iPad Air (2020), Magic Keyboard, and Apple Pencil 2 Review: Can They Replace Your Laptop?
Although expensive, Apple s latest iPad could be a versatile all-rounder By Jamshed Avari | Updated: 13 February 2021 10:54 IST
The 4th Gen iPad Air shares lots of design elements and features with the iPad Pro line
Highlights
The Apple A14 Bionic SoC delivers good performance and battery life
iPadOS 14 improves support for trackpads and handwriting recognition
The iPad Air got a huge upgrade in late 2020, with an all-screen design reminiscent of the current iPad Pro lineup, the new Apple A14 Bionic processor which promises exceptional performance, and a bunch of other features that set it apart. This model is positioned below the iPad Pro models but now offers quite a lot of their capabilities at lower prices. I ve spent over a month with the new 2020 iPad Air, plus Apple s Magic Keyboard and Apple Pencil 2, to see how the combination of products work to
MySmartPrice
Dec 20, 2020
The Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 5G SoC is the chipset that will power flagship Android smartphones in 2021. The SoC was announced earlier in December through an online event and it brings some remarkable improvements in the already popular Snapdragon platform. Qualcomm promised a 25 per cent improvement in CPU performance and a whopping 35 per cent improvement in GPU performance. To drive home that point, Qualcomm today released benchmark scores of the Snapdragon 888 5G running on a reference device powered by the latest flagship hardware. And safe to say, Android flagships are going to push way ahead in the coming year, maybe even past Apple’s A14 Bionic in some of the synthetic benchmark scores, if the benchmark numbers shared by Qualcomm are anything to go by.
Qualcomm shares Snapdragon 888 reference device benchmarks
The Snapdragon 888 reference device scored well, but don t expect a huge leap in performance
Whenever a new mobile chipset is announced, one of the big questions is about how well it performs. Such is the case with Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 888.
The company’s recently announced system-on-a-chip (SoC) promises better artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) performance, improved photography and more. Qualcomm also touted the new Kryo 680 as capable of a 25 percent uplift in overall CPU performance compared to the previous generation. On the GPU side, the new Adreno 660 can render graphics up to 35 percent faster than the previous generation.
Chris Davies - Dec 18, 2020, 8:30am CST
The Snapdragon 888 is Qualcomm’s flagship chipset for Android smartphones in 2021, and the stakes have arguably never been higher. On the one hand, Apple is flexing its chip-design chops, and while Qualcomm modems may be in its current hardware, that’s not going to be the case forever. Meanwhile, Qualcomm’s Android SoC rivals aren’t standing still.
Qualcomm has pulled out all the stops for the Snapdragon 888, then, even skipping ahead in its nomenclature to borrow some traditional Chinese good luck in the process. Were 2020 a normal year, we’d have had a chance to play with the company’s Snapdragon reference design, Qualcomm’s demo hardware for developers and engineers to tinker with the specs.