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Apple debuts new 10.5″ iPad Air & 7.9″ iPad mini

In general the tablet market has remained stagnant over the past couple of years as consumers increasingly turn to larger-screen smartphones as their go-to primary devices. That hasn’t dissuaded Apple from refreshing two of its iPad models for the first half of 2019, however.

The models in question are a new 10.5″ iPad and 7.9″ iPad mini.

Starting with the larger, more expensive offering, the 10.5″ iPad Air is sporting Apple’s latest A12 Bionic chipset, which the company says delivers a 70 percent boost in performance compared to its predecessor.

It also has support for the Apple Pencil stylus, but not the latest second generation version. Rather it’s the original variant that debuted with the iPad Pro a couple of years ago. As for the display it features the firm’s advanced Retina technology to yield more than half a million pixels, although Apple does not list the precise resolution or ppi (pixels per inch) density.

Moving onto the smaller tablet, this 7.9″ mini is sporting a lot of the same internal components as the Air, with the same A12 Bionic processor present. Added to this is a nine times better graphics performance, according to Apple, with the advanced Retina Display up front 25 percent brighter compared to the previous generation.

The new iPad mini also supports the Apple Pencil (first-gen only), with the aforementioned A12 chipset supporting improved WiFi connectivity and Gigabit-class LTE on both tables. Furthermore, both models support eSIM, but it remains unclear which countries Apple will launch the new iPads with that specific feature.

The new 10.5″ iPad Air and 7.9″ iPad mini are available for order in selected countries, with South Africa set for next week according to the company’s press release on the newly unveiled devices. Recommended pricing starts at $499 (~R7 200) for the Air and $399 (~R5 760) for the mini.

We’ll have to wait and see when local Apple retailers will sell them for, as there is no word on that yet.

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