[Cap'n Tightpants]

Finally got my Air 2 (128GB, Verizon, space gray) and even though I don't care for iOS 8, I really like the iPad itself. Finally, true, honest-to-god, multitasking capability (2GB of RAM)! The speed of this thing is simply unreal, and even though I'm hooked on OLED displays now, this is the best LCD I've seen on any mobile device (I'd put the AMOLED display on the Galaxy Tab S at a perfect 10/10, but the Air 2 is a next-best 9/10). Aside from the front facing camera (it's still poo) and not-quite-as-good-as-previous-gen wifi reception (~10-15% worse), it's an awesome tablet.

My advice to those with the first Air is to sell it on ebay now, while prices are high, and get an Air 2. This model is going to have some serious longevity, much like the iPad 2 enjoyed, far outlasting the previous model by a huge margin.

[ShortcutToMoncton]

Originally Posted by PeterParker 

I think they released no crap. Times changing. Still defending ways as they are. Who are you? Just kidding? Strange title. Hmm. Think many innovations have been on the road. What's the point? Still waiting for the retina iMac sometimes... Ha! New iPhones out, just as thought... Think agenda is good.

Huh?

This...is getting scary. You need some serious help.

[Phileas]

Originally Posted by ShortcutToMoncton 

This...is getting scary. You need some serious help.

I have thought for some time that PP is a persona.

[ShortcutToMoncton]

Originally Posted by Cap'n Tightpants 

My advice to those with the first Air is to sell it on ebay now, while prices are high, and get an Air 2. This model is going to have some serious longevity, much like the iPad 2 enjoyed, far outlasting the previous model by a huge margin.

Goddammit, just what I was afraid of but didn't want to hear, haha. Ugh. I hate buying a new device for 6 months and then having to sell it at a $250 loss....but you're right, I can really see the iPad Air 1.0 being unusable very quickly.

Better still, the terribleness of the Safari page refreshing was not really mentioned in any of the rave reviews at the time, other than to say "1Gb might be an issue in the future" - no shit, it was a huge issue with the machine they were holding.

[Cap'n Tightpants]

I'm seeing G1 Airs selling for ~$100-150 below new, provided you don't mind shipping internationally, so I don't think it would be quite that bad. But, unless you just use your ipad as an e-reader or for very basic tasks, not trading up (if that's a thing you do) would be a big mistake, because the Air 2 crushes it in every meaningful way. In terms of capability it's exactly the same as the difference between the original ipad and the ipad 2.

[P]

Originally Posted by Cap'n Tightpants 

Finally got my Air 2 (128GB, Verizon, space gray) and even though I don't care for iOS 8, I really like the iPad itself. Finally, true, honest-to-god, multitasking capability (2GB of RAM)! The speed of this thing is simply unreal, and even though I'm hooked on OLED displays now, this is the best LCD I've seen on any mobile device (I'd put the AMOLED display on the Galaxy Tab S at a perfect 10/10, but the Air 2 is a next-best 9/10). Aside from the front facing camera (it's still poo) and not-quite-as-good-as-previous-gen wifi reception (~10-15% worse), it's an awesome tablet.

Does this mean that the display is that oversaturated garbage that Sammy's AMOLEDs usually puts out? Because that's a pass from me if true - I like my colors accurate, not showroom-enhanced.

[Cap'n Tightpants]

Originally Posted by P 

Does this mean that the display is that oversaturated garbage that Sammy's AMOLEDs usually puts out? Because that's a pass from me if true - I like my colors accurate, not showroom-enhanced.

And I thought my pants were tight? Nope, that means they've finally dialed the color in correctly (at least for the Tab S), and of course the black levels are substantially better than anything you can get from an LCD (pretty much always been the case). Samsung has now included fully adjustable OLED screen modes, so the issues some have had with oversaturation are a thing of the past. If Apple sticks with LCD tech (to satisfy the bean counters), they're going to struggle against competitors who offer more advanced solutions. In fact, if it weren't for the substantially weaker GPU, largely an issue for tablet gamers, the Tab S would be better than the Air 2 overall, no contest.

[P]

Apple has so far stuck with IPS LCD because the image quality is better, as you can see in any review that includes things like color correctness. If Samsung has solved that problem with AMOLEDs now, that's great news. Since Apple hasn't talked about AMOLED as something bad (even when the Pentile controversy was in full flight), I suspect that they have been evaluating it continuously and might switch if AMOLED ever catches up.

Performance-wise, the Tab S is not even in the same ballpark as the old Air, much less the Air 2, on both GPU and CPU. Not that I consider that to be very important in a tablet, but what I saw (when looking for display correctness numbers - it is improved, although brightness remains an issue) is that it's near the bottom of Android tablets and not even close to the iPads.

[OreoCookie]

The only tablet that comes with comparable CPU and GPU horsepower is the Nexus 9 with the Denver-based Tegra K1. It'll be quite interesting to see how it compares in performance/watt to the A8X -- especially in 64 bit mode.

[Cap'n Tightpants]

In terms of CPU grunt, the Tab S is very good, especially in core efficiency (8 cores; 4 high speed, 4 low speed, and it switches between the core "groups" depending on load*). If you're web browsing, watching video, or doing pretty much anything other than 3D gaming, you won't notice, but as soon as you fire up anything that makes an OpenGL call, the Mali GPU shows how much of a stinker it is. However, the Tab S isn't marketed to home users, or anyone who would primarily use it as a mobile gaming console (buy the Air 2 or the Shield Tab), it's made for mobile execs who want to lighten their daily carry load, and in that capacity, it's the best Android tablet you can buy (and par with the Air 2 and Mini 3).


