Apple iPad Air

Available now
22nd October 2013

The Apple iPad Air is Apple's fifth-generation full-sized iPad, and it gets its name because it manages to trim the thickness of the tablet down to just 7.5mm from 9.7mm on the previous version. It also adds a 64-bit processor which will make it faster and easier to run demanding applications, and it will ship with the latest version of iOS.

But perhaps the most impressive feature of the iPad Air is how little it weighs - coming in at just 478 grams for the 4G version, the Air is 28% lighter than the iPad 4. One of the obvious issues with tablets is the weight, and coming in at less that 500 grams for a full-sized device is quite an achievement.

Inside, the iPad Air has been significantly upgraded with the same sort of internals found on the iPhone 5S, and with the new sleeker look of iOS 7 then the whole thing should feel like a much improved device if you have an older iPad.

Most of the other specifications are pretty much the same as the previous version. The iPad Air has a 9.7" 1536 x 2048 Retina display, a 5 megapixel primary camera plus a 1.2 megapixel one on the front for video calling. You can buy either a WiFi-only version, or cellular version which supports LTE data plus UMTS or CDMA depending on market. Both the WiFi and cellular versions are available in 16, 32, 64 or 128GB versions, and the iPad Air is available in "Space Grey" (sort of black) or "Silver" (sort of white) colours, although thankfully there's no gold version.. yet.

Prices start at $499 / €479 / £399 for the basic 16GB version and go all the way up to $929 / €869 / £739 for the 128GB version with 4G. That seems a lot of money for some mobile phone circuitry and a bit of flash memory, but those are your choices. Almost unbelievably, Apple are still trying to sell the two-and-a-half-year old iPad 2 for a whopping $399 for the basic model, which is probably something you should avoid.

Impressively, the iPad Air will be available in over 40 different countries from 1st November onwards, which is pretty good going for a device that Apple managed to keep the lid on. And although rival devices are certainly giving Apple a run for their money, we suspect that many people will be queuing up for this particular tablet.