Apple has announced the refresh to the iPad lineup, with the fifth generation of Apple iPad being called the Apple iPad Air, which gets its name because of the thickness and weight. The iPad Air with the thin design and the light weight, comes with a retina display and most of the recent best specifications that the iPhone 5S was launched with. Weighing around a pound, the iPad Air comes with the thinning near the bezels, and the maximum thickness of this new gen. iPad is 7.5mm.

In terms of external design, the iPad Air has been made much like the first gen iPad Mini with the rounded corners, the chamfered edges and the smooth back finish. What looks the most interesting in this is the processor, with the Apple A7 chipset being included, which is the 64-bit processor that was first included in the Apple iPhone 5S, and there is an improvement in the graphics performance by multiple folds.

Against most the rumors, Apple has kept it simple with the display being still the same – 9.7-inch retina display with the screen resolution of 2048 x 1536 pixels. The processor is one which has got an upgrade, with the iPad Air having a new A7 64-bit chipset, along with the M7 Motion co-processor which was all the same architecture which Apple introduced last month in the iPhone 5S. It is claimed by Apple that the new iPad has 2x the CPU performance and the graphics performance when compared to the previous gen iPad. With the MIMO technology and two antennas instead of one, the iPad Air is able to deliver up to twice the performance of Wi-Fi when compared to the predecessor.

Apple has been generous at this event yesterday, as they made the apps such as iPhoto, iMovie, GarageBand, Pages, Numbers, and Keynote free to use. The iPad Air would come out of the box running the iOS 7, which would get the iOS 7.0.3 update as soon as it is connected to the Internet. The iPad Air comes with a 5-megapixel iSight camera which is capable of 1080p video recording.

Apple iPad Air Specifications

• 9.7-inch (diagonal) LED-backlit Multi-Touch display with IPS technology
• Retina Display, 2048 x 1536 pixels
• Dimensions: 9.4 inches (240 mm) x 6.6 inches (169.5 mm) x 0.29 inch (7.5 mm)
• Weight: 1 pound, i.e. 469gm [1.05 pound for Wi-Fi + Cellular]
• A7 chip with 64-bit architecture and M7 motion coprocessor
• 5-megapixel rear iSight Camera, 1080p video recording
• 1.2-megapixel front FaceTime Camera, 720p video recording
• iOS 7 operating system
• 32.4-watt-hour rechargeable lithium-polymer battery, 10 hours battery life
• Wi-Fi (802.11a/b/g/n); dual channel (2.4GHz and 5GHz) and MIMO
• Bluetooth 4.0
• Cellular: LTE with Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile & Sprint

Apple iPad Air Price & Availability

The iPad Air is going to be available from November 1st, and it would be sold in two colors – Slate Gray and White. The prices for the different storage versions and the connectivity options are:

Wi-Fi Only iPad Air

• 16GB: $499
• 32GB: $599
• 64GB: $699
• 128GB: $799

Wi-Fi + Cellular iPad Air

• 16GB: $629
• 32GB: $729
• 64GB: $829
• 128GB: $929