(*and even throw in all 8 cores in short bursts, for high-resource apps)

[P]

Originally Posted by Cap'n Tightpants 

In terms of CPU grunt, the Tab S is very good, especially in core efficiency (8 cores; 4 high speed, 4 low speed, and it switches between the core "groups" depending on load*).

(*and even throw in all 8 cores in short bursts, for high-resource apps)

Yup, I know. But that doesn't help much when we're all gated by single thread performance anyway, an A15 core isn't good enough and it can't stay at its top clock for more than split seconds at a time. I understand that the LTE version uses 4 Snapdragon 800 cores instead - that would be a significant improvement. Samsung should have stayed with A9r4 and just clocked it up instead of the dud that is A15.

[OreoCookie]

Originally Posted by Cap'n Tightpants 

In terms of CPU grunt, the Tab S is very good, especially in core efficiency (8 cores; 4 high speed, 4 low speed, and it switches between the core "groups" depending on load*).

Nevertheless, the Denver-based Tegra K1 and the A8X are in a league of their own at the moment, and depending on your prefer to weight benchmarks, one is faster than the other. The K1 is ~6 % faster in single-core Geekbench, the A8X is massively faster in the multicore benchmark, and the K1 would improve once the 64 bit benchmark is run on the Nexus 9. Needless to say there are other benchmarks out there, but I think it's fair to say that both of them are clearly faster than any other tablet SoC with comparable power characteristics on the market -- they are literally approaching the speed of slow Intel notebook CPUs. On the other hand, nothing is known yet about the power consumption.

Originally Posted by Cap'n Tightpants 

… it's made for mobile execs who want to lighten their daily carry load, and in that capacity, it's the best Android tablet you can buy (and par with the Air 2 and Mini 3).

What is a »mobile exec«?

[Cap'n Tightpants]

People who use a tablet for media consumption and work, not games. I really don't care about GPU specs, the CPU is plenty fast enough for the work the tablet will do, and benchmarks... eh, unless they're used in desktop GPU comparisons, I mostly ignore them. Speaking frankly, Android isn't the mobile OS for games, anyway, iOS is the developers' darling there, so that aspect doesn't bother me at all.

In daily tasks I can't tell the difference between the Air 2 and the Tab S, and I doubt anyone else could either, they're both butter-smooth and very responsive. So for those who prefer Android, or simply don't like iOS, the Tab S is the kitty's titties.

[Waragainstsleep]

I haven't tried it on particularly decent hardware lately but I still can't see why people like Android. It feels like something RIM would have done.

[OreoCookie]

Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep 

I haven't tried it on particularly decent hardware lately but I still can't see why people like Android. It feels like something RIM would have done.

To me, the Nexus 9 is much more appealing -- not least because of the 4:3 form factor.

[Phileas]

Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep 

It feels like something RIM would have done.

BTW, the new Blackberry Passport is an amazing device.

As far as tablets are concerned, I tried, or got to play with, most Android tablets on the market. None of them came close to the user experience of the iPad for me. I love(d) my Android phones, but for tablets Android was mostly a "meh" experience.

[Cap'n Tightpants]

Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep 

I haven't tried it on particularly decent hardware lately but I still can't see why people like Android. It feels like something RIM would have done.

It's about whether you like to customize your UI or not. Some people want full control of their devices, others don't care. Personally, I don't understand undying platform loyalty, it'll never make sense to me.

[P]

So one page ago when you said that Apple hadn't done anything revolutionary in years, you were discounting the software as irrelevant. Now that we've shown that the hardware of the Tab S is sub-par in every way measurable, it is suddenly the Android software that is so great (and not the display you mentioned first). Who isn't making sense again?

[Waragainstsleep]

Originally Posted by Cap'n Tightpants 

It's about whether you like to customize your UI or not. Some people want full control of their devices, others don't care. Personally, I don't understand undying platform loyalty, it'll never make sense to me.

Apple does such a good job of its user experience that I don't feel like its worth my time to even look at other devices let alone learn how to use them to the level I know my Macs and iPads. Now and then I stumble upon a feature in Windows that makes me say 'oh thats actually a nice feature' (yet to do this with Android) but overall the experience is usually frustrating, at best its just a slightly uglier approximation of the Apple one.

As a kid I enjoyed playing with any device I could get my hands on but now I just don't care. I can buy any Apple product that takes my fancy in the knowledge that if its their worst work, it will still compare more than favourably with anything else out there. This is the reason people stay loyal to Apple.

[Cap'n Tightpants]

Originally Posted by P 

So one page ago when you said that Apple hadn't done anything revolutionary in years, you were discounting the software as irrelevant. Now that we've shown that the hardware of the Tab S is sub-par in every way measurable, it is suddenly the Android software that is so great (and not the display you mentioned first). Who isn't making sense again?

"Sub-par"? Like I said before, except for 3D games, there is no difference in real world usage, both are very fast and smooth. What does stand out is the inclusion of such a high-grade OLED panel on an affordable tablet, and since so much of the user experience is centered around the display on a tablet, it's not an insignificant advantage.

