Apple is bullish on tablets and, for all it may be the slimmest and lightest of its breed, the iPad Air 2 is undeniably its new heavyweight champion. Dropping weight and bulk while simultaneously gaining power, the iPad Air 2 also dips into the best-selling iPhone 6 ‘s pockets for features like...

Smartphone and tablet vendors seem to be locked in an arms race to build the thinnest possible devices at the moment, with the current thinnest smartphone - the Oppo R5 - being so skeletal at 4.85mm that it can't even accommodate a 3.5mm audio jack.

Thin; light and elegant design; Excellent build quality; Excellent performance; Low-reflectivity Retina HD display; Touch ID support; Improved iSight and FaceTime HD cameras

Lower-capacity battery than the 2013 iPad Air; No MicroSD storage expansion

iOS 8.1 is obviously available on the original iPad Air, so you don’t need to buy an Air 2 to get neat tricks such as Continuity. And there’s probably not quite enough for all but the most feverishly Apple-dedicated of existing Air owners to justify the upgrade, either. But if you’re upgrading from an older iPad or this is your first Apple tablet, the Air 2 is absolutely the way to go. The extra thinness makes it more portable and more stylish than ever before, the new screen tech makes it even more usable in even more situations, and that extra power means you’re ready for the next generation of processor-intensive apps that dedicated developers are dreaming up right now. The iPad Air was already the best tablet in the world. Apple could have done far less and that would still be the case, but instead the combination of small but significant tweaks means the iPad Air 2 has increased that lead even further. Can Google and HTC close the gap with the Nexus 9? Expect to find out when we review it in the next few days. READ MORE: The 10 Best Tablets in the World right now

Stunningly slim and beautifully made; Screen is better than ever; Vastly more powerful;

Very small hit to battery life;

Besides the Touch ID fingerprint feature, the screen assembly and uprated processor are the headline features. New cameras are a bonus too. Overall the Apple iPad Air 2 is the best tablet you can buy, even though it's been discontinued by Apple. Its performance, attention to detail, quality of build and sheer usability still mean it's a great buy.

The Apple iPad is fading away, so it can make iOS apps even more visible. Apple's obsession with making its iPads thinner and thinner, lighter and lighter every year is a philosophical statement. The computer should disappear; all that should be left is the app. The iPad Air 2 ($499, 16GB) is the least physical object, with the most apps. That's Apple's genius, and something Android tablet makers have trouble matching. That's what has made the iPad our top pick for large-screen tablets since the very first model came out in 2010.The iPad is no longer advancing by leaps and bounds; as I've said before, it's basically a laptop, with a three-year planned replacement cycle rather than the one-to-two-year cycle we see with mobile phones. This year's model has a few key improvements, though, at least two of which are very meaningful: a very powerful processor, and the first multi-carrier SIM card we've seen in the U.S. So yes, the iPad Air 2 pushes the state of the art forward, and is a...

The iPad Air 2 balances seamless ease of use, app abundance, and raw power in its ever-so-slender frame, continuing Apple's reign atop the tablet heap.

Very thin and light; Extremely fast processor; Best app design and selection of any platform; Cellular models can be switched between wireless carriers in software

Expensive; Battery life is just okay

Stunningly slim and beautifully made; Screen is better than ever; Vastly more powerful;

Very small hit to battery life;

Summary: The iPad Air 2's performance enhancements will appeal to those who run graphically demanding apps, although Apple's quest for thinness comes at the cost of reduced battery capacity. Last year's iPad Air remains a good option, but the Air 2 will be the power user's choice.

Thin, light and elegant design, Excellent build quality, Excellent performance, Low-reflectivity Retina HD display, Touch ID support, Improved iSight and FaceTime HD cameras

Lower-capacity battery than the 2013 iPad Air, No MicroSD storage expansion

Apple's aging mid-range tablet is still the perfect mix of size and performance for nearly everyone.

The iPad Air 2 has a great balance of size and weight. Crisp, bright display. iOS 9 runs perfectly, including split-screen apps.

Priced relatively high for a tablet; single speaker isn't that loud compared to iPad Pro.

While we were a bit skeptical at first mostly driven by the sale price of the 16GB Wi-Fi only iPad Air 2 tablet, our impression has changed quite dramatically after using the tablet extensively on a two-week period.

Overall, there’s a lot to go over on the iPad Air 2. While the name suggests that it’s an iterative update in nature, in practice these updates add a lot of compelling hardware to the high-end iPad line. One of the first areas worth looking at here is the design.