Apple iPad Air 2, iPad Mini 3 launched along with iOS 8.1

vyral_143

vyral_143

Jarvis
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iPad Air 2

The Apple iPad Air 2 is only 6.1mm, making it the thinnest tablet yet. It's also now available in Gold as well as silver.

The tablet is powered by a custom Apple A8X chipset, which is a version made especially for the iPad family. The CPU is 40% faster, while the GPU is 2.5x faster than on the A7 chipset. The TouchID fingerprint sensor from the iPhone is finally available on the iPad Air 2.

The screen on the iPad Air 2 is the same reslution as before, but now has a new anti-reflective coating, which reduces reflections off the screen up to 56%.

The iPad Air 2 has a 8MP F/2.4 camera and shoots 1080p video. The camera can take time-lapse videos, 120fps slow-mo videos and has burst mode. There is also a second mic to allow stereo audio recording, unlike the iPhone 6.

The front camera is updates as well. It has a new sensor, improved face detection and HDR videos. Wi-Fi is faster now, with support for 802.11ac, MIMO antennas, rated at up to 866Mbps connection rate. Battery life is kept the same at 10h just like last year. The iPad Air 2 will be available in Silver, Space Gray and Gold.
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Source iPad Air 2

iPad Mini 3

The third generation Apple iPad mini is official. It's called just "iPad mini 3," the Retina display is a given. The iPad mini 3 screen keeps the size and resolution of its predecessor – 7.9" and 1,536 x 2,048 pixels. But it's not the thin, optically laminated, barely reflective screen of the iPad Air 2, instead it's just the same panel. This also means that the iPad mini 2 isn't thinner, it stays at 7.9mm and weighs the same.

Touch ID and Apple Pay have been added, plus there's a Gold color option and the 32GB option removed. The camera department remains unchanged – a 5MP iSight camera and an HD FaceTime camera. Same goes for connectivity, no Cat. 4 LTE or Wi-Fi 802.11ac. This is perhaps because the chipset is the old one, the Apple A7, so no performance upgrades are to be had here.
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Source iPad Mini 3

iOS 8.1

Apple event featured a long portion on new software and the highlight of that was the announcement of iOS 8.1. Apple Pay is, of course, the headlining feature but there's more.

Apple has changed how apps are handled – users can now check the permissions required by third-party apps and they can be disabled individually and re-enabled later.
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Source iOS 8.1

On pricing aspect,
iPad Mini - $249
iPad Mini 2 - starts from $299
iPad Mini 3 - starts from $399
iPad Air - starts from $399
iPad Air 2 - starts from $499

While iPad Air 2 have good upgrades, iPad Mini 3 have got 'micro' upgrades. A $100 cut to iPad Mini 2 makes it 'look' more attractive/VFM. In all there are 5 tablets available at this point from Apple.
 
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