Apple’s tablet lineup—its “good, better, best” of the iPad, iPad Air, and iPad Pro—feels all the more entrenched. That’s mostly because iPadOS 26 means that iPads are actually usable for more than one app at a time.
Normally, a yearly refresh and a jump from Apple’s M3 to M4 chip in the iPad Air wouldn’t make me change my tune about an entire product. The M4 iPad Air is the same basic device as last year’s M3 version. The 11-inch model that Apple sent to me for review—a preferable size compared to the 13-inch model, in my opinion—still has the same Liquid Retina display meaning it’s LCD and not OLED like on the latest iPad Pros. It’s also still 6.1mm thick and weighs just more than a pound (the $1,000 M5 iPad Pro is thinner and lighter than the Air).
But everything that’s changed with the M4 iPad Air is more than skin deep—centered around the chip and software—and proves small changes can make a huge difference. In 2026, it’s the best tablet just short of the iPad Pro.
M4 iPad Air
The M4 iPad Air is the perfect little assistant to your main Mac, just don't go shelling out for all the extras.
Pros
Cons
This year, Apple’s lineup is stacked. Where does the base $600 M4 iPad Air fit when there’s now the MacBook Neo sitting pretty with the same starting price? For $600, the MacBook Neo comes includes a keyboard and trackpad, and has double the base storage (128GB vs. 256GB) compared to the M4 iPad Air; it also comes in prettier colors—a pink and yellow—while the only notable iPad Air color is a soft, silver-tone blue.
The MacBook Neo may be the better overall computer package, but in real life, the usefulness of the M4 iPad Air and its touchscreen, Apple Pencil support, and more versatile form factor for different tasks becomes apparent. Thanks to iPadOS 26, it’s now possible to treat the M4 iPad Air like a multitasking workhorse that sits on the sidelines, offering an extra, versatile screen when the laptop is just too big.
We should breathe a sigh of relief that the M4 iPad Air is not more expensive due to the ongoing memory crisis. What’s better, is that it includes 12GB of unified memory compared to the M3 iPad Air’s 8GB. There’s also a new N1 Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chip and the optional C1X modem (on 5G cellular models) that also boost connectivity compared to the previous models. So yes, you’re getting more for the same price. At the same time, you do need to spend an extra $270 on top of the M4 iPad Air to type on Apple’s Magic Keyboard accessory (the 13-inch model’s keyboard costs $320).
Going from 128GB of SSD storage to 256GB costs $100 extra. M4 iPad Air models with 5G demand an additional $150. An Apple Pencil Pro (I recommend it if you’re planning on taking any notes or doodling at all) adds another $130. Just to math things out, to match the MacBook Neo’s keyboard and trackpad, and storage, it’ll cost you $970 total. That’s to kit out the 11-inch M4 iPad Air. The 13-inch M4 iPad Air costs $800 for the 256GB model, which works out to $1,120 total once you’ve added a Magic Keyboard.
None of that nickel-and-diming may help Apple sell more iPad Airs. But it does get you in the iPad ecosystem for less if you don’t need the M5 iPad Pro’s tandem OLED screen for deeper contrast or its beefier M5 chip. The same 256GB storage with Magic Keyboard setup for the 11-inch M5 iPad Pro costs $1,270 and for the 13-inch it’s $1,620. The M4 chip in the iPad Air is plenty capable of handling everything from video editing to 3D modeling; it’ll just do them a teensy bit slower than the M5 iPad Pro.
The 11-inch M4 iPad Air may seem like a large tablet until you see it in person. The thick screen bezels—standard across all iPads—condense the screen real estate to two hands’ widths. iPadOS 26 isn’t just a godsend on 13-inch iPads. Even on the 11-inch M4 iPad Air, there’s just enough room for laying a few apps on top of each other.
Unlike earlier versions of the same operating system, iPadOS 26 doesn’t force you to choose between “Split Screen” or the confusing “Stage Manager” to see multiple apps on screen at once. It lets you arrange apps with resizable windows similar (but not exactly the same) as you would on a Mac running macOS. You can also fling apps to the sides of the screen, which will automatically snap them to the edges. It’s a bit of digital fun to throw things at the wall to watch them stick.
Needless to say, multitasking on an iPad, even with an 11-inch screen, is much, much easier with the latest software. I was easily able to flick through my Slack messages and manage my benchmarks spreadsheet in another window without much hassle. With that in mind, you’ll occasionally find there are some apps that don’t want to resize to a scale that makes them easy to tile. Apple-made apps such as Apple Music and third-party apps like Instagram can shrink to one fourth of the screen. Meanwhile, scrolling through Netflix movies will demand at least three quarters of your entire display.
