Ipad Air 2

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My two children are currently using Ipad Mini 1 tablets, which have had exceptional innings, but are now incredibly slow.

I bought them a couple of Fire HD 10s specifically for Kids Unlimited (free apps and a selection of 'curated' videos). Unfortunately, the Ipad Minis were used and the HD10s left untouched in favour of YouTube Kids, which is not available on Amazon products (except with sideloading, which I didn't want to get into, since I want them to operate within the kids' environment of the tablet).

I'm a tiny bit reluctant to buy them Ipad 2018s. They loved them in the Apple store and desperately wanted them, however that's children for you. As soon as I fork out for a 9.7" tablet, they'll no doubt find them too big and go back to the Minis.

I can pick up a couple of 64Gb Ipad Air 2s (at £200 each, condition: good), and wonder what people feel about these tablets since the update to IOS12. Do they have 2 or 3 years life in them? Does anyone have a child with a full-sized iPad and do they use it comfortably?

The other option is to buy two new iPad 2018s from Tobydeals (or similar import site) for £250 each. I do not want to pay £300 each for something as old as the Mini 4, assuming they're still on offer.

Can anyone offer an opinion?

 

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The original Air seems, surprisingly, half decent on iOS 12 at least for all the stuff that they do, so I imagine an Air 2 will be fine but I guess it depends how old your kids are and what sort of things they're doing with them. Mine just seem to faff about with installing pointless apps, FaceTime, YouTube and crappy little games so the original Air should do them for a while yet.

It's good to hear the minis got kicked into touch. My children do pretty much the same stuff as yours - videos and a few Toca or Dr Panda games, nothing that'll stress a decent SoC. How is the battery holding up on the Air? The Mini 1 batteries seem perfectly fine after 7 or 8 years, but I suspect we've been lucky in that regard.

Re: iPad Pro 9.7, they seem to come in at £330 and there aren't loads knocking around. There has to be clear space between the price of old and new, otherwise the 2018 is priced low enough that I'd just buy new.