New iPad Air: Lighter, thinner 9.7-inch tablet weighs just 1 pound, arrives Nov. 1 (hands-on)

  Apple announced the iPad Air, its fifth-generation iPad, October 22 in San Francisco at the company's annual unveiling event . T...

 

Apple announced the iPad Air, its fifth-generation iPad, October 22 in San Francisco at thecompany's annual unveiling event. Thinner, lighter, and with a more powerful processor, the 9.7-inch iPad Air with Retina Display brings some design and performance enhancements to the best-selling tablet, but not as many additions as we had hoped for, or as rumors suggested.

In fact, we'd say that Apple missed some opportunities to wow us with a tablet that could have perhaps had a larger screen with higher resolution, a higher-megapixel camera, or laptoplike accessories. At the very least, this was Apple's chance to recapture its spirit of innovation and give us something different, rather than what amounts to a polished iteration of what we already had.

For instance, there's no gold-hued version as with the iPhone 5S, and Apple mentioned nothing about incorporating the Touch ID fingerprint sensor that uses biometric data to unlock the phone and approve purchases. Also, by keeping many key specs on par with last year's model, Apple's full-size iPad and iPad Mini are now more similar than ever, except that the Mini costs $100 less.

Design and in-hand feel
From the moment you first pick it up, the iPad Air's weight and slimness are two of its most significant new features. Tipping the scale at just 1 pound, the iPad Air's heft is down from the 1.44 pounds of the fourth-generation iPad. It also measures an extremely thin 7.5 millimeters (0.29 inch), as opposed to the predecessor's 9.4mm depth (0.37 inch) -- that's a 20 percent slimmer build, if you're keeping count. The bezel is also much narrower, too; 43 percent so, in fact.

A tablet's heft plays a crucial role in how quickly your arms tire holding it. In this update, Apple has managed to reduce its hardware's weight by almost half a pound, an impressive feat that you're only likely to notice because you hardly notice it at all. In fact, even though we knew the specs, nothing can prepare you for how light and slim the iPad Air actually feels in real life.

The weight makes it much easier to hold with one hand, and the pared-down bezel makes the screen absolutely pop. Our first impression: the iPad Air is like the iPhone 5S of iPads: refined, reduced, and overall improved.

Performance and other hardware
A new A7 chip inside makes the Air eight times faster than the iPad 4, according to Apple. For reference, this is the same 64-bit chip populating the iPhone 5S. Like Apple's latest smartphone, the Air's A7 also comes with the M7 motion coprocessor, which promises graphics that render at twice the rate of the previous iPad.

In terms of graphics, that means that this iPad Air is 72 times faster than the original iPad in GPU performance, but who's counting? All that really matters is how it stacks up against today's top tablet performers (and more on that to come when we actually get review units in-house.)

In terms of Wi-Fi, there's MIMO wireless technology onboard, but the Air is using the 802.11n standard, not the the more current "ac" Wi-Fi designation.

We're sorry, but nobody looks cool taking photos with a tablet. However, if you must (and it's quite possible that your tablet contains the best camera you own), then the iPad Air has a 5-megapixel iSight camera on the rear that Apple says takes improved low-light shots. On the front, video-chatters will find the refreshed FaceTime HD camera, which gives you larger pixels to make images look clearer, according to the claim. Dual microphones will help capture even sound.

Apple is always cagey when it comes to sharing battery capacity details, but the company does list a 32.4-watt-hour rechargeable lithium battery, and promises to keep up its 10-hour battery life rate on the Air.

On the software front, free and redesigned versions of core Apple apps -- like iPhoto, iMovie, Keynote, and GarageBand -- have been reworked for iOS 7 and the iPad.

iPad Air or iPad Mini 2?
With the iPad Mini 2's Retina Display and updated specs, the iPad Air becomes a little less dominant in this space. Its similarity to the $399 iPad Mini with Retina Display makes us wonder if Apple is cannibalizing iPad sales for the smaller, cheaper device.

Are you willing to pay $100 more for a larger screen? Yeah, you might be, if you value more expansive screen real estate and rely on that virtual keyboard.

Pricing and availability
As with past models, the iPad will come in both Wi-Fi and cellular versions that support LTE.

	16GB	32GB	64GB	128GB
Wi-Fi	$499	$599	$699	$799
Cellular	$629	$729	$829	$929

The iPad Air ships November 1 in space gray and black, and silver and white colors (but no gold, sorry). Prices start at $499 for a 16GB Wi-Fi version, with the cellular model coming in at $629. In addition to a wave of other first-release countries, it's coming to China with Wi-Fi, a first for Apple.

Although the iPad Air completely replaces the fourth-generation iPad, Apple will continue to sell the iPad 2 for $399.