The 2024 iPad Air (starting at $599 for the 11-inch model) sits in the middle of Apple’s tablets lineup. It finds a comfortable home between the high-end iPad Pro (starting at $999) and the entry-level iPad (starting at $349). While it’s less of a leap forward than the 2024 Pro, the iPad Air gains a slightly larger display, a new processor, a relocated camera, and other spec bumps that ensure it remains the best choice for those who need more than the standard iPad can deliver but less raw power than the Pro. It’s particularly good for students and casual creators, earning it out Editor’s Choice award.Design: Familiar HardwareThough there’s plenty of fresh tech aboard the 2024 iPad Air, it looks strikingly similar to the 2022 model. Perhaps the biggest change is that there are now two Airs from which to choose, at 11 inches ($599) and 13 inches ($799). This allows those who want a bigger screen to get one for less-than-Pro pricing. I received the 11-inch model for testing.
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(Credit: Eric Zeman)
The smaller Air carries over the same dimensions and weight as its predecessor. The 11-inch model measures 9.74 by 7.02 by 0.24 inches (HWD) and weighs 1.02 pounds. That’s remarkably close to the 11-inch iPad Pro (9.83 by 6.99 by 0.21 inches, 0.98 pounds) as well as the standard iPad (9.79 by 7.07 by 0.28 inches, 1.05 pounds). The larger 13-inch iPad Air is bigger at 11.04 by 8.46 by 0.24 inches and 1.36 pounds. The 13-inch Air is now the heaviest of the current iPad lineup.Comparatively, the 10.9-inch Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 FE (starting at $549.99) measures 10.01 by 6.53 by 0.26 inches and weighs 1.15 pounds.
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As you would expect, the 11-inch iPad Air is the easier of the two to carry around and use. It fits into many smaller bags, while the larger one requires something bigger for transport. Neither is going to weigh you down.
(Credit: Eric Zeman)
Apple uses aluminum for the Air’s chassis. It forms the entire rear panel as well as the straight side edges. A large piece of glass covers the entire front of the tablet. The iPad Air doesn’t have an IP rating for protection against dust and water, while the Tab S9 FE is rated IP68 and can survive a 30-minute dunk in fresh water. If waterproofing is vital to you, you shouldn’t look to the iPad line.The iPad Air has stereo speakers, one on each short edge, as opposed to the Pro’s quad-speaker system. It fares well when watching movies or listening to music as long as you’re holding the tablet in landscape orientation. The speakers produce more than enough volume to fill a bedroom or office. Bass response on tracks like The Knife’s “Silent Shout” is surprisingly rich.
(Credit: Eric Zeman)
Similar to the Pro, the iPad Air’s power button is on the left edge near the top corner and the volume buttons are on the top edge near the left corner. All three buttons work well. The power button doubles as a fingerprint reader. It works perfectly, though I recommend you take the time to register several fingerprints (at least both thumbs and pointer fingers) for the sake of convenience so you can unlock it if you happen to be holding it upside down.A USB-C (USB 2.0) port is centered on the bottom edge. The pogo-style Smart Connector pins are nearby on the rear panel, while the magnetic connector for the Apple Pencil is on the top edge. The Air includes two microphones and a single, small camera lens on the rear panel. For cellular models, Apple nixes the physical SIM card tray and uses eSIM only.
(Credit: Eric Zeman)
As with the standard and Pro iPads, the Air’s front-facing camera is now centered on the top, long edge of the tablet. This means video chats look less awkward. If you like color, you’re in luck: The iPad Air comes in Blue, Purple, Space Gray, or Starlight (goldish). The Pro is only available in Silver or Space Black.Screen: Sharp and Bright EnoughThe iPad Air display doesn’t get the same glow-up as the Pro. It sticks with LED-backlit IPS LCD tech and carries over almost every spec from the previous generation.The 11-inch model gains 0.1 inches in size but maintains the same 2,360 by 1,640-pixel resolution at 264 pixels per inch (ppi). The 13-inch model has more pixels at 2,732 by 2,048 but the same density at 264ppi. These sizes and resolutions are nearly identical to the 11- and 13-inch Pro models, but those benefit from OLED lighting tech, which produces deeper blacks and more contrast.
(Credit: Eric Zeman)
Both Airs are fully laminated with oleophobic and anti-glare coatings and support P3 color and True Tone for automatic white balance adjustment. They are limited to a 60Hz refresh rate rather than the 120Hz rate of the Pros. In use, the Air’s screen does a fine job of rejecting fingerprints and glare and maintains a hue relative to the ambient light. The 11-inch model tops out at 500 nits of brightness while the 13-inch model reaches 600 nits. These numbers are far below the 1,600 nits available to the iPad Pro. Still, the iPad Air display provides a much better experience than that of the base iPad thanks to the coatings.For comparison, the Galaxy Tab S9 FE has a 10.9-inch TFT LCD screen with a resolution of 2,304 by 1,440 pixels that runs at 90Hz.Performance: A Powerful ContenderApple boosts the iPad Air’s processor from the M1 to the M2. While it’s not an M3 or M4, it’s worth pointing out that the M2 chip is the same one found in the last-generation iPad Pro. That means it’s still a highly capable chip that works hard. The M2 has an 8-core CPU (4 performance cores, 4 efficiency cores), a 10-core GPU, and a 16-core neural engine (NPU). The tablet ships with 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, or 1TB of storage and all models include 8GB of RAM. Notably, Apple has doubled the base storage (to 128GB) as well as the maximum available storage (to 1TB), which makes the Air a much better option than before for creators who work with large projects or file libraries.
(Credit: Geekbench/PCMag)
In terms of everyday use, I could hardly discern a difference between the Air and the Pro. The Air was just as quick as the Pro with multitasking, opening apps, running Stage Manager, streaming media, and other general tasks. It was just a bit slower when I started working with files in GarageBand or iMovie, but not by much. The Air is more than strong enough to handle Apple’s free media content creation apps and absolutely crushes basics like Gmail, Word, and others. I ran several benchmarks to put some numbers behind the performance. The iPad Air achieved scores of 2,581 and 9,887 on the single- and multi-core tests for Geekbench 6; 6,137 total frames at 36.7fps on 3DMark; 3,858 total frames at 60fps for GFXBench Aztec Ruins High Tier; and 1,997,738 for AnTuTu.Those figures are very close to the 2022 M2 iPad Pro, which scored 2,502 and 9,496 on Geekbench 6; 6,914 on 3DMark, and 2,197,677 on Antutu. Meanwhile, the new iPad Pro and its M4 processor hit 3,679 and 14,647 on Geekbench 6; 8,597 frames at 51.5fps for 3DMark; 3,858 frames at 60fps for GFXBench; and 2,746,950 for AnTuTu.For further comparison, the Galaxy Tab S9 FE and its Exynos 1380 processor scored a lesser 1,011 and 2,897 on Geekbench 6.In other words, the iPad Air is nearly as quick as Apple’s top-tier tablet. It’s also faster and more powerful than most competing Android slates.Battery: It Gets the Job DoneApple makes the same battery life promise it always has for the iPad. In general, you can expect about 10 hours of battery life when surfing over Wi-Fi and 9 hours when surfing over cellular. In testing, the tale is slightly different. PCMag’s standard battery test includes setting the display to the maximum brightness and then streaming an HD video over Wi-Fi until the battery gives out. Under those circumstances, the iPad Air lasted 6 hours and 47 minutes. While that result is far less than Apple’s stated claims, it still manages to best the 2022 model by more than 50 minutes. That’s a nice gain. Comparatively, the 10,090mAh battery of the Galaxy Tab S9 FE+ lasted 7 hours and 23 minutes in testing, while the iPad Pro went for 7 hours and 43 minutes.The iPad Air can handle 20W wired charging. It took just under 2 hours to recharge from 0% to 100%. The box includes a USB-C-to-USB-C cable and a charging brick, which I appreciate.Connections: Everything You NeedThe iPad Air and iPad Pro share most connectivity features. That means sub-6GHz 5G with C-Band (but not mmWave), Wi-Fi 6E (but not Wi-Fi 7), Bluetooth 5.3, and GPS/GNSS and iBeacon for location.Wireless performance was excellent across the board. On a strong Verizon Ultra Wideband 5G connection, the Air scored 378Mbps down and 118Mbps up. The iPad Pro nabbed 391Mbps down and 129Mbps up in the same spot.
