We think it’s pretty fair to say that Apple’s recent announcement of the iPad Air didn’t exactly blow everyone’s mind when it comes to technological innovation. The unveiling of the next-generation full-sized iPad pretty much fell in line with what the majority were expecting in the fact that it offers an improved but evolutionary upgrade from its predecessor. The introduction of the Apple A7 chipset and the improved engineering principles mean that the device will ultimately be faster, lighter and thinner than all other iPads to date, but the Primate Labs Geekbench 3 tests give us a pre-release indication of just how capable the iPad Air is.
The minimum we expect from any next-generation hardware release is a noticeable improvement in device performance. Apple’s introduction of the iPhone 5s and 5c paved the way for the A7 processor to make its way into the internals of the new 9.7-inch iPad. The Primate Labs team have put the iPad Air through the Geekbench 3 test which acts as a cross-platform processor benchmark indicator. The test works as a real-world indicator of performance and like many of tests of a similar nature, a higher score indicates a faster performance.
Primate Labs have taken the extra step of charting the results of the iPad Air when compared against all previous iPad models (excluding the original 2010 launch model). All of the hardware tested have been done so using single-core and multi-core processes. Apple’s new iPad Air returned a score of 1465 in the single-core test which represents a 2x performance improvement over the fourth-generation iPad. It’s interesting to note that the second and third-generation iPads as well as the iPad mini fall way behind with scores in the mid 200s.
The multi-core tests show similar results. The iPad Air notched up a score of 2643 with the fourth-generation iPad managing to pull in 1408. The tests obviously show that the new iPad Air offers a significant performance improvement over previously released devices. However, it also confirms that Apple marketing information that suggests the device will offer double the processing speed of the iPad 4. The tests also show that the A7 processor in the device is running at 1.4GHz, which is 100MHz faster than the same processor found in the recent iPhone 5s release.
The iPad Air will be available to consumers for purchase starting November 1st.
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