Apple announced the new iPad and iPad Mini with some significant upgrades at their online event on Tuesday. The new iPad is priced at $329, putting it well within the smartphone category and accessible to a much wider audience.

The new iPad also comes with a 12MP ultrawide camera that supports Center Stage. There’s also an upgrade to the A13 Bionic chip. The new iPad mini now features a USB-C port as well as 5G. The rear gets a new 12 MP camera, allowing 4K recording. The front gets the same 12MP ultrawide camera that supports Center Stage as well.

The announcement also includes the official release date for iPadOS 15, which is coming on 20 September and is available on the iPad mini 4 or later, iPad Air 2 and later, iPad 5th Gen and later, and all iPad Pro models.

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The new 10.2-inch iPad

The new iPad arrives with an upgraded A13 Bionic chip, a 10.2-inch Retina display with True Tone support as well as a new 12MP ultrawide camera with support for Center Stage. Along with this, the new iPad also comes with iPadOS 15 out of the box.

*The 9th Generation iPad | Source: Apple*

You also get support for the first-generation Apple Pencil as well as an option for over double the storage as compared to the previous generation as this one comes in 64GB and 256GB variants.

The device is available for preorder starting Tuesday with the WiFi-only variant starting at a surprising $329, which makes this new iPad accessible to a much wider audience. Availability starts next week on 24 September.

The redesigned iPad mini

While the iPad mini’s design has remained pretty similar since its launch in 2012, the new mini gets slimmer bezels and a new enclosure with rounded corners. The screen is also larger at 8.3-inches compared to the previous 7.9-inch panel. The technology behind the panel, however, remains to be liquid display, instead of the rumoured Mini LED display.

*The new iPad mini colour options | Source: Apple*

On the performance front, it gets the A15 Bionic Chip delivering a 40% jump in performance with the 5-core GPU bringing an 80% jump in graphics performance. In terms of OS, the device ships with iOS 15 out of the box.

As mentioned above, it features a USB-C port, allowing more connectivity options, including devices like cameras with speeds up to 5Gbps. There’s the new 12MP ultrawide camera up front, supporting Center Stage, along with 5G support going as high as 3.5 gigabits a second and if you’re banking on the WiFi, you get WiFi 6 support.

*The new iPad mini features a USB-C port | Souce: Apple*

There’s also support for the second-generation Apple Pencil as well which can magnetically attach to the device and charge automatically. The new iPad mini starts at $499 and is up for preorder with availability starting next week. There are also new colour options for users to chose from.

Hardware specifications

Here are the hardware specs for both the new iPad

Specs	iPad (9th Gen)	iPad Mini
Display	8.3-inches Liquid Retina	10.2-inch Retina with True Tone
Processor	A15 Bionic	A13 Bionic
Software	iPadOS 15	iPadOS 15
Storage	64GB 256GB	64GB 256GB
Camera	12MP Ultrawide 12MP	12MP Ultrawide 12MP