Apple iPad Air 2, iPad Mini 3 officially announced

The Apple iPad Air 2 and iPad Mini 3 have officially been announced. See what exactly is new in this year's model.

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Apple has officially announced the next version of its popular tablet series, the iPad Air 2 and iPad Mini 3.

The iPad Air was pretty thin to begin with, and as you’d expect, the iPad 2 is even thinner than the width of a pencil at 6.1mm thick. That’s actually an 18% decrease in size, which is kind of impressive if you’ve ever held the iPad Air.

The iPad Air 2 sports a brand-new processor specifically created for the tablet called the A8X. Its CPU is 40% faster, its GPU is 2.5x faster, and is based on a 2nd-generation 64-bit architecture. An additional M8 motion co-processor is also included, which is able to track motion, calibrate the tablet’s sensors, and contains a barometer.

What would a new iOS device be without an improved camera, and the iPad Air 2 has just that. The tablet has an 8MP iSight camera capable of recording video in 1080p and has an f/2.4 aperture. The camera is capable of performing Burst Mode, Timelapse, and taking Slow-motion videos.

New iPad Mini

The new iPad Mini boasts modest improvements from its predecessor.

The front-facing camera has also been improved with a new FaceTime HD camera that features an all-new sensor and has an f/2.2 aperture. The camera also has improved facial detection, can take single-shot HDR photos and HDR videos, and is capable of taking burst selfies, you know, for when you need the perfect photo of you faking enjoyment at a public event.

The iPad features other hardware improvements that include faster Wi-Fi that’s able to perform at 150Mbps and has 20 LTE bands and finally comes with Apple’s Touch ID. This allows iPad users to be able to unlock their device, make purchases, and access sensitive information simply by using their fingerprint. Apple Pay will also be supported in the iPad Air 2. The tablet also has an improved Retina display, although at the time of its announcement, Apple didn’t go into just what makes this display better than previous versions.

The iPad Air 2 will retail for $499, $599, and $699 for the 16GB, 64GB, and 128GB versions, respectively. For those that would like their tablet to be equipped with LTE, you’ll pay $130 more from those original prices ($629, $729, and $829.)

The iPad Mini 3 was also announced today, although it didn’t get as much attention as the iPad Air 2. The iPad Mini 3 features a 7.9-inch Retina display, a 5MP iSight camera capable of recording videos in 1080p, a FaceTime HD camera, 802.11n with MIMO and will also come with Touch ID. Pricing for the iPad Mini 3 is $100 less than the iPad Air 2, which is $399, $499, and $599 for the 16GB, 64GB, and 128GB versions, respectively.

Pre-orders for both the iPad Air 2 or the iPad Mini 3 will start as early as tomorrow, October 17, where they’ll ship next week.

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From The Chatty
  • reply
    October 16, 2014 10:56 AM

    Daniel Perez posted a new article, Apple iPad Air 2 officially announced

    • reply
      October 16, 2014 11:21 AM

      GPU x2.5 faster, eh? Faster than the Air I assume. That would put it well ahead of the K1 based on benchmarks I've seen. That just doesn't seem right.

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        October 16, 2014 11:27 AM

        You'd be amazed just how fast mobile processors have been progressing throughout the years. I've been reporting on them for a number of years now and every year brings new processors that dwarf already impressive specs from the previous year's models.

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          October 16, 2014 11:30 AM

          I get that. But 2.5? That just seems like too much of a leap. Although they didn't qualify 2.5 faster of what. Fill rate? Geometry? Shader or RAM speed? Could just easily be a marketing gambit to pick some x2.5 number and harp on it. Just no way it'll amount to x2.5 in FPS.

          • reply
            October 16, 2014 11:32 AM

            TWO. POINT. FIVE.

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            October 16, 2014 11:49 AM

            Im a ceritified apple fanboy, but i fuckin hate their little rectangular speed badges. Stupid multiplers that mean nothing. TWO HUNDRED FIFTY TIMES BETTER!

            3 months later, andandtech bench goes 'oh. not bad. its 8 percent faster!'. -_-

            • reply
              October 16, 2014 11:50 AM

              Well, Apple has proven to be THE powerhouse in marketing for the last decade or so.

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              October 16, 2014 11:50 AM

              Haha! Yep - that's Apple for you. They're the kings at vague stats.

            • reply
              October 16, 2014 12:14 PM

              I saw Apple use the metric that the CPU in the new iPad Air is 180 times faster than the original iPad.

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                October 16, 2014 1:22 PM

                My Macbook Pro Retina is 71,000x faster than an Apple 2!!! (i KINDA understand the marketing there, i still hear a lot of people go 'my ipad 2 is fine' when it is indeed old and slow as fuck).

                • reply
                  October 16, 2014 2:01 PM

                  Might be "old and slow" but you're not consuming stuff so fast that the slowness REALLY matters on that kind of thing. Sure it feels better but spending $500 just so their web pages load 1 second faster isn't very practical for most people.

                  If they're not running into other annoying issues, the argument that you might save 1 minute a day in page loading is not worth $500 to most people.

      • reply
        October 16, 2014 11:53 AM

        Probably the Air. Last years air used the same dual core GPU as the phones. This year they are giving it the X variant, which is typically quad core GPU. So 2.5 times faster would be a modest bump per core, but twice the cores. That is about in line with the 5S to 6 GPU bump.

        • reply
          October 16, 2014 11:54 AM

          Ah. Explained that like that makes much more sense.

        • reply
          October 16, 2014 10:34 PM

          A7 (iPad Air) and A8 (iPhone 6) have 4 GPU cores, A8X may have 6.

    • reply
      October 16, 2014 12:04 PM

      [deleted]

    • reply
      October 16, 2014 12:12 PM

      Improved GPU? Does that mean opening the Arena treasure chest in Hearthstone won't lag anymore?

      • reply
        October 16, 2014 1:10 PM

        [deleted]

        • reply
          October 16, 2014 9:57 PM

          Blizzard has started to design their fancier animations with the iPad in mind now. None of the animations in Naxramus lag on an iPad Air.

      • reply
        October 16, 2014 11:03 PM

        Maybe disenchanting cards won't take 5 minutes

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      October 16, 2014 12:46 PM

      On a 30 pin original retina ipad. Will likely upgrade to air 2 64gb.

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      October 16, 2014 1:12 PM

      Does it have Touch ID?

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      October 16, 2014 1:54 PM

      how is this compared to the sony Z tablets?

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        October 16, 2014 2:24 PM

        The iPad Air 2 has a superior display, most likely better battery life. It's a bit bigger after all.

        The Z3 Tablet Compact has more RAM, a faster CPU and is waterproof. If the spec sheet translates into actual performance gains remains to be seen. Its only weakness seems to be the display, which has been described as an also-ran.

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      October 16, 2014 2:26 PM

      Does it bend?

    • reply
      October 17, 2014 4:05 AM

      Hmh. No confirmation if it's 1 or 2GB RAM yet. That's the deciding factor for me.

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