Apple today announced the updated 11 and 13-inch iPad Air tablets featuring the company’s M3 chip. There’s also a refreshed Magic Keyboard.
The M3 chip in the new iPad Air has eight processing cores and nine graphic cores which bring dynamic caching and hardware-accelerated mesh shading and ray tracing to the iPad Air for the first time. The Neural Engine, Apple’s coprocessor for accelerating AI tasks, is about 60 percent faster over the M1 chip. Compared with the M2 iPad Pro, which was released in May 2024, the new M3 model ringed about one-fifth faster overall performance.
The M3 iPad Air is available to pre-order via Apple’s website, with pricing unchanged from the previous M2 iPad Air: $600 for the 11-inch model, and $800 for the 13-incher. The tablets come in the same four color finishes and storage capacities as the M2 iPad Air lineup: Space Gray, Blue, Purple and Starlight in 128GB, 256GB, 512GB and 1TB capacities. Cellular models are an extra $150.
The new M3 iPad Air brings 20% faster performance
“iPad Air is so popular because of its unmatched combination of powerful performance, portability and support for advanced accessories, all at an affordable price,” Bob Borchers, Apple’s vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing, was quoted as saying in the press release. “For everyone from college students taking notes with the Apple Pencil Pro, to travelers and content creators who need powerful productivity on the go, the iPad Air with M3, Apple Intelligence and the new Magic Keyboard take versatility and value to the next level.”
Apple also likes to draw comparisons with its first Apple silicon tablets, saying the M3 iPad Air is nearly 2x faster than the M1 iPad Air (2022) and up to 3.5x faster than the fourth-generation model (2020) powered by the A14 chip. Contrary to some rumor that had been circulating ahead of the announcement, Apple hasn’t equipped the new iPad Air with its latest M4 chip. The iPad Air is Apple’s most popular consumer tablet and the M4 chip would be an overkill given the target audience.
Apple has created a new Magic Keyboard for all iPad Air models from the fourth-generation iPad Air (2020) onwards, bringing perks like a 14-key function row, a bigger trackpad, and a lower starting price. The keyboard attachment is now more in line with the redesigned Magic Keyboard that arrived alongside the M4 iPad Pro in 2024, but still lacks backlit keys, haptic feedback and an aluminum top case.
For further information, visit apple.com/ipad-air. Other good resources for comparing the current and previous iPad Air are Apple’s Compare iPad page and the official tech specs for the M2 iPad Air and the M3 iPad Air.
Apple updates the budget iPad
Apple has also refreshed its budget iPad, called just “iPad”. The eleventh-generation still starts at $350 but now comes with double the base storage (128GB instead of 64GB) and the 30 percent faster A16 chip versus the A14 in the tenth-generation model. However, the new iPad doesn’t support Apple Intelligence, meaning Mark Gurman was wrong when he wrote in a January on Bloomberg that the next budget iPad would be equipped with an A17 Pro chip to support Apple Intelligence.
Pricing and availability
You can pre-order the new iPad Air with M3 via Apple’s website and the official Apple Store app in the United States and 28 countries, with shipments and retail availability starting on Wednesday, March 12. The tablet is available in the same 11 and 13-inch flavors and color finishes (Space Gray, Blue, Purple and Starlight) as before.
The 11-inch 128GB/256GB/512GB/1TB configurations are priced at $600/$700/$900/$1100. The 13-inch 128GB/256GB/512GB/1TB models are $200 pricier at $800/$900/$1100/$1300. If you need cellular connectivity, that’s an extra $150. For education, the new iPad Air is $550 for the base 11-inch Wi-Fi-only model, while the 13-incher is $750.
The device is compatible with the Apple Pencil Pro ($130) and the USB-C Apple Pencil ($80) . The original Apple Pencil ($100) and its second-generation version ($130) are unsupported. Apple offers the new Magic Keyboard for both iPad Pro sizes, costing $270 ($250 for eduction) for the 11-inch version and $320 ($300 for education) for its 13-inch counterpart. It’s only available in white.