Apple unveils new 10.5-inch iPad Air and iPad Mini with Apple Pencil support

Apple has unveiled two updates to its iPad line -- in the form of a new 10.5-inch iPad Air and a 7.9-inch iPad Mini that comes with support for Apple Pencil. This hardware unveiling comes ahead of Apple's upcoming event, scheduled for March 25, which is expected to focus on services.

See it now: 10.5-inch iPad Air | 7.9-inch iPad Mini

The new iPad Air comes equipped with Apple's latest A12 Bionic chip with Neural Engine, which offers a 70-percent boost in performance and twice the graphics capability over the previous silicon. The iPad Air also comes with a 10.5-inch Retina True Tone display, which is close to 20-percent larger and kitted out with more half a million more pixels compared to the old 9.7-inch display.

On the iPad Mini front, the updated 7.9-inch tablet also comes with the A12 Bionic chip, offering three-times the performance and nine times faster graphics of the previous-generation iPad Mini. It too features a True Tone Retina display, which is 25-percent brighter than the previous-generation iPad Mini, and has the highest pixel density of any iPad ever.

Also: 10 Apple products you shouldn't buy (March 2019 edition)

Both the new iPad Air and iPad Mini come with support for the Apple Pencil. Both iPads also retain the Touch ID authentication mechanism, rather than the newer Face ID.

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The new iPad Mini and iPad Air are offered in 64GB and 256GB configurations, and come in silver, space gray and gold finishes. The new 10.5-inch iPad Air starts at $499 for the Wi-Fi model and goes up to $629 for the Wi-Fi + Cellular model. The iPad Mini starts at $399 for the Wi-Fi model and $529 for the Wi-Fi + Cellular model.

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