CNET News - Apple unveils 9.7-inch iPad Air, the thinnest, lightest yet
CNET News - Apple unveils 9.7-inch iPad Air, the thinnest, lightest yet
2013-10-22
today we think we have the biggest step
yet and delivering the vision that his
ipad would really love to show it to you
right now
raishin iPad thinner lighter more
powerful than ever before and incredibly
exciting ly new in so many ways that it
deserves a new name
we call it yes we call it ipad air it
begins at that beautiful 9.7 inch Retina
display and she look closer you see the
bezel around it is smaller than ever
dramatically so that's bringing the
previous generation in next to it you
can see the bezel is forty-three percent
thinner than the previous version making
it more comfortable to hold in your hand
when you look at it from the side you
see how amazingly thin it is again let's
bring in the previous generation next to
it dramatically thinner just 7.5
millimeters then that's twenty percent
thinner across the entire device now to
make an iPad this thin took a huge
amount of work over years the team has
just been remarkable in finding every
tenth and every hundredth of a
millimeter from every level of the
system from the bezel to the multi-touch
surface to the display and battery and
enclosure shaving every hundredth of
millimeter and the benefits are not only
making a thin but lighter to the
previous iPad weight 1.4 pounds the new
iPad air weighs just one pound
that makes it the lightest full-size
tablet in the world the smaller bezel
lighter feel when you hold it it will be
a dramatically different experience in
the previous iPad in fact this happens
every now and then we have an Apple
product that we introduced where all the
words and pictures don't quite do
justice to how amazing it is until the
moment you pick it up the first time and
feel it yourself and when you get to do
that you'll understand why we are so
excited about this iPad air now what's
inside is just as amazing as what's
outside as inside is the brand new Apple
a7 chip that we just launched with the
iphone 5s and it's blown everything away
in performance in fact gizmodo wrote
forget the specs it blows everything
away and it does it's a 64-bit
desktop-class architecture in the palm
of your hands it's an amazing chip with
over a billion transistors go up also
included the new m7 motion coprocessor
as well now the CPU performance is twice
the previous generation and that
graphics performance is double as well
we've charted that performance over time
you can see from the original iPad which
started with a very fast trip to begin
with as you may recall and now we're up
to eight times faster half of that
performance coming now with ipad air and
graphics performance look at this
increase 72 times faster than the
original iPad
again half of that coming with the new
ipad air and you're going to feel that
across so many of the things you use
playing games a two-fold increase the
ability to do great 3d rendering
professional applications we're opening
large files in doing complex operations
can be up to twice as fast this is a
screaming fast iPad it's faster at Wi-Fi
too for the first time we use my mo
technology in an iPad that gives
multiple antennas setting it up to twice
as fast a total length and performance
as before we've also expanded the
ability to have broadband wireless
access in more places around the world
with expanded LTE coverage with more and
more carriers and throughout the entire
product there's all the things that make
a great iPad experience a 5-megapixel
isight camera that also captures HD
video the new front-facing FaceTime
camera with better low light
illumination and for the first time dual
microphones we're better audio capture
as well as Siri voice recognition all
this performance thus thinner and
lighter design and it still delivers
amazing all day 10 hour battery life
that our customers love the new iPad air
comes in silver and white and space grey
and black and like all of our products
it's made incredibly
environmentally-friendly the new iPad
air will replace our top-of-the-line
full-size iPad start at the same just
499 for 16 gig Wi-Fi config and with
cellular technology 629 and we have an
iPad 2 it's available at 399 we're going
to keep that there because there are a
lot of customers that like getting
access to a full-size iPad it's just 399
for this is our full size lineup I've
had two or three ninety-nine ipad air at
499 ipad air will start shipping very
shortly november first in a huge list of
countries around the world
you
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