Again, don't place words in my mouth. I didn't say "software innovations don't matter", you said I said it (both times), and that was with regards to their notebook computers. (This is the second time I've had to explain that.) Furthermore, I didn't say Android is "so great", but it IS geared more towards those who want more control of their OS, it's a large part of what's made Android so popular.

[P]

Originally Posted by Cap'n Tightpants 

"Sub-par"? Like I said before, except for 3D games, there is no difference in real world usage, both are very fast and smooth.

Subpar: falling short of a standard, according to Webster. Since it appears to be below average performance even for an Android tablet, I figured it was a reasonable description.

(Webster spells it without the hyphen, btw. Looks odd to me, but I guess they should know)

Originally Posted by Cap'n Tightpants 

What does stand out is the inclusion of such a high-grade OLED panel on an affordable tablet, and since so much of the user experience is centered around the display on a tablet, it's not an insignificant advantage.

High grade for an OLED, maybe. It is still behind an IPS LCD in everything - just check the numbers. OLED is supposed to have other advantages, in particular power consumption, and hopes to some day equal IPS LCD in the other respects. Put another way: An OLED display in the spec sheet is not an advantage in itself, it is useful because it makes one of those other items - battery life - go up.

Originally Posted by Cap'n Tightpants 

Again, don't place words in my mouth. I didn't say "software innovations don't matter", you said I said it (both times), and that was with regards to their notebook computers. (This is the second time I've had to explain that.)

I know what you said. You completely discounted it when discussing battery life, and somehow wanted to credit the battery supplier even when I quoted the spec that the charge they held had gone up by 8% when battery life went up by 71%. You could at least have brought up the difference between Haswell and Ivy Bridge, which is a part of the reason, but battery charge is number on a spec sheet - easily compared.

Originally Posted by Cap'n Tightpants 

Furthermore, I didn't say Android is "so great", but it IS geared more towards those who want more control of their OS, it's a large part of what's made Android so popular.

I do think that the price tag is a slightly bigger part of that popularity, though.

[Waragainstsleep]

Price to consumers and the slice of that that goes to carriers and 3rd party vendors. Big big influence popularity.

[Cap'n Tightpants]

Originally Posted by P 

Subpar: falling short of a standard, according to Webster. Since it appears to be below average performance even for an Android tablet, I figured it was a reasonable description.

(Webster spells it without the hyphen, btw. Looks odd to me, but I guess they should know)

I know you're aware of what I was talking about, in non-gaming productivity and media consumption apps there's no difference, none. They're both very fast and in those regular daily tasks synthetic benchmarks mean exactly squat. I do find it interesting that Apple fans ignore the canned benches when a product is behind the curve, touting "real world" performance is what matters, but then flip dramatically when the numbers favor them.

High grade for an OLED, maybe. It is still behind an IPS LCD in everything - just check the numbers. OLED is supposed to have other advantages, in particular power consumption, and hopes to some day equal IPS LCD in the other respects. Put another way: An OLED display in the spec sheet is not an advantage in itself, it is useful because it makes one of those other items - battery life - go up.

Nonsense. Major industry critics are calling it the best tablet display, by a wide margin:

You'll notice I gave the display its very own section, even though it is technically "hardware." That's partly because I had a lot to say, and partly because the screen is clearly, indisputably the star of the show. What can I say? Samsung killed it. The screen here is a spec lover's dream, with 2,560 x 1,600 resolution on both the 10-and 8-inch models. On the 10-incher, that resolution translates to a pixel density of 287 ppi; the 8-incher is noticeably crisper, at 360 ppi. Either way, that's even sharper than both of the current-gen iPads, whose screens come to 264 ppi for the iPad Air and 326 ppi for the Retina display mini.

Alright, now that we've got that out of our system, let's pull up our pants and put the measuring tape away. Even setting aside the raw specs, this is a stunning display. In particular, it's a Super AMOLED panel, and while that won't sound revolutionary to anyone who's used one of Samsung's recent phones, it's fairly uncommon for a tablet. In fact, the last time Sammy tried a Super AMOLED panel on one of its slates was with the Galaxy Tab 7.7, which was prohibitively expensive -- precisely because of the impressive screen technology. Since then, the price seems to have come down, which means the benefits of Super AMOLED are much easier to sell.

Price puts OLED out of reach for Apple, not any particular spec, they're known to be cheap bastards when filling a BoM, it's also the only real reason why they stayed with such a paltry amount of RAM, until they simply couldn't get away with it any longer. Sad, really, since they're the most expensive manufacturer in their segment (with 2x their closest competitor's markup). That's wonderful for stockholders (I am one) but does their customers no favors, shortening the usable life of said devices dramatically. Gotta make people buy that new iPad every 2 years, right? Despite the fact that everything else in the product is engineered to last 2-4x longer. Hell, there were Android tablets with 2GB of RAM popping up in 2012 (from Lenovo and Asus), and they'll likely be viable for at least another 2 years.

I know what you said. You completely discounted it when discussing battery life, and somehow wanted to credit the battery supplier even when I quoted the spec that the charge they held had gone up by 8% when battery life went up by 71%. You could at least have brought up the difference between Haswell and Ivy Bridge, which is a part of the reason, but battery charge is number on a spec sheet - easily compared.

