There’s not much new in Apple’s latest refresh of the iPad Air, so there’s not much to say about it, but it’s worth taking a brief look regardless.
In almost every way, this is identical to the previous generation. There are only two differences to go over: the bump from the M2 chip to the slightly faster M3, and a redesign of the Magic Keyboard peripheral.
If you want more details about this tablet, refer to our M2 iPad Air review from last year. Everything we said then applies now.
From M2 to M3
The M3 chip has an 8-core CPU with four performance cores and four efficiency cores. On the GPU side, there are nine cores. There’s also a 16-core Neural Engine, which is what Apple calls its NPU.
We’ve seen the M3 in other devices before, and it performs comparably here in the iPad Air in Geekbench benchmarks. Those coming from the M1 or older A-series chips will see some big gains, but it’s a subtle step up over the M2 in last year’s iPad Air.
That will be a noticeable boost primarily for a handful of particularly demanding 3D games (the likes of Assassin’s Creed Mirage, Resident Evil Village, Infinity Nikki, and Genshin Impact) and some heavy-duty applications only a few people use, like CAD or video editing programs.
Most of the iPad Air’s target audience would never know the difference, though, and the main benefit here isn’t necessarily real-world performance. Rather, the upside of this upgrade is the addition of a few specific features, namely hardware-accelerated ray tracing and hardware-accelerated AV1 video codec support.
This isn’t new, but this chip supports Apple Intelligence, the much-ballyhooed suite of generative AI features Apple recently introduced. At this point there aren’t many devices left in Apple’s lineup that don’t support Apple Intelligence (it’s basically just the cheapest, entry-level iPad that doesn’t have it) and that’s good news for Apple, as it helps the company simplify its marketing messaging around the features.
As we’ve written previously, Apple Intelligence very much feels like a work-in-progress, but the company’s overall approach to where it’s chosen to apply generative AI is sound, and some of the features are likely to become useful as models improve over the next year or two. It’s not a must-have, but it might be later.
Look, it’s always nice to see more performance, but the M3 didn’t offer anything drastically different compared to last year’s iPad Air, so you shouldn’t bother upgrading so quickly on that basis alone.
If you’re coming in from an older iPad or almost any Android tablet, though, you’ll be impressed—just like you would’ve been if you’d made the same jump last year.
A slightly more magical-ish Magic Keyboard
The new Magic Keyboard is a little lighter, and there’s a new row of function keys that allows you to quickly adjust the volume or brightness, skip around in media playback, and so on. We loved seeing that addition in the Magic Keyboard for the iPad Pro recently, so we also love seeing it in the Air’s version.
The iPad Air’s new Magic Keyboard sits on a middle ground between the old design and the one we see over on the Pro. Yeah, we get the function keys, but the Pro’s keyboard is backlit and has haptics that aren’t found here.
The good news is that this keyboard is a little cheaper than its predecessor, at $269 (compared to $299). That’s not a huge gap, and it’s still awfully expensive compared to non-Apple solutions, but we’ll take it.
Apple opted to continue to support the old Magic Keyboard, so those upgrading from a recent prior Air won’t have to spend a big chunk of cash replacing their existing keyboards unless they find these updates worth the price. (I doubt it, but they’re nice to see.)
I found the typing experience to be quite good compared to other options for the tablet, though it of course can’t match a really nice laptop keyboard, and it obviously has nothing to offer the sort of folks who insist on a mechanical keyboard.
The trackpad is slightly bigger too, and every little bit helps on that front. The new Magic Keyboard offers some welcome refinements on the old design, and a little bit of price relief going along with that is great to see.
It’s still really expensive, but hey, you get what you pay for, for the most part.
The best option for most heavy tablet users
By not changing much in a market that is also not moving very quickly, the modestly tweaked new iPad Air (pricing starts at $599 for the 11-inch version and $799 for the 13-inch) remains the best option for most people who plan to use a tablet regularly.
It offers way more performance than almost anyone needs, it has a good screen for an LCD, and the new Magic Keyboard introduces several welcome tweaks while slightly lowering the price.
The cheaper, base iPad ($349) is still a better option for buying a tablet for your kid, point of sale uses, and various other light applications. Meanwhile, the iPad Pro ($999 for the 11-inch, $1,299 for the 13-inch) is much more robust than most people need, but the nicer screen goes a long way.
While there are still some things I’d like to see change in the iPad’s software, there’s not much change in this year’s refresh because there doesn’t need to be. It’s a good tablet in a mature market, even if it’s a bit pricey.