Apple Announces 1-pound iPad Air & Next-gen Retina-equipped iPad mini

Most Apple events of late don’t pack  a ton of announcements, but today’s held in San Francisco is quite an exception. In truth, there’s almost too much to talk about, so let’s start with an announcement related to what we were actually expecting: New iPads.

First up is the second-generation iPad mini. Released last October, the original iPad mini had rather unimpressive specs: A 1024×768 resolution, a last-gen (at the time) SoC, and a rather high price-tag given the Android options available at the time. With this second-gen iPad mini, the first two bullet-points have changed, but the price holds still at “high”.

Featuring the same form-factor as the original iPad mini (save for an increase in width of 0.3mm), the new iPad mini sports Apple’s latest A7 64-bit SoC, a “Retina” display boasting a resolution of 2048×1536 (326 ppi), and a retained battery-life of about 10 hours.

With the move to A7, Apple touts a 4x speed increase over the original iPad mini, which isn’t too much of a surprise given that one sported an A5 SoC.

Available in 16~128GB densities, the new iPad mini starts at $399 for the standard model, and $529 for a cellular one.

The second iPad announced came out of nowhere: iPad Air. Like the MacBook Air, the goal here is to deliver as thin and sexy a mobile device as possible, and Apple has sure done an impressive job here.

From the top, the iPad Air features a 9.7-inch display equipped with the same resolution as the mini (2048×1536; 264 ppi), an A7 64-bit SoC, and despite the increase in size from the mini, a 10-hour battery-life.

Outside of their form-factors, both the latest mini and Air look to be almost identical in spec, from the depths of the SoC to the camera on the surface. Given that, this becomes a battle of $400 for 7.9-inch or $500 for 9.7-inch. It’s an odd battle, to be sure, given $400 for an 8-inch tablet is expensive – Google’s second-gen Nexus 7 costs $230 USD and offers a lot of the same goods as the iPad mini (it loses 0.9-inches, of course).

Regardless of that comparison, specs-wise, the latest iPad mini is a lot more attractive than the original – there’s just no comparison. As for the Air, that will be an attractive offering for those who want a larger tablet but not the weight that comes with them.