It's not even Hump Day yet and already we're salivating over Apple's new arsenal of gadget releases. The iPad Air made a particularly big splash in Apple's hour-long event with the news that it features the 64-bit A7 processor and a 48 percent thinner chassis, while droping the weight to a measly one pound.
Its body and build quality alone reinforces the fact that Apple's penchant for product design is its strongest weapon in the gadget wars, but its the specs and content offerings that will determine whether or not you shell out $499 for it come November 1. Here's a quick overview of how the iPad Air stacks up to the three latest large tablets out on the market, including Microsoft's recently launched Surface 2, Nokia's just-announced Lumia 2520, and Amazon's Kindle Fire HDX 8.9, which was announced earlier this month.
Click to enlarge.
The latest tablet landscape and the affordable price points make choosing a device to bring home perhaps one of the hardest buying decisions. The question is no longer which tablet gives you the most bang for its buck, but which will meet your needs the best. [[this whole paragraph needs to be rewritten... it's really hard to read and parse out.]]
Thin is in
It's so thin you could cut cheese with it.
You certainly wouldn't want to lug around a bloated, too-thick tablet, would you? Apple's new iPad Air is the thinnest of the latest tablets. At 0.29 inches, its almost paper-thin chassis makes the Surface 2, Lumia 2520, and the Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 look and feel like antiquated hardback books. But it's not the most compact: the HDX 8.9 is smaller and weighs less than the iPad Air, making it the most stowable device of the bunch. Of course, its screen is smaller, too.
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