iPad Air 2 and Mini 3 Review
First one I've seen.
http://www.engadget.com/2014/10/21/ipad-air-2-mini-3-review/
IPAD AIR 2 IPAD AIR IPAD MINI 3 NVIDIA SHIELD TABLET
Geekbench 3.0 4,510 2,646 2,470 3,423
Basemark X 29,518 15,231 14,839 TBD
3DMark IS Unlimited 21,659 15,536 14,595 30,970
SunSpider 1.0 (ms) 303 404 439 463
GFXBench 3.0 (fps) 32.4/24.6 13.0/8.8 13.0/8. 31.0/29.7
SunSpider: Lower scores are better.
Looks like quite a powerhouse. CPU performance is 1.7x, 1.9x, and 1.3x vs. iPad Air, in the respective benchmarks above. 3D benchmarks are 1.4x, 2.5x, respectively. Seems they met their 3D claim with GFXBench, but fell short on 3DMark. CPU performance easily exceeded expectations of 1.4x on the more synthetic benchmarks, but slightly fell short in Sunspider.
Battery life on the Air 2 came in slightly behind the iPad Air (11:15 vs. 13:45), but the iPad Mini 3 scored 13:45 (vs. 12:43 for the Mini 1).
Apple still has the best industrial design in the business. It's a shame that more OEMs can't come close in quality. A8X is now also the fastest ARM SOC on the planet, delivering world-leading CPU performance, and damned good 3D, although the 3DMark numbers are chronically disappointing for nearly all i-devices. But even the worst of A8X is pretty damned impressive.
I'm sure people will also love to compare A8X to submissions using Core i5 processors for the MacBook Air. (Quick comparison: MacBook Air 2014 edition scores between 4500 and 5300 in Geekbench 3.0).
I'd love to see more data on the die size of this beast (guessing in the range of ~120-140mm2, given the ~3B transistor number).
