Stunningly gorgeous Apple iPad Air with powerful A14 Bionic chip and USB Type C charging priced from RM2,599

The stars have aligned and it seems that Hades has indeed frozen over because the spanking new Apple iPad Air is not only one of the most powerful slates they have ever made with their powerful new A14 Bionic processor but it’s also – hold onto your seats people, this is good – one of the first Apple slates to feature USB-C charging!

Apple iPad Air – Now with USB-C Charging!

Yes, hell has indeed frozen over. The USB Type-C port in the base of the iPad Air allows users to enjoy 5Gbps data transfers and easier logistics especially if they’re Android device users as a great many phones using Android use a USB-C charging port along with a growing number of ultraportable laptops. We’re genuinely excited at the potential that the iPad Air has to offer and this olive branch across the Android/Apple divide with a USB-C port on their iPad Air for charging is in equal parts inspirational and impressive in equal measure.

 The new Apple iPad Air comes with a large 10.9-inch Liquid Retina display with 2,360 x 1,640 pixels resolution for crisp and vibrant images onscreen. Artists and creatives will appreciate the Liquid Retina display’s P3 wide colour support for colour accuracy along with their True Tone tech and a matte anti-reflective coating for a better viewing experience anywhere you go. 

Up top, the iPad Air’s power button also has an integrated fingerprint reader for fast Touch ID unlocking of the slate.

The biggest takeaway though is that the new iPad Air uses the equally spanking new A14 Bionic processor that’s built on a 5nm process and which offers enhanced machine learning capabilities and a massive 40% performance improvement over the last iPad Air.

According to Apple, the A14 Bionic has a 6 core design with a 4-core graphics architecture that serves up a 30% improvement in graphics over its immediate predecessor. The A14 Bionic also has a 16-core Neural Engine capable of a whopping 11 trillion operations per second and improved machine learning with 10x faster calculations than its predecessor.

Running under the hood is Apple’s new iPadOS 14 firmware that offers enhanced note taking capabilities with an Apple Pencil, an intuitive and intelligent Smart Selection mode, Shape recognition to doodle geometrically perfect shapes and enhanced text recognition. There’s also a host of new sidebars to make it easier to access photos and files, revamped widgets and a universal search that finds almost anything on the iPad Air from files to apps or other obscure esoterica. That in itself makes for an impressive upgrade indeed especially on the firmware front.

In terms of cameras, the front sports a 7MP FaceTime HD selfie camera for video calls and a 12MP camera that’s identical to the one used in the iPad Pro on the rear for snaps and 4K video capture. Other mod-cons include stereo speakers, support for the Apple Pencil and Magic Keyboard support which makes it a very portable performer on the go.

Apple iPad Air Prices in Malaysia

You can acquire the Apple iPad Air in a range of 5 different colours – Space Gray, Silver, Rose Gold, Green and Sky Blue and with your choice of either the aforementioned 64GB storage or 256GB and in either WiFi only or cellular enabled variants. 

A 64GB WiFi only variant of the iPad Air retails for RM2,599 while a 256GB version retails for RM3,249. A cellular enable 64GB cellular variant of the iPad Air retails for RM3,149. If your pockets run especially deep, you can acquire the top of the line variant which has 256GB storage and cellular which ships for RM3,799.

These prices have already appeared on Apple Malaysia’s official page though there’s no availability as yet but it should not be long before you can purchase them outright within the few weeks. You can check out Apple Malaysia’s official page here. If you’re looking for something slightly more affordable, you can also peruse their new 8th Gen iPads that have refreshed A12 Bionic processors here.