Apple launches new iPad Air with A14 Bionic, now available for pre-order

Apple has announced a new version of the iPad Air. Whilst all the attention this week has been on the iPhone 12 series, Apple has also announced an upgrade to one of its most successful tablets, bringing the same next-generation chipset seen in the phone.

The ‘all-new’ iPad Air runs on the A14 Bionic chip, claimed by Apple to be their most advanced. That cutting edge chip is hidden beneath a larger 10.9-inch Liquid Retina display, packing 3.8 million pixels, P3 wide color support, full lamination, True Tone, and an anti-reflective coating. A TouchID fingerprint sensor is built-in to the power button, keeping more of the front of the device clear for the display.

The A14 Bionic chip boasts a whopping 11.8 billion transistors, six cores and is capable of a performance boost of up to 40 percent in CPU Performance and 30 percent in graphics over the previous generation, thanks to the four-core graphics processor. Also inside the A14 Bionic is a 16-core Neural Engine capable of 11 trillion operations per second, delivering cutting edge machine learning and artificial intelligence features.

The 7MP front camera is now flanked by a 12MP rear camera taken from the high-end iPad Pro, making the iPad Air capable of 4K video for the first time. For audio, there are a pair of front-facing stereo speakers when used in landscape mode. WiFi 6, improved LTE, and, yes, even a 5Gbps USB-C port. iPadOS14 on the new iPad Air includes a range of features to leverage the power of the A14 Bionic chip. The new iPad Air works with both Apple’s Magic Keyboard and Apple Pencil.

As with all Apple products these days, the company is keen to celebrate the new iPad Air’s Green credentials – the casing is made of 100% recycled aluminum, the solder is made of 100% recycled tin, and the speakers use magnets made of 100% recycled rare-earth metals.

Pricing and Availability

Available in Wifi and Cellular models in a variety of configurations, the new iPad Air will be available to buy from next month. Wifi models start at $599/£579, with models including LTE start at $729/£709. Both are available in 64GB and 256GB versions, in a choice of silver, space grey, rose gold, green, and sky blue. Preorders are underway at Apple’s website.

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