Apple’s follow-up to the sexy iPad Air is now official

Apple has announced their newest tablet, the iPad Air 2, and boy is it a doozy. Apple CEO Tim Cook describes the iPad Air 2 as the world’s thinnest tablet, snatching the crown from Sony’ Xperia Z2 Tablet. We believe him – the iPad Air packs a chassis that’s only 6.1mm thin, which is 18% thinner than the previous iPad Air.

iPad Air 2 specs

1.3GHz dual-core Apple A8X Cyclone processor
PowerVR G6430 GPU
1GB DDR3 RAM
9.7-inch LED backlit IPS display with scrath resistant glass and oleophobic coating, 1536 x 2048 resolution
16/64/128GB of storage
5-megapixel rear camera
1.2-megapixel front camera
WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, A-GPS, GLONASS
LTE (optional)
iOS 8.1
8600mAh non-removable battery
240 x 169.5 x 6.1 mm

As far as internals go, you’re looking at Apple’s A8X processor and M8 co-processor, which is 12 times more powerful that the original iPad. Apple is promising at least 40% improvement over the previous A7 chipset. The iPad Air 2 has a 8-megapixel f/2.4 rear camera. The screen resolution is the same as the previous model, though Apple said that there’s a new anti-reflective coating cutting down on reflections by as much as 56%. Like on the other iPhones, there’s a TouchID fingerprint sensor on the iPad Air 2.

As far as pricing goes, you’re looking at $499, $599 and $699 for the 16GB, 64GB and 128GB models. For LTE versions, you add an additioanl $130.