Apple Announces New 10.5" iPad Air, 7.9" iPad mini
by Andrei Frumusanu on March 18, 2019 11:30 AM EST
Today in a surprise announcement, Apple has unveiled refreshes to both the iPad Air and iPad mini lineups. The last releases in the lineups were the iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 4 back in 2015. We had thought Apple had abandoned the models, yet today’s release now breathes fresh air into the devices with much needed internal hardware upgrades as well as new functionality.
| Apple iPad Comparison | ||||
| iPad Air 2 | iPad mini 4 | iPad Air (2019) | iPad mini (2019) | |
| SoC | Apple A8X 3 x Typhoon @ 1.5GHz |
Apple A8 2 x Typhoon @ 1.5GHz |
Apple A12 Bionic 2 × Vortex @ 2.5GHz 4 × Tempest @ 1.59GHz |
|
| Display | 9.7" 2048x1536 IPS LCD | 7.9" 2048x1536 IPS LCD | 10.5" 2224x1668 IPS LCD DCI-P3, True Tone |
7.9" 2048x1536 IPS LCD DCI-P3, True Tone |
| Dimensions | 240 x 169.5 x 6.1mm 437g |
203.2 x 134.8 x 6.1mm 298.8g |
250.6 x 174.1 x 6.1mm 456g / 464g |
203.2 x 134.8 x 6.1mm 300g / 308.2g |
| RAM | 2GB LPDDR3 | 2GB LPDDR3 | ? | ? |
| NAND | 16 / 64 / 128GB | 64 / 256GB | ||
| Battery | 27.3Wh | 19.1Wh | 30.2Wh | 19.1Wh |
| Front Camera | 1.2MP, F/2.2 | 7MP, F/2.2 | ||
| Rear Camera | 8MP, F/2.4, 1.1 micron | 8MP, F/2.4 | ||
| Cellular | 2G / 3G / 4G LTE (Category 9) | UE Category 16 LTE (1Gbps) with 4x4 MIMO and LAA | ||
| SIM Size | NanoSIM | NanoSIM + eSIM | ||
| Wireless | 802.11a/b/g/n/ac 2x2 MIMO, BT 4.2 LE, GPS/GLONASS |
802.11a/b/g/n/ac 2x2 MIMO, BT 5.0 LE, GPS/GLONASS |
||
| Connectivity | Apple Lightning 3.5mm headphone |
Apple Lightning 3.5mm headphone |
||
| Launch OS | iOS 9 | iOS 12 | ||
| Launch Price | $499 (16G) $599 (64G) $699 (128G) |
(Wifi / Cellular) $399/$529 (16G) $499/$629 (64G) $599/$729 (128G) |
(Wifi / Cellular) $499/$629 (64G) $649/$779 (256G) |
(Wifi / Cellular) $399/$529 (64G) $549/$679 (256G) |
On the internal hardware side, both the new iPad Air (2019) and the new iPad mini (2019) make use of Apple’s new 7nm A12 chipset, which we’ve already seen in the iPhone XS and XR models. The A12X’s increased performance thus remains exclusive to the iPad Pro models this year.
iPad Mini 2019
The new iPad mini doesn’t change its design from its predecessor, which might not be to everybody’s liking in 2019 as the rather big bezels do feel a bit out of place compared to other newer tablets. While the design hasn’t seen an update, the 7.9” 2048x1536 IPS display will see some significant changes as it now supports Display P3 as well as True Tone.
iPad Air 2019
The new iPad Air on the other hand does see significant design changes with a slight reduction in bezels, offering more screen estate. The new display comes now in a 10.5” diameter and increases the resolution to 2224x1668. Similarly to the new iPad mini, it also now supports P3 wide gamut content as well as True Tone.
The new Air is ever so slightly bigger than its predecessor, being 10mm taller, 4.6mm wider and 19g heavier. The new battery does increase from 27.3Wh to 30.2Wh.
Interestingly both devices still come with the home button and its capacitive fingerprint sensor, as well as 3.5mm headphone jack (not that we're complaining), so this is probably Apple’s purest hardware-only refresh ever.
The one single big new feature about the new iPads is that the devices are now compatible with the Apple Pencil. It’s to be noted we’re talking about the first generation Pencil, and not the second-generation unit we find in 2018’s new iPad Pros.
Overall, it’s interesting to see Apple refresh the iPad line-up, especially the often forgotten iPad mini. Apple’s reluctance to make any major design changes to the products, even 4 years on is quite odd, but then again if it isn’t broken, don’t attempt to fix it.
The new iPad mini and iPad Air come in 64 and 256GB variants, starting at $399 for the iPad mini and $499 for the iPad Air. The extra storage costs you $150, and added cellular connectivity adds another $130.
Related Reading
- The Apple iPhone XR Review: A Different Display Leads To Brilliant Battery Life
- The 2018 Apple iPad Pro (11-Inch) Review: Doubling Down On Performance
- The iPhone XS & XS Max Review: Unveiling the Silicon Secrets
- Hands On With the Apple 9.7 Inch iPad Pro
- The Apple iPad Pro Review
- The Apple iPad Mini 4 Review
- The Apple iPad Air 2 Review
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Sttm - Monday, March 18, 2019 - link
I don't know its a real trade off for me. The Samsung S5E, has a better design and an AMOLED screen, which I would greatly prefer. But it has that midrange SoC... and only costs $100 less.patel21 - Monday, March 18, 2019 - link
Wxactly my thoughts. Samsung S5E has best of both worlds. A Midrange SoC, Great Samoled Screen and Android at budgetSttm - Monday, March 18, 2019 - link
Id rather have more power and pay more. I'd instantly buy a $499 S5S Tablet with Snapdragon 855.mukiex - Monday, March 18, 2019 - link
A big gamechanger for me was in either iOS 11 or 12, when they added a native API for decoding H264/H265. Apple has some inside kind of dynamic hybrid decoder or something, because I've yet to put a video in front of it that it can't handle. Hi10p, H265 10-bit, etc. MrMC 'n VLC play pretty much anything I throw at them provided the Wi-fi can hold up. And this is on the original iPad Pro which had the A10X 'n my iPhone X w/ a bog-standard A11. I'd imagine that the new mini/Air handle that stuff even better.Icehawk - Monday, March 18, 2019 - link
Yup, HEVC is why I upgraded to a Pro (1st gen) needed the muscle to play themlilo777 - Tuesday, March 19, 2019 - link
As I understand, all video decoders are implemented using special hardware and have nothing to do with CPU power. From Wikipedia: On February 29, 2012, at the 2012 Mobile World Congress, Qualcomm demonstrated a HEVC decoder running on an Android tablet, with a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 dual-core processor running at 1.5 GHz, showing H.264/MPEG-4 AVC and HEVC versions of the same video content playing side by side.[1] In this demonstration HEVC reportedly showed almost a 50% bit rate reduction compared with H.264/MPEG-4 AVC.Apparently this was the first hardware that implemented HEVC decoder. Apple added support for H.265 two years later in 2014.
MasterTactician - Monday, March 18, 2019 - link
This implies the Wi-Fi only model has GPS. Is that accurate?Andrei Frumusanu - Monday, March 18, 2019 - link
Correct.MasterTactician - Monday, March 18, 2019 - link
Doesn’t seem to be so going by the tech specs page:All models
Digital compass
Wi-Fi
iBeacon microlocation
Wi-Fi + Cellular models
Assisted GPS, GLONASS
Cellular
Andrei Frumusanu - Monday, March 18, 2019 - link
The cellular models are called "WiFi + Cellular", it's not actually WiFi and cellular models. See the cellular connectivity on the same tech spec page.