I'm still impressed by my iPad Air 2. I originally bought it for product demos/ as a presentation tool for work, but now use it regularly for personal use. My only regret is getting the 16GB version.
I too still use an iPad Air 2 (with Lightning/3rd Gen) every single day. It is starting to slow down but is still perfectly usable. Only recently have I even considered upgrading as they now offer the 9.8" iPad Pros. Until recently, I haven't even felt like there was any point in upgrading. Only minor features have been released (most of which affect things like cameras that I don't care about). The body style has barely changed and most people can't tell that I have a 5-year-old iPad. I've been very happy with it.
To this point, I wonder how much Apple is struggling with this "problem". There is very little value in upgrading to newer iPads. Even for those of us that have the disposable income to spend on them, we can use a 5 year old iPad which acts almost identically to the newer ones. Yes, Apple has pushed some of the power features that the newer ones can do, but for those of us that just use it for notetaking, internet browsing, social media consumption, etc there has been virtually no need to upgrade. The second hand market is saturated with perfectly good devices for $100-$150 that perform in ways that are nearly indistinguishable from brand new iPads for the 95% of the population that are using these devices for media consumption.
Sure if you use the iPad for media creation then you can benefit from a newer one. But for media consumption, the older iPads perform nearly indistinguishably from the new ones.
To this point, I wonder how much Apple is struggling with this "problem". There is very little value in upgrading to newer iPads. Even for those of us that have the disposable income to spend on them, we can use a 5 year old iPad which acts almost identically to the newer ones. Yes, Apple has pushed some of the power features that the newer ones can do, but for those of us that just use it for notetaking, internet browsing, social media consumption, etc there has been virtually no need to upgrade. The second hand market is saturated with perfectly good devices for $100-$150 that perform in ways that are nearly indistinguishable from brand new iPads for the 95% of the population that are using these devices for media consumption.
Sure if you use the iPad for media creation then you can benefit from a newer one. But for media consumption, the older iPads perform nearly indistinguishably from the new ones.