In an event, Apple announced the company’s latest iPad – iPad Air 2, the second generation iPad Air at a starting price tag of $499 for 16GB version, $599 for 64GB version and $699 for the 128GB version, Wi-Fi versions. The Wi-Fi + LTE variant costs $629 for 16GB, $729GB for 64GB and $829 for 128GB. It will go on pre-order starting October 17th and will be shipping starting next week.
On the specifications front, it features 9.7-inch Retina display with a resolution of 2048 x 1536 pixels at 264 ppi. It has anti-reflective coating on the glass which reduces reflections by 56% and it is powered by Apple A8X chip that is based on 2nd generation 64-bit architecture. It has 3 billion transistors compared to 1 billion on the A7. The CPU is 12 times faster than the first iPad and the GPU is 180 times faster. It has M8 co-processor, similar to Apple iPhone 6.
It runs on iOS 8.1 and has in-built memory of 16GB/64GB/128GB. It also has Touch ID fingerprint sensor on the home buttons and it is just 61.mm thin, which makes it the thinnest tablet in the world. When compared with last year iPad Air, it is 18% thinner.
On the imaging front, it has 8-megapixel iSight camera with 1.12 micron pixels, f/2.4 aperture and 1080p video-recording. It has new 1.2MP FaceTime HD camera with new sensor and f/2.2 aperture.
The LTE version now has support for 20 LTE bands similar to iPhone 6.