I don't think so. Again, 3rd time now, I was talking about their notebook segment, not tablets, notebooks.

FWIW, Haswell didn't make the difference the marketers claimed, largely because the power consumption savings don't become substantial until you reach a use state of >50%, and nearly all PCs sit idle (or close to it) for 98% of their lives. The big advancement beyond Ivy, in that respect, is Broadwell. It will lower energy usage at idle by ~60% over IB and Haswell.

I do think that the price tag is a slightly bigger part of that popularity, though.

You think? You know how Apple loves to license out their software, it gives them the warm fuzzies to work with other companies. Android is the only other game in town (aside from Windows, ugh), so it's a good thing that Google decided to pursue it so strongly and offer it at such a low price, otherwise the mobile market would be stagnant. The fact that it's hugely more open and flexible is a clear bonus, it didn't have to be.

[Cap'n Tightpants]

Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep 

Price to consumers and the slice of that that goes to carriers and 3rd party vendors. Big big influence popularity.

That argument only makes sense if Apple offered to license iOS to anyone else, and it will be a cold day in hell before that happens. Android's the only other player, and in that light it's shocking that it's as good as it is.

[Waragainstsleep]

Originally Posted by Cap'n Tightpants 

That argument only makes sense if Apple offered to license iOS to anyone else, and it will be a cold day in hell before that happens. Android's the only other player, and in that light it's shocking that it's as good as it is.

My point stands on its own,

Android handsets are cheaper to buy for consumers and carriers and shops get a bigger commission than anyone selling iPhones does so the shops push the Androids to people who hadn't already made up their minds. Many people are easily swayed.

[P]

Originally Posted by Cap'n Tightpants 

I know you're aware of what I was talking about, in non-gaming productivity and media consumption apps there's no difference, none. They're both very fast and in those regular daily tasks synthetic benchmarks mean exactly squat. I do find it interesting that Apple fans ignore the canned benches when a product is behind the curve, touting "real world" performance is what matters, but then flip dramatically when the numbers favor them.

I know what you're talking about. Performance is subpar. Experience is very much subjective depending on what you do with it, so it might very well be fine - in fact, for most of what you do with a tablet, it probably IS fine. Doesn't change the initial statement.

Originally Posted by Cap'n Tightpants 

Nonsense. Major industry critics are calling it the best tablet display, by a wide margin:

Do you have a link to that piece you copied from? Because in the reviews I've read, the Tab S display is much better than previous models, but still not up to an IPS LCD.

Originally Posted by Cap'n Tightpants 

Price puts OLED out of reach for Apple, not any particular spec,

The old OLED displays were quite frankly not good enough and a significant step backwards from the old iPad displays. This new one looks much better, and given Apple's love for thinness and the stated requirement for 10 hours battery life, it might show up in a future iPad. Maybe.

Originally Posted by Cap'n Tightpants 

they're known to be cheap bastards when filling a BoM,

Eh. On the iPads sure. On the Mac Pro, not exactly.

Originally Posted by Cap'n Tightpants 

it's also the only real reason why they stayed with such a paltry amount of RAM, until they simply couldn't get away with it any longer.

It's the only real reason they stay with such tiny amounts of flash. RAM, it is part of the reason. There is a battery life concern there, as well as a not wanting to obsolete older models too rapidly, but sure, there is an amount of being cheapskate there.

Originally Posted by Cap'n Tightpants 

Sad, really, since they're the most expensive manufacturer in their segment (with 2x their closest competitor's markup). That's wonderful for stockholders (I am one) but does their customers no favors, shortening the usable life of said devices dramatically. Gotta make people buy that new iPad every 2 years, right? Despite the fact that everything else in the product is engineered to last 2-4x longer. Hell, there were Android tablets with 2GB of RAM popping up in 2012 (from Lenovo and Asus), and they'll likely be viable for at least another 2 years.

I don't know, the iPad 2 has had a nice life already, and it will certainly be supported at least one more year and quite possibly two. Their Macs tends to last a very long time.

Originally Posted by Cap'n Tightpants 

I don't think so. Again, 3rd time now, I was talking about their notebook segment, not tablets, notebooks.

So was I. My example was the 13" Macbook Air. It has 12 hours battery life now, and two years ago it was 7 hours. Battery capacity has gone up by 4 Wh, from 50 to 54. Most of that battery life improvement is in the OS, and that is what I called revolutionary.

Originally Posted by Cap'n Tightpants 

FWIW, Haswell didn't make the difference the marketers claimed, largely because the power consumption savings don't become substantial until you reach a use state of >50%, and nearly all PCs sit idle (or close to it) for 98% of their lives. The big advancement beyond Ivy, in that respect, is Broadwell. It will lower energy usage at idle by ~60% over IB and Haswell.

Eh. Haswell did its bit by racing to idle. It also added support for LPDDR3 memory, which helped system power consumption quite a bit.

Originally Posted by Cap'n Tightpants 

You think? You know how Apple loves to license out their software, it gives them the warm fuzzies to work with other companies. Android is the only other game in town (aside from Windows, ugh), so it's a good thing that Google decided to pursue it so strongly and offer it at such a low price, otherwise the mobile market would be stagnant. The fact that it's hugely more open and flexible is a clear bonus, it didn't have to be.

