The iPad Air, the middle child of Apple’s tablet lineup, has been upgraded to an M4 chip with more RAM and… Well, nothing else if I’m being honest. At least, the new iPad Air M4 The models remain at the same price as iPad Air M3with the 11-inch version starting at $599 and the 13-inch at $799. I’d give Apple more credit if it increased startup storage or added literally anything else.

If you put them side by side, you might not know the difference, but this upgrade will benefit creatives and professionals above all else. There’s a significant bump in performance from the M3 to the M4, and the increase in RAM does a lot of work, especially if you’re taking advantage of Apple Intelligence.

If you’re using an M1-powered iPad Air or something older, however, the new iPad Air M4 should be a compelling upgrade. Pre-orders begin at 9:15AM ET on March 4, with units arriving a week later. We expect full reviews to be published later. But in the meantime, let’s take a look at what the performance gains look like and what’s lost in the year-old iteration of the iPad Air.

iPad Air M4 vs. iPad Air M3: Performance and battery life

The most important difference between the two generations of iPad Air is their chipsets. The latest iPad Air is launched with an M4 chip compared to its predecessor’s M3 chip, and it gets a bump in RAM from 8GB to 12GB.

I don’t give much credit to incremental chip increases because the performance gain is usually small. However, the M4 is up to 30 percent faster than the M3, according to Apple. That can be noticed even by casual users, especially as the years pass and iPadOS becomes more demanding. For power users, this means more difficult work like video editing is much easier.

For those who need the fastest internet speed, the new iPad Air is also equipped with Apple’s N1 chip, which enables Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6, the latest connectivity technology. However, I can’t imagine the average user needing up to 46 gigabits per second of internet speed compared to the iPad M3’s 9.6 Gbps on Wi-Fi 6. If you do, you’re in the tax bracket for an iPad Pro.

Now, despite the increased speed, the battery life between the M4 and M3 models remains the same. Apple claims that all four models get up to 10 hours of battery life surfing the web on Wi-Fi or watching video (up to 9 hours on cellular). No complaints here.

iPad Air M4 vs iPad Air M3: Design, display, audio and cameras

For better or worse, we didn’t get any changes in any departments, so I combined them.

The iPad Air comes in blue, purple, beige and gray. The 11-inch option measures 9.74 x 7.02 x 0.24 inches and the 13 comes in at 11.04 x 8.46 x 0.24 inches. As their names suggest, they are both light, at 1.01 pounds (1.02 pounds for the M4) and 1.36 pounds, respectively. My wish is that we get new colors that pop even more.

Then there are the displays. All four versions of the iPad Airs have a Liquid Retina LED display at 264 ppi. The 11-inch supports a 2,360 x 1,640 resolution with a peak brightness of 500 nits, while the 13-inch offers a 2,732 x 2,048 resolution at 600 nits. It would be nice to see an OLED or even a Mini-LED panel go to the iPad Air, which could make the screen more clear and vibrant. But it is more disappointing that we are stuck at 60Hz unlike the Pro models that offer 120Hz, which makes their visual experience smoother.

Both products have stereo speakers on display. The audio quality of the iPad Air M3 can’t keep up with the iPad Pro, so I doubt the M4 model will.

You won’t catch me taking photos with the iPad, but for what you do, the iPad Air M4 has the same 12MP front and rear cameras as its predecessor.

iPadOS 26, Apple Intelligence and Apple accessories

Nothing much will happen to iPadOS or Apple accessories in the iPad Air refresh. The updated Magic Keyboard from last year still works with newer models, such as the Apple Pencil Pro. iPadOS 26, released last fall, is a major update but still familiar to anyone who has used an iPad before. The new iPad Air M4 gets a significant boost in AI processing speed, however, thanks to a new chip and a 50 percent increase in RAM. However, unless you are an AI power user, you probably won’t notice a difference there.

All that said, if your love language is spreadsheets, the full details are helpfully laid out below:

iPad Air M4 vs. iPad Air M3: Specifications at a glance