Apple unveils ‘the best tablet in the world': Meet the iPad Air 2

Apple’s iPad event is well underway and the company has just announced its next-generation flagship tablet, the iPad Air 2. As you might expect, the new device is the thinnest iPad Air yet released and measures in at 6.1 millimeters thin, or 18% thinner than the original iPad Air. The new tablet will also be the first device to run on the A8x, a new chipset with 3 billion transistors that will deliver an even better performance than the A8 chip found on the iPhone 6. The device also boasts 10 hours of battery life and features an M8 chip with support for a barometer and motion tracking sensors.

As for the new iPad’s camera, it’s an 8-megapixel module that can film 1080p video. The tablet’s camera will also be able to take advantage of some of the new camera features that Apple has added with iOS 8, including slow-motion videos and time lapse videos. Both features have proven to be very popular with iPhone 6 owners and we imagine iPad Air 2 owners will enjoy them as well.

As expected, the new iPad is also the first Apple tablet to come with support for Touch ID, the fingerprint scanning system that’s the bedrock of Apple’s new Apple Pay mobile payments platform. Apple Pay is releasing on Monday with the launch of iOS 8.1 so the platform should be ready to go the minute buyers pick up the next-generation iPad Air.

And yes, the new iPad Air 2 will be the first iPad you can buy in the champagne gold color that Apple first added to its device lineup with the iPhone 5s. The pricing for the device starts at $499 for the 16GB model and goes up to $599 for the 64GB model and $699 for the 128GB model. Preorders for the new iPad will start on Friday, October 17th and they’ll start to ship by the end of next week.