Apple, ahead of it’s March 25th event, had quietly ushered in the NEW iPad Mini and iPad Air (Not to the confused with “just” iPad).

There’s nothing ground breaking about these 2 new devices but they finally get a performance bump and Apple Pencil support just like the rest of the line up. The regular iPad is retained as the cheapest model of the bunch though as the iPad Mini is retained at $399 instead of the hoped $249.

There is good reason why, though.

The new iPad Mini now uses the A12 Bionic chip which powers Apple’s 2018 slew of devices, meaning it is one of the most powerful chips available in the market – second only to the A12X found on the iPad Pro. Aside from that, it now supports functionality for the Apple Pencil, though that one is still a separate buy worth PHP5,999 on it’s own.

The iPad Mini starts at 23,995 for the 64G Wifi model.

As for the NEW iPad Air, it gets confusing as we thought the succession was of similar to the “just” iPad but turns out it now becomes a different category altogether, being slotted between the iPad + the 10.5″ iPad Pro versus the NEW iPad Pro 11″ and 12″.

There will be 2 main differences between the iPad Air and the iPad. The Air will feature a larger 10.5″ screen, a new A12 Bionic chip and up to 256GB. The 9.7″ iPad will be retained with the A10 chip and stuck with up to 128GB only. It does retain it’s price of only PHP20,995 though making it thee cheapest iPad available in the market.

On the other hand, the bigger size and better processor of the NEW iPad Air has it commanding a PHP29,995 starting price for the 64GB Wifi model.

In terms of other comparisons, here they are for your reference:

Both the NEW iPad Mini and iPad Air now get support for True Tone Display and the Wide Color display. The Entry level iPad does not.

In terms of capacity, size and weight, as mentioned – the newer models now come in only 64 and 256G variants while the entry level iPad comes in at 32G and 128G only.

At the end of it all, one can say that the NEW iPad Mini and iPad air are great refinements of the older products. While not cheap, the iPad Mini still has value being only 6.1mm thin and only 300grams light. A lot are still in the market for something like this.

As for choosing between a 9.7″ iPad vs a 10.5″ iPad Air. There is more than meets the eye. the iPad air is thinner at 6.1mm and surprisingly lighter than the 9.7″ ipad despite it’s more feature packed internals. As they say, there’s a price to pay for portability.

Here’s a more complete comparison from GSMARENA.com.