The Apple iPad has always been significantly different from its Android counterparts, both in appearance and characteristics. And, now that Apple has added a new iPad into its tablet line, iPad Air, it is uniquely positioned to be a top – and more expensive – Apple tablet (compared to a previous Apple rollout, iPad Mini). Here are five characteristics that make iPad Air better than its competitors.

1. Size

The tablet’s dimensions are 240×169, 5×7, 5 mm. Compared with the previous generation of iPad, the thickness of the body has decreased from 9.4 mm to 7.5 mm – despite its increase in battery capacity. For comparison: Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 (2014 edition) has a thickness of 7.9 millimeters, and the ASUS Transformer Pad TF701T – 8.9 mm.

2. Weight

Tablet weight may not seem like a big deal for many users, but consider this:

The iPad casing has always been a strong point. Apple has never scrimped on this element, offering users only high quality solid aluminum. But that’s why iPads have never been exactly lightweight. Now, Apple has managed to make the iPad Air lighter than similar tablets in the usual plastic case. Thus, the weight of the new gadget amounts to 469 grams vs. 535 grams of Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 (2014 edition) and 585 grams of the ASUS Transformer Pad TF701T.

3. Battery

As it has  already been mentioned, the ultra-thin iPad Air casing had no effect on battery life. And, Apple claims the iPad Air has up to 10 hours of intensive work life. This is a significant figure in the market today.

4. Processor

Like iPhone 5s, iPad Air has an Apple A7 chip with a 64-bit dual-core processor, a clock speed of 1.3 GHz, and PowerVR G6430 graphics. In comparison to the previous-generation tablet, the performance has been doubled. Apple also claims that the device has eight times the CPU performance.

5. Wireless Capabilities

One of the important advantages of iPad Air is that it can work with all versions of LTE throughout the world. And, according to Apple, the iPad Air is one of the only tablets that currently supports 4G worldwide. In addition to the advantages of a wireless connection, users can also add a fast Wi-Fi module on the architecture of MIMO, which enables iPad Air to surf the Internet at data rates up to 300 Mbit/s.