[Alterlife]

The perceived 'bulkiness' is more than just weight. Drawing from your own link, the original iPad is 13.4 mm thich, the iPad 2 is 8.8 mm.

If I remember right the original iPad 1 had no front camera (or was it no cameras at all?).

To me that's a huge upgrade.

[cmiles74]

The original iPad (1) had no camera at all.

[wozniacki]

Wrong again.

Considering only the dimensions, the second generation iPad managed a meager trimmings of 4 mm, 2 mm and 4.6 mm in length, width and thickness for a total of 10.6 mm.

That pales in comparison to a total of 18.9 mm in combined length + width + thickness savings, in the current iPad Air.

So your elusive measure of "perceived bulkiness" falls short of explaining how iPad Air is not the greatest leap in terms of portability over its previous version, over all of the other deltas of iPad generations.

[qq66]

The "combined length+width+height" metric you've invented is highly dubious. A 1mm reduction in a dimension means much more if it's the shortest dimension than if it's the longest.

[dmgd]

both manners and the concept of "volume" seem to have escaped you.

using figured from ohwp's response above:

  iPad    : 6186 cm3
  iPad 2  : 3944 cm3 = saving of 2242cm3
  iPad 3  : 4213 cm3
  iPad 4  : 4213 cm3
  iPad Air: 3060 cm3 = saving of 884cm3 (vs smallest other iPad, the iPad 2)

[pygy_]

In both cases a diminution of ~30% (35 and 27, respectively).