Customers who just purchased Apple’s iPad Air have expressed their displeasure with the device’s build quality.
Multiple Reddit users who purchased the new iPad Air have reported creaking in the device’s back aluminium plate, which is substantially thinner than the previous model.
In the Reddit post that sparked the discussion, the author states:
I’m a little taken aback after receiving two blue iPad Air 2022s that I purchased today. The aluminium backplate of the iPad 5 is much thinner than the one on my iPad 4. With the smartphone in your hands, you can almost feel the battery. There is a creaking sound and a similar sensation to both iPads when you handle them. The iPad Air 4 was unaffected by this. Is it just me, or are both of them returning? A second individual agreed with me, so I wasn’t the only one.
The initial response from other new owners of the item was that they too had had the same problem:
This is also confirmed on my blue Air 5. Back there, it seems as though I’m able to get a sense of the inner. No problems as long as you’ve got it in a folio case.
“Same here, also have the blue,” stated another user, who had previously claimed that they could feel a gap between the iPad’s back and its internal components. As a result of their dissatisfaction, they want to exchange their iPad for an M1 iPad Pro.
According to a fourth user who agreed, “I felt I was paranoid,” Others claimed to have not noticed it and claimed that it was confined to the blue iPad, but one user claimed to have experienced the same issue with Space Grey and had taken it back to an Apple store, adding that they had tried all the colours and still had problems, despite Apple’s denials of any such occurrences.
In addition to the claims made by some iPad users, it has been reported that this generation’s back seems thinner and has more give than the previous version, which was one of Apple’s greatest iPads. Some users have reported feeling the battery through the rear shell.
A 12MP front-facing camera, the M1 Apple silicon processor, and 5G for cellular variants are among the new features of Apple’s latest iPad, which was announced last week. The rest of the design is a carryover from the previous iteration.