Devices are cheaper. The OS price is obviously not comparable. And it being so open was a big reason it got adopted by device manufacturers - not for users to fiddle with, but for OEMs to modify as they see fit.

[ShortcutToMoncton]

I'm really confused every time I visit this thread. The Tab S is really nice with a fantastic screen; the iPad Air 2 is also beautiful and simply the best tablet.

Does that sum up the last page and every single review of both models in a single sentence? Okay then.

[Cap'n Tightpants]

Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep 

My point stands on its own,

Android handsets are cheaper to buy for consumers and carriers and shops get a bigger commission than anyone selling iPhones does so the shops push the Androids to people who hadn't already made up their minds. Many people are easily swayed.

No they don't, sales commissions are the same for Apple or *insert name of Android phone manufacturer here*, according to my AT&T and US Cellular reps it's a flat $25 /phone.

[P]

Originally Posted by ShortcutToMoncton 

I'm really confused every time I visit this thread. The Tab S is really nice with a fantastic screen; the iPad Air 2 is also beautiful and simply the best tablet.

Does that sum up the last page and every single review of both models in a single sentence? Okay then.

When OLED was on the drawing board, it was hailed as the future of all displays and better in every possible respect than LCD. The actual product hasn't exactly borne that out, not yet - it is lower power when showing mostly black, but the display characteristics are worse than an IPS LCD: color correctness is worse, gamut is smaller, max brightness is lower. This means that manufacturers keep trading on this "OLED myth" as if it is inherently better, no matter what the measurements say.

This newest Samsung display, called "Super AMOLED", aims to correct all of this and gets close, if not all the way there. It is certainly a big step in the right direction, and promising for the future. What I reacted to was that the iPad Air display was described as "almost as good" as the Tab S, when every single measurement in the Tab S reviews show it far behind the old Air. Unless the Air 2 display is significantly worse than the old model, that simply doesn't make sense. This is not subjective - you can measure display characteristics.

[Cap'n Tightpants]

Originally Posted by P 

I know what you're talking about. Performance is subpar. Experience is very much subjective depending on what you do with it, so it might very well be fine - in fact, for most of what you do with a tablet, it probably IS fine. Doesn't change the initial statement.

Your statement doesn't matter if you can't tell a difference in performance. ie. This video card will push a game to 400fps while this other will do 250, both are more than sufficient, after that, features and functionality become more important. Also, the Tab S does come with 3GB of RAM (50% more than the Air 2), and if you browse with a lot of tabs and switch between more than 3 apps, the difference between 2 and 3GBs becomes apparent. Not a necessity, but is a nice bump in productivity to not have to wait for reloads. With even newer Android tablets being released with 4GB, as I type this, does that mean that the Air 2 is already "sub-par", comparatively?

Do you have a link to that piece you copied from? Because in the reviews I've read, the Tab S display is much better than previous models, but still not up to an IPS LCD.

Engadget, where they gave the Tab S a 9 out of 10 (coincidentally, the same score they gave the Air 2).

"IPS LCD" means almost nothing, there are different grades of IPS panels; some are great, others aren't. And not only are there different grades between device manufacturers, there are often different grades within a specific model. Apple used 3 different LCD panel brands with the first iPad Air (LG, Samsung, and Philips), it's essentially a type of panel lottery. Anyhow, it's impossible to look at the black levels and white balance of the Tab S and not see that it's superior, the only real advantage certain IPS panels had over OLED is color gamut and saturation, and now that it's user adjustable with Super AMOLED, that advantage is gone.

The old OLED displays were quite frankly not good enough and a significant step backwards from the old iPad displays. This new one looks much better, and given Apple's love for thinness and the stated requirement for 10 hours battery life, it might show up in a future iPad. Maybe.

When they become as cheap as LCDs, Apple will change, but not until then.

Eh. On the iPads sure. On the Mac Pro, not exactly.

On everything except their Pro and Enterprise products. There's a reason why the Xserve disappeared, margins. Frankly I was shocked they even released a new Mac Pro, but even there they slashed its expansion capabilities to save on material, shipping, and storage costs.

It's the only real reason they stay with such tiny amounts of flash. RAM, it is part of the reason. There is a battery life concern there, as well as a not wanting to obsolete older models too rapidly, but sure, there is an amount of being cheapskate there.

Modern memory controllers in mobile devices won't power RAM chips that aren't being used, they stay in an advanced sleep state. That tech is coming to mainstream PCs with Broadwell, Haswell-E (X99) already has it.

I don't know, the iPad 2 has had a nice life already, and it will certainly be supported at least one more year and quite possibly two. Their Macs tends to last a very long time.

Educational institutions are the reason for that, they've sold a million metric tonnes of them to schools (for as little as $275 in quantities of 1000 or more) and removing support for them too soon would be a disaster. That's the main reason why iPad 3 will drop before the 2.

So was I. My example was the 13" Macbook Air. It has 12 hours battery life now, and two years ago it was 7 hours. Battery capacity has gone up by 4 Wh, from 50 to 54. Most of that battery life improvement is in the OS, and that is what I called revolutionary.

It is revolutionary, for the Li-Ion battery makers (and to a lesser extent other component manufacturers), but Apple didn't do much more than tick boxes on the Foxconn order sheet, detailing what changes they wanted to make. While Apple does work painstakingly hard on the aesthetics and form of a system, they largely let their component partners figure out a lot of internal logistics. That's smart business because it shifts the cost of that to Foxconn, Asus, etc. but they didn't develop the part(s) that made the difference in efficiency. The engineers in Taipei did (working for a whole lot less than the ones in Cupertino, I assure you).

