The iPad Air 2's front-facing camera usually used for FaceTime is considerably better in low light, it produces far better-saturated light over the whole area of the camera, and is especially useful for clarity at nighttime. The back facing camera has been improved by 35% but on an iPad, I don't see this being very useful in the real world.
The iPad Air 2's memory has been increased to 2GB, previous iPad models only had half this and my thoughts are that this will be useful for split-screen multitasking in future iOS updates, and this feature is unlikely to work on anything but the iPad Air 2. The additional processor, as the iPad Air 2 has three cores, will also be useful for the split screen facility in an iOS update. Increasing the clock speed of the processors to 1.5Ghz from the 1.4Ghz speed of the iPad Air 1 isn't really noticeable, it's the addition of the extra core that has the greatest impact on the iPad Air 2 in relation to overall performance.
The fingerprint security recognition is very useful if you use the iPad Air 2 around those you'd rather not have access to your iPad, as a simple 4 digit passcode for unlocking the previous iPad models was absolutely useless in this respect, those around you could easily guess the simple passcode with a quick glance and more complex passcodes were too slow for continual access requirements on a daily basis.
Wireless has been updated to the 802.11ac standard and this does improve the performance at range with beaming technology but to take full advantage of this facility the wireless router needs to be 802.11ac compatible. Saying that on tests I've done the iPad Air 2 it's more responsive to its now able to keep up easily with super fast internet connection exceeding 55Mbps. My iPad Retina had great difficulty exceeding this speed consistently, so wasn't taking full advantage of my 80Mbps broadband connection even though it was only on a 2.4Ghz/5Ghz 802.11n dual-band wireless capable router, the iPad Air 2 does this with ease on this setup.
If you're interested in sound quality from the speakers then sadly you'll be disappointed. The iPad Air 2 has a tendency to vibrate at high audio levels, fortunately for me, I play my music through an Apple TV/Airport Express through a DacMagic to a HiFi, so I'm not really interested in high-quality audio through the internal speakers but it could be designed better in this respect.
The keyboard has been criticised but my experience is that it's very responsive and performs far better than my iPad Retina. I believe this problem is down to iOS 8 and will be fixed in later iOS bug fixes, and I hope this will be done quickly. I've also noticed that Safari has a cursor positioning problem in iOS 8.1 that needs addressing urgently, it is especially annoying on some forum websites that I frequent.
Battery life is slightly better than other full-size iPad models, and most noteworthy is the fact that the battery recharges quicker than previous full-sized iPad models, especially in respect to the iPad Retina (4th generation), that took ages from flat.
iPad Air 2 first honest impressions
Moderator: embleton
Re: iPad Air 2 first honest impressions
Lets state first that I'm impressed with Apple for replacing my iPad Air 2 within 5 days from reporting a fault that developed on the screen last week. The iPad Air 2 developed a hairline crack across the screen from the left bottom to top right that necessitated it being returned to the Apple repair centre and replaced with a brand new one after 2 months of heavy and normal use. Once the fault was reported to Apple they sent packaging by UPS that took 2 business days to arrive. The iPad was returned by UPS, prepaid by Apple to their repair centre, and quickly turned around in 2 days by Apple and sent back by UPS. All of this service was completely free of charge and done under guarantee.