Apple presents two new tablets: they are the eighth-generation iPad, with A12 Bionic, and the iPad Air 2020 with the sophisticated A14
The wait for the new Apple iPads is over: during the online event Time Flies the Cupertino company, in addition to the new Apple Watch Series 6 and Apple Watch SE, presented the eighth-generation iPad and the new iPad Air 2020. The former is the new basic iPad and finally receives the SoC A12, while on the latter makes its official debut the SoC A14 that promises wonders.
Both models have significantly higher performance than their predecessors and Apple pitted them extensively during the event. In fact, you could say that the entire presentation of Apple’s new tablets was focused on the performance gains of the new iPads. On the other hand, there is no revolution in design, but only a refinement, and the real novelty lies in the processors adopted and in the new operating system iPadOS 14 that equips the two devices as standard and allows you to fully squeeze the potential. The eighth-generation iPad is practically already available, it will be physically from Friday 18, while the new iPad Air will have to wait until next month. In the meantime, here are features and prices of Apple’s new tablets.
iPad 8th generation: features and price
For the eighth-generation iPad there is a big jump in performance: it now features the A12 Bionic SoC with Neural Engine, which comes for the first time on the basic iPad. This tablet sports a 10.2-inch Retina Multi-Touch display and new cameras, all kept alive by a powerful battery.
In comparison to the previous generation, the new iPad, thanks to the A12, has 40% higher CPU performance and even double the GPU performance. The Neural Engine, on the other hand, brings to the iPad 10.2 the ability to make better use of augmented reality, motion tracking, better performance in photo editing and Siri.
The new iPad unlocks via Touch ID is compatible with existing accessories, such as the Apple Pencil and Smart Keybord, and comes out of the factory with the new iPadOS 14. Thanks to “Smart Selection,” the new iPad applies artificial intelligence to distinguish when we’re drawing and when we’re handwriting. As we write or draw by hand, then, phone numbers, shapes, addresses, links are automatically recognized. We can also write and then tap a phone number to initiate a call.
The new eighth-generation iPad will be available starting Friday at a starting price of $329 for the Wi-Fi version and $450 for the Wi-Fi and cellular network version. Available colors will be Silver, Gold and Space Gray, and available memory will be 32GB or 128GB.
iPad Air 2020: features and price
The new iPad Air is the first Apple device with a 5nm A14 Bionic SoC to hit the market. And it is the A14, with its 11.8 billion transistors used in 6 CPU cores and 4 GPU cores, that makes the difference compared to everything before: Apple promises 40% higher CPU performance than the previous generation and 30% higher GPU performance.
A14 Bionic incorporates the new Neural Engine with 16 cores, twice as fast as its predecessor (it can perform up to 11 trillion operations per second). It will be used by apps that take advantage of machine learning, for which the new Neural Engine also has specific new sections within it that, Apple says, offer ten times the performance.
On paper, then, the new iPad Air with A14 is a power monster so much so that Apple claims it is capable of humbling the best Windows 10 laptops, all Android tablets and Chromebooks.
SoC aside, the 2020 iPad Air is a tablet with a 10.9-inch Liquid Retina screen with 3.8 million pixels, advanced color management , anti-reflective coating. It also has thinner bezels, thanks to the relocation of the Touch ID sensor to the top.
As for the photo compartment, however, iPad Air has a 7 MP front camera and a 12 MP rear camera (the same as the iPad Pro) that allows you to record videos at 4K resolution. Also new is the USB-C port with a maximum speed of 5 Gbps, which will be very useful for connecting cameras, external hard drives or monitors up to 4K.
iPad Air will arrive next month, with pre-installed iPadOS 14, and will have a starting price of $599 in Wi-Fi-only version and $729 in Wi-Fi and mobile version. It will be available with 64 or 256 GB of storage, in Gray, Space Gray, Rose Gold, Green and Sky Blue.