Devices are cheaper. The OS price is obviously not comparable. And it being so open was a big reason it got adopted by device manufacturers - not for users to fiddle with, but for OEMs to modify as they see fit.

They were, but that's not the case anymore, some high end Android phones cost more than iPhones now, look at the Xperia Z line. Ever since Android hit retail shelves it's been marketed as a more flexible alternative, and Google has kept to that philosophy, long after they could have locked it down and stopped releasing the source code. They don't need to do that, it's not like customers really have a choice, I think they do it because they honestly believe that keeping it open helps it to become a better product.

[Cap'n Tightpants]

Originally Posted by ShortcutToMoncton 

I'm really confused every time I visit this thread. The Tab S is really nice with a fantastic screen; the iPad Air 2 is also beautiful and simply the best tablet.

Does that sum up the last page and every single review of both models in a single sentence? Okay then.

If you could take the display from the Tab S and put it on the Air 2 (plus move over the microSD slot and its 3GB of RAM), you'd have the perfect tablet. The Air 2 is the best iOS tablet (obviously) and the Tab S is the best Android tablet, it comes down to which ecosystem you want, because both are fantastic.

I'd say they're equals, with each having its own strengths.

[badidea]

Ok, now Apple really starts to make me pissed!!!
- I wanted to check out hand-off and had to find out that this does NOT work on a 3 year old MBP - THANKS A LOT FOR NOTHING
- I bought a new Mac mini to have an HDMI port for HD audio, just to find out that Apple does not support this with OS X - THANKS A LOT FOR NOTHING

Don't know if I will still be a happy customer for another 20 years!
Sell your stocks now!

[ShortcutToMoncton]

You mean "HD Audio" the standard?

[P]

Originally Posted by badidea 

Ok, now Apple really starts to make me pissed!!!
- I wanted to check out hand-off and had to find out that this does NOT work on a 3 year old MBP - THANKS A LOT FOR NOTHING

There's a patch for that.

(That said, I consider Apple's short support period in this area disgrace, especially my MBA which apparently has all the hardware needed and still isn't supported)

Originally Posted by badidea 

- I bought a new Mac mini to have an HDMI port for HD audio, just to find out that Apple does not support this with OS X - THANKS A LOT FOR NOTHING

Apple's support in this area is very limited. Basically they will passthrough pre-encoded audio in whatever format is included in a media file (and supported by the player app), but won't do multichannel live audio.

[P]

I was answering the first bit and found myself making a car analogy, which is always a good sign to step back. Performance is not the same experience, let's leave it at that.

Originally Posted by Cap'n Tightpants 

Engadget, where they gave the Tab S a 9 out of 10 (coincidentally, the same score they gave the Air 2).

And not a display test in the entire review.

Originally Posted by Cap'n Tightpants 

"IPS LCD" means almost nothing, there are different grades of IPS panels; some are great, others aren't. And not only are there different grades between device manufacturers, there are often different grades within a specific model. Apple used 3 different LCD panel brands with the first iPad Air (LG, Samsung, and Philips), it's essentially a type of panel lottery.

None of this is strictly incorrect, but your confluence of the terms implies something that is not true. There are different types of IPS yes, there are different grades of panels yes, and Apple uses different brands yes, but Apple doesn't have a lottery between IPS types or grades. (Dell does on their monitors, however).

Originally Posted by Cap'n Tightpants 

Anyhow, it's impossible to look at the black levels and white balance of the Tab S and not see that it's superior, the only real advantage certain IPS panels had over OLED is color gamut and saturation, and now that it's user adjustable with Super AMOLED, that advantage is gone.

This is roughly the argument that plasma TV fans usually advanced, about how black levels are the most important thing ever. That didn't work out so well for them - LG has just announced closing the last plasma TV lines. I think it is even less important here, as the viewing conditions for a tablet are much less likely to be as controlled as in a home theater setup. Don't get me wrong, the black levels are better on the Tab S - it's just that the difference isn't that big, and many of the other characteristics are worse.

Much more important is if I'm able to to see what's on the display in bright sunlight. This is where my old iPad mini is quite bad, and some tests confirm that: only 378 nits means that the display is not very bright, and in fact towards the bottom of the range, with even the Amazon Fire beating it. Not quite at the bottom though, because dead last (among actual tablets) at 313 and 324 nits respectively, we have the two variants of the Tab S. That's how you get the black levels down, I guess.

(All test results from Anandtech, btw.)

Originally Posted by Cap'n Tightpants 

Modern memory controllers in mobile devices won't power RAM chips that aren't being used, they stay in an advanced sleep state. That tech is coming to mainstream PCs with Broadwell, Haswell-E (X99) already has it.

Haswell-E uses DDR4, which no mobile device has yet. They all use LPDDR3, which is actually in the MBA, mini and the low-end iMac now. Turning off a memory chip isn't terribly hard in itself but then what use are they? How should the device know when you want to keep your web pages in memory and when you want to save power?

Originally Posted by Cap'n Tightpants 

Educational institutions are the reason for that, they've sold a million metric tonnes of them to schools (for as little as $275 in quantities of 1000 or more) and removing support for them too soon would be a disaster. That's the main reason why iPad 3 will drop before the 2.

