Apple (NASDAQ: APPL) unveiled major updates to its iMac and iPad lines at a press event Thursday, giving the iMac an ultra-high resolution screen and refreshing the iPad Air and Mini lines with a number of cosmetic and technical enhancements.
The new iMac has a 5K display (5120 x 2880) — which has 67% more pixels than 4K — a 3.5 GHz Intel Core i5 and a Radeon 290X GPU. These are upgradeable to a 4.0 GHz Core i7 and a mobile Radeon 295X GPU. The all-in-one PC ships with a 1TB hybrid SSD and HDD drive, as well as OSX Yosemite.
The new iMac starts at $2,499.
An even thinner iPad Air
Apple’s iPad Air was already thin to begin with, but that hasn’t stopped Apple from making it even more thin. Apple has managed to slim the tablet down by 18% to 6.1mm.
The new iPad Air’s rear camera has been upgraded to 8 megapixels, and is capable of shooting 1080p video. The front camera has also been updated, and is capable of capturing video in HD.
As far as an SoC goes, Apple has put its new A8X chip inside the iPad Air 2 which it says is 12 times faster than the SoC in the original iPad.
The tablet’s display did not get an upgrade. It’s still a standard Retina display at a resolution of 2048 x 1536.
Touch ID fingerprint scanning has been added to the Home button, and Apple is also including 802.11ac MIMO Wi-Fi as well as global 4G LTE support.
The iPad Air 2 starts at $500, with 64GB and 128GB models coming in at $600 and $700. Adding 4G LTE support will add an additional $130 to the price tag.
A refreshed iPad Mini 3
The new version of the iPad mini didn’t get the same upgrades as the iPad Air. The only upgrade of note is the addition of Touch ID fingerprint scanning. It still has the same the same 7.9-inch Retina screen, A7 processor, and 5-megapixel camera. Pricing starts at $400 for the 16GB version.