For many people, an iPad still cannot be their main computer. You’ll inevitably encounter some oddity with iPad apps compared to their Mac or PC counterparts. For example, drafting a Google Doc, even with the Magic Keyboard attachment, leads to mounting frustration, especially when CMD+F doesn’t bring up a find and replace window like it does everywhere else.
Apple’s Creator Studio apps, including Pixelmator Pro, Final Cut Pro, and Logic Pro, all support iPad native versions. Pixelmator Pro is a great Photoshop alternative for those looking to craft posters or edit photos. At the same time, Final Cut Pro may not be so well suited to an 11-inch display. It’s too tight an environment, especially when you’re trying to layer clips in the timeline and still access your library and video feed.
The overall structure of the iPad Air hasn’t changed, most notably in the camera department. It has a single, 12-megapixel wide sensor with an f/1.8 aperture. It’s still limited to a 5x digital zoom—no physical zoom—and it’s handy if you’re going into full grandma mode to take pictures of your cat. Though, yes, it’s also handy for document scanning in the Notes app. Compared to pre-M3 iPad Airs, Apple moved the 12-megapixel Center Stage camera to the landscape side, which makes so, so much more sense. This camera can shoot at 1080p and 60 fps, so it can work for occasional FaceTime or Zoom calls.
The M4 iPad Air also contains two sets of landscape stereo speakers on the shorter ends of the tablet. It supports Dolby Atmos Spatial Audio for apps that support it, like Apple Music. Overall, it’s best to think of the M4 iPad Air—or any iPad—as a side piece. Apple has made iPadOS more macOS-like in some ways, but iPads still have many operating system constraints that prevent them from being many peoples’ laptop replacement.
The iPad Air isn’t powered by the same M4 chip in the M4 MacBook Air. The tablet chip is a binned version, meaning it contains fewer cores than the maxed-out 10-core CPU and 10-core GPU. Apple configured the M4 iPad Air version with an 8-core CPU and a 9-core GPU. In practice, you won’t see quite the same performance as you would on the M4 MacBook Air. It’s also slower for more graphically demanding tasks, like 3D modeling.
What may be helping the M4 iPad Air get a leg up is the upgrade to 12GB of unified memory. That’s 4GB more than the M3 iPad Air. This will necessarily increase speeds for when you have multiple apps open at once. It will also boost overall performance. For CPU benchmarks, Gizmodo uses tests like Geekbench 6 to get an overall sense of the M4 chip’s capabilities. The M4 iPad Air scored around 700 points higher in single-core tests and a little more than 1,500 points higher in multi-core settings compared to the M3 iPad Air. The multi-core performance is a make-or-break for how well a chip may do with video processing or gaming.
While the M4 chip is still able to render the “Screws” scene in the Octane X rendering app, it’s significantly better for graphics tasks compared to the M3. In 3D Mark tests, the M4 iPad Air hit a massive 1,000 points higher in the “Steel Nomad Light” benchmark compared to the M3 iPad Air. The new tablet also scored 3,500 points higher in 3D Mark’s “Solar Bay tests,” which helps measure ray tracing capabilities on lightweight devices. The M4 has more advanced ray tracing than the M3, so the upgrade is especially notable for these specific tasks.
There’s still a gulf between the iPad Air’s and iPad Pro’s performance, but that gap has significantly shrunk with this latest iteration. The M4 iPad Air is running just a few hundred points shy of the M5 iPad Pro in CPU benchmarks. In graphics tests, the M5 iPad Pro with the full 10-core CPU and 10-core GPU still manages to hold the edge with a score of 3,984 in the “Steel Nomad Light” benchmark compared to the M4 iPad Air’s 3,166. Performance is still a major reason to get the M5 iPad Pro, but if you want to spend significantly less, then the M4 iPad Air is a great choice for most creators out there.
What surprised me the most was how much gaming performance I could get out of the M4 iPad Air. I know what you’re about to say: “There are no games available on iPad.” Fine, you’re right. Unless you’re buying your games through the App Store or you have an Apple Arcade subscription, you’ll be scraping the bottom of the barrel to find great titles to play.
