Apple’s new iPad Air will be available to preorder today. The new tablet, announced at last month’s Apple event, has a similar design to the iPad Pro but a lower starting price of $599. Announcing the preorder details, Apple confirmed the new tablet will be available beginning October 23rd.
In addition to its small bezels and squared-off edges, the iPad Air shares other features of the iPad Pro. It uses USB-C rather than Lightning for charging and connectivity, and it also works with iPad Pro accessories like the $299 Magic Keyboard and new $129 Apple Pencil, which attaches magnetically to the side of the device. It’s also got a more modern Apple A14 Bionic processor, compared to the A12Z Bionic chip in this year’s iPad Pro, though the iPad Air has a six-core CPU rather than eight.
There’s no Face ID this time around instead you get a Touch ID sensor built into the tablet’s side-mounted power button. The Air’s 10.9-inch 2360 x 1640 display is also a little smaller than the 11-inch iPad Pro’s, and doesn’t have its high 120Hz refresh rate. There’s also no LIDAR alongside the camera, a feature which can be useful for AR applications.
