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Why Apple's iPad refresh is good news for gamers

It's a great time to buy a new tablet

Why Apple's iPad refresh is good news for gamers
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Apple recently refreshed its iPad range, but you might well have missed it.

The American tech giant didn't hold a special event to announce its new roster. Rather, the news quietly slipped out, alongside news of a new red iPhone 7.

It's perhaps easy to see why Apple kept this one low key. There are no radical new technological advances to the current line-up of the iPad Pro, the iPad (bye bye Air), and the trusty iPad mini 4.

But nor are these mere cosmetic changes. Indeed, we reckon this latest revamp - particularly that newly rechristened iPad - is really good news for gamers. Here's why.

More power to you

The outgoing iPad Air 2 was a great servant for Apple. It was launched in October 2016 - almost two and a half years ago.

That's a long innings for a smart device, and it performed well for most of that time. Indeed, right up to its replacement this week the iPad Air 2 was arguably Apple's main tablet.

But it was definitely starting to show its age. To put that into perspective, the A8X chip that powered the iPad Air 2 was essentially a souped-up version of the A8 chip that powered the iPhone 6.

The biggest addition to the new iPad - the iPad Air 2's replacement - is that it comes with Apple's A9 chip. Now, this isn't Apple's latest chip, but it is the same one that powers the iPhone 6S - which can still handle any game you throw at it without breaking into a sweat.

The A9 actually drops a processing core compared to the A8X, but improvements elsewhere mean that the two chips get similar processing performance. If anything, the newer A9's superior single-core performance gives it the edge overall.

But it's the A9's more advanced GPU - a PowerVR GT7600 versus the A8X's PowerVR GXA6850 - that will mean good things for gamers.

More capacity for fun

As well as being more powerful than the iPad Air 2, the new iPad that replaces it will also come with more storage as standard. In other words, Apple has abolished the 16GB model.

Any serious iOS gamer will know that 16GB doesn't store a whole lot of games, once you factor in the size of iOS and your other locally stored apps and files.

More storage as standard is a very gaming-friendly feature. Obviously.

Lower price

The new iPad is more powerful and more capacious than the outgoing iPad Air 2, but the great news is that Apple hasn't bumped the price up accordingly.

Indeed, the new iPad will start from just £339 for the aforementioned 32GB model. Previous new iPads (including the iPad Air 2) shipped at £399 for a 16GB model.

Given that Apple users - and UK Apple users in particular - have been stung by some pretty hefty price rises from the company of late, this is particularly great news.

No more iPad Mini 2

Further down the range, Apple has finally done away with the iPad mini 2. Now, we liked the iPad Mini 2. We really did. But it was even older than the iPad Air 2.

In fact, the iPad Mini 2 was a whole year older, meaning it had been on the roster for approaching three-and-a-half years. If you're trying to figure out which chip that means it was running on, I'll put you out of your misery - it was the A7. That's the exact same chip that powered the iPhone 5S.

The A7 was great for its time (it was Apple's first 64-bit processor), but it's well behind the curve as we approach mid-2017, and not something that runs the latest 3D games at their best.

Okay, so the iPad Mini 4 is only slightly more current for running the Apple A8 chip (the same as the iPhone 6), but that still represents a much more capable baseline for Apple's tablet range than before.

Jon Mundy
Jon Mundy
Jon is a consummate expert in adventure, action, and sports games. Which is just as well, as in real life he's timid, lazy, and unfit. It's amazing how these things even themselves out.