My parents have an ipad air, its nice and light but other than that I cant see much difference over my own ipad.
My own personal opinion is that for my next device I will be leaning more away from Apple... purely because of some of their restrictions... ie such as being able to insert SDcards etc.
.how do you transfer photos from cameras directly to the I Pad
I found the easiest way is to email photos to myself... yep I know its a PITA... there is a way you are supposed to be able to do if from the PC via iTunes, but its a lot of faffing around. :/