Well, it was discontinued before...

Originally Posted by Cap'n Tightpants 

It is revolutionary, for the Li-Ion battery makers (and to a lesser extent other component manufacturers), but Apple didn't do much more than tick boxes on the Foxconn order sheet, detailing what changes they wanted to make.

No. Battery capacity went up with 8%, from 50 Wh to 54 Wh. The rest of the battery life increase came from decreased consumption.

Originally Posted by Cap'n Tightpants 

While Apple does work painstakingly hard on the aesthetics and form of a system, they largely let their component partners figure out a lot of internal logistics. That's smart business because it shifts the cost of that to Foxconn, Asus, etc. but they didn't develop the part(s) that made the difference in efficiency. The engineers in Taipei did (working for a whole lot less than the ones in Cupertino, I assure you).

They developed the OS, which is what made the difference. If the improvement had come from the batteries, they would be rated at 93.5 Wh.

[OreoCookie]

Originally Posted by Cap'n Tightpants 

With even newer Android tablets being released with 4GB, as I type this, does that mean that the Air 2 is already "sub-par", comparatively?

Keep in mind, however, that due to garbage collection Android needs more memory to run the same apps.

Originally Posted by Cap'n Tightpants 

It is revolutionary, for the Li-Ion battery makers (and to a lesser extent other component manufacturers), but Apple didn't do much more than tick boxes on the Foxconn order sheet, detailing what changes they wanted to make. While Apple does work painstakingly hard on the aesthetics and form of a system, they largely let their component partners figure out a lot of internal logistics.

Actually, Apple's engineering has influenced Intel's specifications of its platforms: one of the reasons (beyond OS X) why Apple notebook typically last longer on a charge than similarly specced machines of others is that they have managed to reduce system power consumption in some external components. And these design choices have even informed Intel and its ultrabook platform specs (I remember reading a very interesting article on that, but I can't find it anymore). You give Apple's sub-contractors way too much credit: Apple's suppliers follow Apple's vision and build whatever has been designed in Cupertino.

[badidea]

Originally Posted by ShortcutToMoncton 

You mean "HD Audio" the standard?

I mean DTS-HD and Dolby True-HD.
There is no possibility to play that with OS X according to every information I could find (unfortunately I didn't check before I bought)!
Maybe it's time for Linux on the Mac mini now...

[badidea]

Originally Posted by P 

There's a patch for that.

Thanks! Will check that!

[Cap'n Tightpants]

None of this is strictly incorrect, but your confluence of the terms implies something that is not true. There are different types of IPS yes, there are different grades of panels yes, and Apple uses different brands yes, but Apple doesn't have a lottery between IPS types or grades. (Dell does on their monitors, however).

They do, but it's one of the things no one talks about, I can tell the difference between my daughter's G1 Air, mine, and my wife's. All 3 vary slightly (with the first being the best of the lot).

This is roughly the argument that plasma TV fans usually advanced, about how black levels are the most important thing ever. That didn't work out so well for them - LG has just announced closing the last plasma TV lines. I think it is even less important here, as the viewing conditions for a tablet are much less likely to be as controlled as in a home theater setup. Don't get me wrong, the black levels are better on the Tab S - it's just that the difference isn't that big, and many of the other characteristics are worse.

A bit misleading. Plasma failed due to expense of manufacture and poor energy efficiency. The best plasmas still crush the best LCDs in PQ, take a long look at a Pioneer Kuro display if you ever get a chance, they'll get my Pro-1FD out of my office when they can pry it from my cold, dead hands.

Much more important is if I'm able to to see what's on the display in bright sunlight. This is where my old iPad mini is quite bad, and some tests confirm that: only 378 nits means that the display is not very bright, and in fact towards the bottom of the range, with even the Amazon Fire beating it. Not quite at the bottom though, because dead last (among actual tablets) at 313 and 324 nits respectively, we have the two variants of the Tab S. That's how you get the black levels down, I guess.

Viewing in sunlight is one of the Super AMOLED display's strengths.

(All test results from Anandtech, btw.)

Very disappointing that Anand only used the default preset profiles, it's not surprising that in some tests the Tab S was merely average (though it does trounce the Air in grayscale and GMB, despite that).

Haswell-E uses DDR4, which no mobile device has yet. They all use LPDDR3, which is actually in the MBA, mini and the low-end iMac now. Turning off a memory chip isn't terribly hard in itself but then what use are they? How should the device know when you want to keep your web pages in memory and when you want to save power?

Obviously it's on demand, if you have something loaded it keeps it there, filling available memory, but not everyone runs their browser 24/7 (nor should they).

Well, it was discontinued before...

I don't believe it was ever discontinued for educational institutions.

No. Battery capacity went up with 8%, from 50 Wh to 54 Wh. The rest of the battery life increase came from decreased consumption.

No argument there.

They developed the OS, which is what made the difference. If the improvement had come from the batteries, they would be rated at 93.5 Wh.

That's quite a stretch in logic, considering how many other components get upgraded from one model/revision to the next.

[Cap'n Tightpants]

Originally Posted by OreoCookie 

Keep in mind, however, that due to garbage collection Android needs more memory to run the same apps.

I don't think that's the case anymore with 4.4.2 and above.

