to 2GB of RAM.

If we play Specs Top Trumps the iPad Air 2 looks a shadow of top-end Android tablets such as the Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5 and its 2.3GHz quad-core processor. Don’t let that fool you, though. The iPad Air 2 is the most powerful tablet we’ve ever tested – and that’s including Nvidia’s Shield Tablet that packs the great new Tegra K1.

And while the processor is key to that performance, Apple has also ensured that iOS 8 can make the most of it. Metal lets developers take full advantage of the quad-core GPU, while the new iOS programming language, Swift, means apps can hook into certain features such as Touch ID.

 

Some observers have even compared the iPad Air 2's performance to a desktop PC. In some respects they’re right. The A8X processor performs a few tasks faster than PCs just a few years old, but the question is: do you need all that power? If you intend to use your iPad as a productivity device then you’ll appreciate it. Even if you don’t, you may find yourself using it more as a laptop replacement than you anticipated.

During the launch of the Air 2, Apple showed off a video-editing app called Replay that lets you create slick-looking videos with ease. The iPad Air 2 powered through the edits.

There are clear benefits to be had from the extra performance, but let’s see how it stacks up against the competition.

The iPad Air 2 scores an excellent 4,509 on Geekbench 3. To put that in some context, the next fastest tablet we’ve reviewed, the Nvidia Shield, scored 3220 – that’s 40% faster. That also makes the iPad Air 2 almost 70% faster than the iPad Air. That’s some impressive work in just a year.

And the wins keep coming with a 3D Mark Ice Storm Unlimited score of 21,797. That’s 33% higher than the Shield and almost 50% better than the first-generation iPad Air.

The iPad Air 2 is astonishingly fast – so fast, in fact, that you might not know what to do with all that power. Not that we’re complaining, of course. The extra grunt means that this is a tablet you can use for more than just checking out the latest memes and Facebook. It future-proofs the Air 2 to some degree.

There’s also been an upgrade to the co-processor, now called the M8. This handles all the sensor data from the iPad Air 2, such as the accelerometer and the new barometer. The reason that Apple favours a co-processor is that it uses much less power than the main processor, helping the battery to last longer.

iPad Air 2: Connectivity and Features

Except for Touch ID and Apple Pay, there’s not much to differentiate the iPad Air 2 from its predecessor in terms of connectivity.

You get a 3.5mm headphone jack along the top edge, while the Lightning connector port, which charges the iPad Air 2 and transfers data, is at the bottom. Bluetooth 4.0, AirDrop and AirPlay are all present and the Wi-Fi has had a boost.

The iPad Air 2 has two antennae to the first-gen’s one and uses 802.11ac technology, leading to Wi-Fi that’s twice as fast as before.

 

If you’re out and about you can opt for the 4G/LTE version. The iPad Air 2 comes with support for 20 bands, so you’ll be able to use it pretty much anywhere in the world.

Of course, you can forget a microSD card slot – Apple's never included one in a product and wasn’t about to start with its flagship tablet. That means that if you want extra storage for all your favourite songs, pictures and films, you need to choose the right storage option at the time of purchase. 

As with the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, Apple has dropped the 32GB option for the iPad Air 2. Instead you get 64GB and 128GB, or you can opt for the meagre 16GB model. If you do plump for the latter, be aware that iOS 8 takes up 5GB of the 16, leaving you with just 11GB to play with.

iPad Air 2: iOS 8

The iPad Air 2 comes with Apple’s latest version of its mobile operating system – iOS 8.1.

iOS 8 has had a bit of a troubled launch. Some users have experienced Wi-Fi and battery life issues, but the pick of the bunch was a bug that deleted iCloud data when resetting a device.

Thankfully iOS 8.1 appears to have resolved most of these glitches, and the additions have changed it for the better.

Even though iOS 8 looks almost identical to iOS 7, it comes with a bevy of new features. Here’s the whistle stop tour.

Messages

The messaging app has had a makeover, and now lets you send voice messages as well as using third-party keyboards such as SwiftKey. Group messaging has also had a nip-and-tuck, letting you leave a conversation or choose not to be disturbed by it.

AirPlay and AirDrop

AirDrop lets you easily share files with other nearby iOS devices that are using iOS 7 and above. AirPlay requires you to have bought into another part of the Apple ecosystem – Apple TV. You can wirelessly stream from your iPad Air 2 to your home entertainment system via Apple TV.

Family Sharing

A brand-new feature of iOS 8 is Family Sharing. This lets members of the same household browse and download each other’s iTunes, iBooks and App Store purchases. You can have up to six family members participating, each with their own Apple ID. In a nod towards user profiles, parents can create Apple IDs for children with an Ask to Buy feature. This ensures mums and dads don’t get lumbered with hefty app purchasing bills. You can add more restrictions via the Settings menu to keep them away from inappropriate content. 

 

iCloud Drive

Like most cloud storage solutions, iCloud Drive enables you to back up all the important information on the iPad Air 2 online. This makes it accessible from any device, including your PC.

Continuity

Continuity is the most interesting new iOS 8 feature, but to take full advantage of it you’ll need an iPhone and Mac computer with Apple’s latest OS X Yosemite. Not only can you pick up calls from your iPad Air 2 or MacBook when it’s on the same Wi-Fi network, but you can also use Handoff. This is a feature that lets you easily start work on one device and continue on another in an instant.

For an in-depth look at the new version of Apple’s operating system, read our iOS 8 review.

Finally we need to consider the App Store. There are now more than 675,000 apps made for the iPad – no other tablet ecosystem comes close. Whether you enjoy gaming, working on a tablet or have a niche need then the iPad delivers.

iPad Air 2: Camera

Apple claims that iPad users really value the camera. During iPad Air 2’s launch Tim Cook explained that the iPad is perfect for photography because the large screen makes for a great viewfinder. He has a point, but we still can’t help feel like photographing with such a large device is ridiculous.

Still, if taking photos on your iPad is something you like to do, you’ll be very pleased to hear that the iPad Air 2 now comes with an 8-megapixel iSight camera. It's similar, but not identical, to the one on the iPhone 6. This makes it a big step up from the 5-megapixel affair on the iPad Air, and the photos tell the story.

Cam-parison: iPad Air 2 (left) vs iPad Air

Colours from the Air 2 (left) were more accurate than the original Air

In good light the higher resolution provides more detail than before but the real benefit comes when the lights go down.

As you can see from the pictures of the trees, the Air 2 shot (left) shows a great deal more detail and vibrance in the leaves and branches. Our low-light test shot below also shows that the iPad Air 2 handles dingy conditions better – colours are more vivid and there’s less noise around the text.

Aside from the improved picture quality, the iPad Air 2’s camera comes with a few new tricks. You can now use burst mode, which takes continuous shots so you don't miss that fast-moving action picture. But the pick of the bunch is the slo-mo video that takes Full HD video at 1080p. It’s slick, easy to use and delivers fantastic results. Dual microphones also mean that captured audio is better than before.

The front-facing FaceTime camera is the same as the one on the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. It’s still 1.2 megapixels, but Apple claims it's improved the low-light performance by more than 80%. It works. Video calling, even in a dark room, works well.

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