Until today, the iPad hadn't changed much over the past two and a half years. It got a little faster, a little thicker, and its display a little sharper, but they were all piecemeal improvements on the same iPad design. But today Apple changed that. It drastically shrunk down the 9.7-inch iPad, trimming off bezel, cutting out weight, and slimming its body to something far closer to the exceptionally small iPad mini: a change so notable that Apple is now calling it the iPad Air. It's an enticing new tablet — but as Apple slowly improved the iPad, so too did its competitors improve their own tablets. Is the iPad Air still the best large tablet out there?
On the Android side of the tracks, there are three big players to watch for: Google with the Nexus 10, Samsung with the Note 10.1, and Amazon with the 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HDX. For those looking for portability, there's almost no question on what to choose. The iPad Air is tinier in just about every dimensions, which should make toting around a tablet with a larger screen all that much easier. Apple's tablet is also likely to have the best build quality of the pack, being made out of solid pieces of aluminum, rather than plastic like its competitors.

The iPad Air certainly isn't the perfect tablet though. While it's hard to find fault with its display, the iPad's pixel density still falls short of the top Android competition around it. That won't be something the ave.