Actually, Apple's engineering has influenced Intel's specifications of its platforms: one of the reasons (beyond OS X) why Apple notebook typically last longer on a charge than similarly specced machines of others is that they have managed to reduce system power consumption in some external components. And these design choices have even informed Intel and its ultrabook platform specs (I remember reading a very interesting article on that, but I can't find it anymore). You give Apple's sub-contractors way too much credit: Apple's suppliers follow Apple's vision and build whatever has been designed in Cupertino.

Apple's battery life with the MBP and Air is very good, but they're still not in the range of Lenovo's best offerings. All manufacturers submit information to Intel, that isn't unique to anyone in particular.

[OreoCookie]

Originally Posted by Cap'n Tightpants 

Apple's battery life with the MBP and Air is very good, but they're still not in the range of Lenovo's best offerings. All manufacturers submit information to Intel, that isn't unique to anyone in particular.

First of all, that has nothing to do with my argument: I said that Apple's engineering efforts have informed Intel how to improve battery life by tweaking lots of small screws and accumulating energy savings along the way (which are individually small, but make a difference in the sum). If you then show me a machine which is built on top of this platform which includes these improvements, what exactly is your argument?

Besides, if you want to talk about platform efficiency, you have to normalize to the same battery size: the large battery (which is the one that gives you 15~20 hour battery life) is 33 % larger than the MacBook Air's (72 Wh vs. 54 Wh). It's hard to find good battery life tests out there, PCMag's results for the battery lives are 15:51 hours for the 13" Air vs. 15:16 hours for the X240 -- despite the Air's smaller battery. If you prefer laptopmag's tests, the 2014 Air manages 12:20 hours at 100 nits compared to 14:26 hours for the X240. If you scale the Air's battery life to the X240's larger battery, you'd get 16:27 hours.

[P]

Originally Posted by Cap'n Tightpants 

They do, but it's one of the things no one talks about, I can tell the difference between my daughter's G1 Air, mine, and my wife's. All 3 vary slightly (with the first being the best of the lot).

I guess it's one of those things where those in the know are bored of an old topic - after all big OEMs have done the same in laptops for decades - and a lot of newbies don't know.

Originally Posted by Cap'n Tightpants 

A bit misleading. Plasma failed due to expense of manufacture and poor energy efficiency. The best plasmas still crush the best LCDs in PQ, take a long look at a Pioneer Kuro display if you ever get a chance, they'll get my Pro-1FD out of my office when they can pry it from my cold, dead hands.

I assume you mean PQ = Picture Quality - and it is not quite so simple to say that the plasmas are better in picture quality period. The Kuros were exceptional, and some later Panasonic plasmas looked fantastic as well, but comparing the specs, the one thing they did well was black levels. As the Kuros happened in an era when LCDs had very bad black levels, the difference was noticeable. Newer LCDs are better, if not as good as Kuro/Panny plasmas, and they got better at everything else as well. Gamut is wider and max brightness is higher, which makes the equation more complex than just "plasmas look better". With a basic signal (no deep color), a room without reflections, and a movie with deep blacks: Yes, a good plasma looks better than most LCDs, because in that situation the black level is so obvious. But that is not the average viewing situation, and this is why plasma failed. Plasmas were more expensive to produce, more finicky with image retention, more prone to reflections, harder to transport and used more energy, and their only real advantage was not all that relevant in regular TV watching in an average room. Plasma fans kept talking about their black levels as if LCDs didn't improve after 2005 and missed that picture quality is so much more than just black levels.

This is where I draw the parallel to OLED. Worse at everything but better black levels is not good enough - it has been tried and didn't work. To be a viable alternative, OLED must be as good at all other things as a good IPS LCD. I would even say that black levels are less relevant here, as the viewing conditions ar eless likely to be so favorable.

Originally Posted by Cap'n Tightpants 

Obviously it's on demand, if you have something loaded it keeps it there, filling available memory, but not everyone runs their browser 24/7 (nor should they).

A modern UNIX-like kernel will use all available memory. To handle a situation where the amount of real memory might change, you'd have to add some logic to the kernel to flush unused memory in certain situations. Or do you mean that it can retain data in this sleep mode?

Originally Posted by Cap'n Tightpants 

I don't believe it was ever discontinued for educational institutions.

I mean that the iPad 3 was discontinued before the 2.

Originally Posted by Cap'n Tightpants 

That's quite a stretch in logic, considering how many other components get upgraded from one model/revision to the next.

Not really. Battery life on my MBA went up by over 40% on the exact same hardware with a new OS version.

[badidea]

Originally Posted by badidea 

Thanks! Will check that!

The patch does not help either - my hardware is too old!

[Mike Wuerthele]

The hand-off is reliant on a few hardware combinations for Bluetooth and/or Wi-Fi.

If you can get the old hardware up to spec, then you can run the patch to get Handoff to work. We did an article on it a few days ago.

[P]

Originally Posted by badidea 

I mean DTS-HD and Dolby True-HD.
There is no possibility to play that with OS X according to every information I could find (unfortunately I didn't check before I bought)!
Maybe it's time for Linux on the Mac mini now...

VLC is supposedly working on a passthrough solution for that, but do not have a time plan for it (it doesn't work on any platform atm). It does decode TrueHD, but only to whatever the device outputs (so stereo on a mini). There is no support for any DTS formats beyond the basic one.