Ray tracing is a simulation of how light works in real life, in a game. It makes 3D-rendered scenes—especially noticeable in games—appear more realistic, but the graphical uplift also taxes the GPU harder to do so. The M3 iPad Air struggled to run a game like Resident Evil 4 without occasional slowdowns and laggy controls. The experience was much improved on the M4 iPad Air. The game ran at a stable enough frame rate that, with a PS4 DualSense controller, I could have a fine time with shooting without feeling that my aim was off.
I tested several other titles, including Assassin’s Creed: Mirage and Red Dead Redemption (available via Netflix). Both games felt buttery smooth, even with Mirage set to “High” graphics settings. Apple also granted me early access to Control, built for iPads.
Remedy’s 2019 surreal action game was an early example of next-generation real-time ray tracing. Unfortunately, you can’t actually run the game with ray tracing on any iPad. In the game’s settings, it says that feature is restricted to DX12-supported GPUs. Translation: ray tracing only works on Windows devices. Instead, Control settles on “Medium” graphics settings with a 2x upscaling. That settles the game at roughly just below 30 fps. However, you can enable MetalFX frame interpolation (aka frame generation) to push that into a generally smooth experience (at the cost of occasional visual glitches).
What this should tell you is that the M4 iPad Air is limited in its ambitions to be a graphics or ray tracing powerhouse. It is, however, surprisingly deft at handling even relatively intensive games. If I were on the road and, for some reason, I only had an M4 iPad Air with me, I wouldn’t be at a loss of potential gaming scenarios to occupy my time.
There is a chance that iPads may not be so locked down to Apple games in the future. There are more emulation apps coming to the Mac promising to let you play your entire Steam library. Macs are using the same M-series chips as iPad Airs and iPad Pros, so it may only be a matter of time before we see full PC emulation come to Apple’s tablets.
The C1X chip built into the M4 iPad Air (once you spend the optional $150 on a cellular model) was first introduced in the iPhone Air as Apple’s way of weaning itself off of Qualcomm’s modems. Since then, Apple has been claiming the chip offers a 50% faster cellular connection and better power efficiency. While the C1X supports sub-6GHz 5G and 4G LTE, the real reason it’s in Apple’s latest devices is to control the ecosystem even more than before.
What matters more than that is likely going to be your carrier plan. Apple stuck Verizon connectivity on my testing unit. I live in New York City, a place that can be spotty depending on your location, and it can be even more tenuous if you try to sustain a 5G connection in the bowels of the NYC subway. That being said, I had a very strong connection to most places I traveled. I managed to get a signal out on the subway where I have a far more difficult time on an iPhone 14 Pro with T-Mobile coverage. I had taken the M5 iPad Pro out on Vermont highways and still managed a connection strong enough to allow an M5 Apple Vision Pro to handle a FaceTime call using its Persona virtual avatars.
I can’t say whether the C1X chip is better than the Qualcomm SDX70M modem in the M3 iPad Air, or modems in competing cellular-equipped tablets. All I can tell you is that it works well.
The one consideration I have to mention if you plan to use the M4 iPad Air as a backup computer is the battery life may be disappointing. The 11-inch model promises to get 10 hours of battery life for browsing the web while using Wi-Fi. In my own experience, using the tablet at a relatively high brightness and connected to both the Magic Keyboard and Apple Pencil Pro, I would get far less than that.
As soon as you use this tablet for more than browsing and streaming, you’ll see the battery deplete drastically. I managed to get four hours with the screen on and off during usage. That was when I used it for recording benchmarking numbers and for checking notes, not always for active typing. The battery is sizable enough for most everyday uses, it’s just not going to be an all-day device if you put any extra stress on it. Definitely, don’t expect it to have much stamina if you’re going to be playing 3D-heavy games.
I prefer smaller tablets. For one, they don’t take up the same space as my existing laptop in my backpack. Second, I take these devices out on a public commute and at a crowded bar table when I’m hosting a tabletop RPG session. I was already a proponent of the A17 Pro iPad mini for its excellent portability. With the cellular connectivity in tow and the easy app navigation of the latest software update, I don’t have any issues using the 11-inch M4 iPad Air as a backup computer in tight spaces.
It’s the M4 iPad Air’s price that gives me pause. As always, Apple demands an arm, a leg, and maybe your firstborn child for any and all upgrades. And if you’re planning to move from an older iPad to the latest hotness, you likely won’t be taking your old Apple Pencil for the ride. The latest iPads only accept the Apple Pencil (USB-C) and the Apple Pencil Pro.
My suggestion is to resist Apple’s siren call to open your wallet too wide. If you’re looking for a tablet that can handle everything short of being your next Mac, the M4 iPad Air will more than suffice.
Source: Gizmodo