Apple CEO Tim Cook introduced the iPad Air 2 at the Apple October 2014 event with a sleek video that showed a thin new iPad. With over 225 million total iPad sales, Apple’s timely unveiling of its next-generation tablet highlighted its new features and capabilities. The iPad Air 2 has been available for pre-order since October 17, and shipments will begin this week, according to TechRadar.
Physical Specs
At only 6.1 mm thin, the new Air is the world’s thinnest tablet, at 18 percent thinner than the original iPad Air, beating rumors that suggested it would be 7mm, GottaBeMobile reports. According to PC Magazine, Apple actually removed a “micro-thin layer of air” in this new model to slim it down.
The Air 2 includes an anti-reflective coating that reduces the reflection by 56 percent, making it the only tablet with such low reflectivity. Apple’s newest tablet packs a completely new A8X processor specifically designed for the tablet. It is a second-generation 64-bit architecture chip offering 40 percent faster CPU than the previous iPad Air. Some apps will be up to 2.5 times faster, thanks to the speedy graphics processing unit. The Air 2 CPU performs 12 times faster than the original iPad’s, with 180 times faster graphics performance.
Using powerful Metal technology, the Air 2 can deliver console-level graphics. It also comes with a new 8 MP iSight camera at f/2.4 aperture that can take full HD 1080p videos. Users can even take large panoramas of up to 43 MP. The new camera supports Burst mode, time-lapse, slow-motion videos, an improved face detection system, and single-shot HDR photos and videos. One might think these incredible features would compromise the battery, but the tablet still gets 10 hours of life per charge.
Connectivity
The iPad Air 2 comes with an improved Wi-Fi: 802.11ac with MIMO, making it up to 2.8 times faster, delivering up to 866 Mbps. There is also faster LTE with more bands that serve up to 150 Mbps using carrier aggregation of up to 20 LTE bands.
The Air 2 comes with Touch ID and ships with the new iOS 8.1. Buyers can enjoy all the features of the new OS, including Apple Pay and HealthKit.
Starting at $499, will you purchase the new iPad Air 2?
Image courtesy of Flickr
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