Apple's popular iPad Air steps up to the M4 chip, 12 GB of memory, Wi-Fi 7, and a faster modem — in both 11-inch and 13-inch sizes from $599.
Apple has announced a new iPad Air powered by the M4 chip, bringing a significant performance and connectivity upgrade at the same starting price of $599 for the 11-inch model and $799 for the 13-inch.
In terms of the speed boosts Apple always likes to mention at this sort of point, the M4 delivers an 8-core CPU and 9-core GPU, making the new iPad Air up to 30% faster than the M3 model and up to 2.3x faster than the M1 version. For creative work, Apple in particular highlights gains in Pixelmator Pro and Final Cut Pro (though it draws back from providing any numbers), and claims over 4x faster 3D rendering with ray tracing compared to the M1 iPad Air. The 9-core GPU supports second-generation hardware-accelerated mesh shading and ray tracing.
All in all, it's decent performance hike. And interesting to note that the inclusion of the M4 chip into the iPad Air range comes almost two years after its inclusion into the iPad Pro.
Connectivity gets an upgrade via two new Apple-designed chips. The N1 brings Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, and Thread support, with improved performance on 5 GHz networks and better reliability for Personal Hotspot and AirDrop. Cellular models add C1X, Apple's latest modem, which the company says delivers up to 50% faster cellular data and 30% lower modem energy use compared to the M3 iPad Air.
The new iPad Air is available in 11-inch and 13-inch sizes, in blue, purple, starlight, and space gray, with storage options from 128 GB to 1 TB. Pre-orders open March 4, with availability from March 11.
US pricing is as follows: