Apple launches iPad Air

Apple announced the iPad Air, its fifth-generation iPad, October 22 in San Francisco at the company'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.

The latest -- iPad Air and the new iPad mini with much-awaited Retina display -- come at a time when the Cupertino-based iPhone and iPad maker is facing a growing challenge from the Google Android-based tablets from manufacturers like Samsung, LG and Asus.

iPad Air is 20% thinner, 28% lighter and has 43% smaller bezels than last year’s iPad 4, which has curiously been stopped by Apple even as it will continue to sell the earlier generation iPads. The 9.7 inch iPad Air with Retina display resembles iPad mini a lot. It is 7.5mm thick and weighs 1 pound. Apple claimed it is the thinnest full-sized tablet in the world.

iPad Air uses the same 64-bit A7 chip and the M7 motion co-processor that was introduced recently with the iPhone 5S. It can open files and render graphics twice as fast as the iPad 4, while still promising the same 10-hour battery life.

The new model will hit the shelves on November 1 and come in Space Grey and Silver colours. It will be available at $499, $599, $699 and $799 for the 16GB, 32GB, 64GB and 128GB Wi-Fi models respectively. The Wi-Fi and 4G models will cost another $130 over and above that in case of each model.

iPad Air comes with a disappointing 5MP rear iSight camera, but a 1.2MP front-facing HD camera for FaceTime with improved backside illumination sensors features larger pixels for better low-light performance. It is powered by iOS 7, which is the latest version of the software and brings features like revamped search, notifications, control centre and the iCloud Keychain password manager.