First iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 3 Reviews Hit the Web [Mega Roundup]

Apple’s embargo has lifted on members of the press that received early iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 3 review units.

As expected, the iPad Air 2 is praised as being very thin, light and fast. Earlier today Primate Labs posted Geekbench 3 benchmarks which saw the iPad Air 2 in multi-core tests beat all other iOS devices by a large margin:

Here are the single core tests:

As for the iPad mini 3, since it only gained Touch ID and the gold colour option, there wasn’t that much to get excited about. Interestingly enough, early preliminary Geekbench 3 tests by Macotakara show the iPad mini 2 as being slightly faster than the iPad mini 3:

Here’s a list of reviews available right now (it will be continuously updated)…

iPad Air 2

• Re/code by Walt Mossberg
• TechCrunch by Darrell Etherington
• Canadian Reviewer by Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla
• Fast Company by Harry McCracken (combined with iPad mini 3)
• The Verge by Nilay Patel
• Engadget by Brad Molen
• Yahoo! Tech by David Pogue (hilarious)
• SlashGear by Chris Davies
• USA Today by Ed Baig
• Pocket-Lint by Stuart Miles
• CNET by Scott Stein
• The Telegraph by Matt Warman
• T3 by Gareth Beavis
• Tech Radar by Gareth Beavis
• Mashable by Lance Ulanoff
• WSJ by Joanna Stern
• NYT by Farhad Manjoo (combined with iPad mini 3)
• The Guardian by Samuel Gibbs
• Daring Fireball by John Gruber (read this)
• The Loop by Jim Dalrymple (combined with iPad mini 3)
• The Globe and Mail by Seamus Bellamy

iPad mini 3

• TechCrunch by Darrell Etherington
• The Verge by Dieter Bohn
• T3 by Gareth Beavis
• Tech Radar by Gareth Beavis
• Canadian Reviewer by Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

Essentially, if you’re upgrading from the iPad Air to the iPad Air 2, the differences won’t that that noticeable compared to upgrading from the original iPad, iPad 2, iPad 3 or iPad 4. As for the iPad mini 3…well, you now get Touch ID.

iPad Air 2 online pre-orders have already started shipping to Canada, but some deliveries might not make Friday’s launch date.

Refresh for updates…