When I started college 5 years ago, I purchased my first iPad, which was very premium and quite expensive. Upon reflection, was it worth it? Let’s talk about it. This is my iPad Air long-term review 5 years later from a college student.
Device Overview and Performance
The iPad Air 3 was released on March 25th, 2019, with a whole slew of exciting features, especially for the time. It boarded an incredibly thin body, a wide screen, and a beautiful display. Even by today’s standards, it’s a really wonderful device. It’s passable even for today.
That’s not to say the tablet is perfect, but for my work, I’m thoroughly impressed. I use my tablet in a pretty typical way for students, including notetaking, daily journaling, emailing, documentation, etc. It’s used as a productivity machine and it does that very well.
Processor Capability
As a reminder, this tablet rocks the Apple A12 Bionic. Despite its age, the A12 is pretty good. Especially at the beginning, there was very little slowdown for this thing. There was no lag, no issues, no worries. It seriously enabled a smooth experience.
While certain iPads that rock the M processors like the newest iPad Air and Pro are really powerful and can last 5 or maybe even 10 years, the A12 chip shows that processor performance is at an all-time high. The A12 is still passable for today’s programs and even good in most cases.
Real-World Usage and Limitations
Most of the lag I receive from this tablet is when I’m either booting it up or really pushing it with Notability with my journals. I’ll usually go over 100 pages each year and this tablet will definitely struggle when hitting those higher page counts. Frequent crashes on your apps will definitely be common when you hit that page limit. That’s typically also the case for PowerPoint presentations and files that are detailed.
The Apple Pencil Experience
The Apple Pencil is incredible. There is absolutely zero lag with the stylus and it’s just so effective at doing what I needed to do. Its accuracy is also unmatched. The stylus is totally usable even with my screen protector, which is glass not the papermate textured versions because I like that glossy slick feel which I got used to extremely quickly.
Common Glitches and Minor Criticisms
One of my biggest issues with my iPad Air is this frequent glitch where, if I used my Apple Pencil for a short period of time and wanted to move something on the tablet with my finger, my iPad would not register it and would freeze for a solid minute or two. It only unfreezes with the Apple Pencil, which is pretty distracting during fast-paced lectures. I believe this is an individual issue for me.
Other nitpicks include:
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I wish this tablet didn’t have the weird Apple Pencil Generation 1 feature of having to stick the stylus into the device to charge.
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I am not a huge fan of the tablet crashing on me every so often in my notetaking apps, which has happened more often as the iPad has aged, leading me to lose about a page worth of notes sometimes.
Why I Would Buy It Again
With full certainty, I would absolutely buy this tablet again 5 years later. My experience with this thing has been that good. I attribute a lot of my success and grades that allowed me to start grad school my junior year to this thing. The digital notetaking factor is huge for me.
It has helped me become who I am, but buying an iPad alone will not change your life. This iPad is a tool; you still need to put in the hard work to get the grades you want and use the tablet correctly.
Final Verdict
If you need an iPad, want it, and can afford it, get it. But put in the effort to justify its price, work with the tablet, use it productively, and make it the setup companion it’s meant to be. For me, the iPad is not a replacement for my MacBook or my phone it’s my tool for learning and creativity.
I give this tablet a 9 out of 10, maybe even a 9.5 out of 10. It’s just that good for me. My name is Cyrus. It’s spelled like Cyrus, fast-C, See-Rooster, just take the T. Thank you very much for reading and have a wonderful day.
