Apple has unveiled the iPad Air 2 and it’s thinner, more powerful and feature packed than the first iPad Air at just 6.1mm, with an A8X chip and TouchID finger print sensor.
The cameras has been updated too with the iSight camera at the back now an 8MP snapper while the front facing FaceTime camera has been fitted with larger pixels.
The iPad Air tablets are meant to be thin yet powerful and Apple just did that by using One Glass Solution to fuse several layers of the display into one panel. This made it 18% thinner and lighter by almost a quarter of a kilogram.
There’s also a gold color option now in addition to the usual silver and space gray if you’re into that kind of thing.
The display of the iPad Air 2 stays at the same resolution as the previous one at 2048 x 1536 pixels resulting in a pixel density of 264 ppi. It is now fully laminated though and has an anti-reflective coating which is nice.
Inside the iPad Air 2 is a customized version of the iPhone 6 chip called A8X. Of course this is still a dual core processor but with a 64-bit architecture that developers can take advantage of in maximizing the capabilities of their apps.
It also has the M8 co-processor which monitors the sensors including a new barometer in order to minimize the load of the main A8X chip. This also results in better power management and Apple says the iPad Air 2 can last up to 10 hours of usual usage.
The iPad Air 2 will also come with iOS 8 out of the box and this means it will have Apple Pay. There’s also a TouchID finger print sensor behind that home button.
You know how I feel about using tablets to take pictures but the iPad Air 2 might just justify the awkwardness of that by having an 8MP camera at the back. Still, I wouldn’t recommend it though.
Wireless connectivity has also been improved for the iPad Air 2. It now has MIMO, 802.11ac and dual band Wi-Fi support while more LTE bands are supported.
The iPad Air 2 starts at $499 (around ₱23,000) in the US for the16GB Wi-Fi only version. There’s also a 64GB and a 128GB version which costs $100 and $200 more respectively. The 4G LTE version starts at $629 and increases in the same manner.
You might also want to check out the prices of the old iPad Air and other previous iPad models which will now be cheaper.
Specs:
- 9.7-Inch IPS Retina Display (2048 x 1536 Pixels, 264 ppi)
- Scratch Resistant Glass with Antireflective Coating
- iOS8 Operating System
- 64-bit A8X Chipset with M8 Motion Coprocessor
- 1.3GHz Dual Core Cyclone CPU
- Quad Core PowerVR G6430 GPU
- No MicroSD Card Slot
- 16, 64 or 128GB Internal Storage
- 8.0 Megapixel Autofocus Main Camera with BSI Sensor, f/2.4 Aperture and LED Flash
- 1.2 Megapixel Front Camera with f/2.4 Aperture
- Single SIM (Nano SIM)
- 4G LTE, 3G HSPA+, 2G EDGE and GPRS Networks
- Dual band Wi-Fi with MIMO Support
- Bluetooth 4.0 with A2DP
- GPS with A-GPS and GLONASS
- No FM Radio
- Lightning Port
- 3.5mm Audio Jack
- Stereo Loudspeakers
- Active Noise Cancellation
- TouchID Finger Print Sensor
- Barometer
- Compass
- Gyroscope
- Accelerometer
- Proximity Sensor
- Ambient Light Sensor
- 240 x 169.5 x 6.1 mm @ 437 g
- 8,600mAh Battery (Non-removable)
- Available in Silver, Gold and Space Gray
- ₱23,000 Estimated Starting Price