(Credit: Eric Zeman)
Wi-Fi was also solid. When tested next to a Wi-Fi router with 1Gbps service, the Air reached 555Mbps down and 128Mbps up while the Pro hit 569Mbps down and 140Mbps in the same location. The Bluetooth radio handled various wireless earphones and headphones without issue. I also tested it with some AirPods and enjoyed Apple’s first-party integrations. The Air’s USB-C port isn’t as feature-rich as the Pro’s. It’s limited to USB3 with support for DisplayPort, while the Pro supports Thunderbolt 3 and USB4. That means data speeds max out at 10Gbps rather than 40Gbps. Thankfully, it can still drive a 6K monitor at 60Hz.Cameras: Sharp and ColorfulThe iPad Air shares the hardware for its front and rear cameras with the iPad Pro, which is good news. As mentioned, the 12MP wide-angle front camera is now centered on the front of the tablet, which makes it far better for video chats. It has an aperture of f/2.4 and supports Smart HDR 4, 1080p video capture at 60fps, time-lapse recording, lens correction, stabilization, burst mode, and a screen-based Retina Flash with True Tone. It truly does a fine job for a tablet camera, especially when it comes to FaceTime and other video calls.
(Credit: Eric Zeman)
The rear camera also has a 12MP sensor, but a brighter aperture of f/1.8. The five-element lens supports up to 5x digital zoom, autofocus, panorama shots, HDR 4, wide color, Live Photos, and more. It’s one of the better cameras you’ll get on a tablet. Photos taken in good lighting are clean, sharp, well-exposed, and properly balanced in terms of color. Shots taken in darker spaces have more grain, but that’s not a surprise.
(Credit: Eric Zeman)
Video from both the front and rear cameras looks really good but falls short of the ProRes footage you get from the iPad Pro’s rear camera.
(Credit: Eric Zeman)
Software: iPadOS Is Still iPadOSThe Air ships with iPadOS 17, which was first released in 2023. iPadOS 18 won’t be available until September or October of this year, which means most of the software features of the new iPad Air are the same as the old one. iPadOS 17 is totally fine for most purposes, particularly running apps. Apple’s iPads enjoy a far greater selection of customized apps than most other tablets. For iPad Air buyers, the most important considerations are likely GarageBand and iMovie, which are preinstalled.
(Credit: Apple/PCMag)
Stage Manager works well enough as a multitasking tool, as it allows you to keep several apps in stasis with multiple windows open at a time. It’s not as clean or useful as a standard desktop UI, but it suffices. It would be great to see iPadOS 18 adopt a fresh version of the launcher for better managing multiple apps and, more importantly, files. Most importantly, the iPad Air will enjoy years of OS and security updates from Apple, as is true across the company’s range of iPads.Comparatively, the Galaxy Tab S9 FE runs on Android 13 and will receive four Android OS updates and five years of security updates. Further, it includes Samsung’s DeX desktop UI emulator, which allows the tablet to function more like a laptop. On the flip side, it has access to fewer customized apps.Accessories: The Apple Pencil and Magic Keyboard Are Here to HelpApple plays it (mostly) smart with the iPad Air’s accessories. Critically, the Air is compatible with the new Apple Pencil Pro and Apple Pencil (USB-C). The $129 Apple Pencil Pro adds several new tools for creators.
(Credit: Eric Zeman)
To start, it contains a pressure-sensitive section close to the tip. Squeeze this area to open the toolbar, which reveals the eraser along with tips, colors, and more. The “barrel roll” is one of the Pencil Pro’s biggest features. The addition of a gyroscope inside the Pencil makes it sensitive to rolling motions. Doing this rotates the angle of the Pencil tip so you can see which way your pen is facing before you make a mark. In addition to these features, the Pencil also has a new haptic engine so it provides vibrating feedback, as well as Find My network support.
(Credit: Eric Zeman)
Apple has discontinued the Apple Folio Keyboard for the Air, but it is still compatible with the existing Magic Keyboard ($299 for the 11-inch, $349 for the 13-inch). Verdict: A Fine Piece of WorkThe $599 Apple iPad Air is an excellent tablet for people who want more performance than the standard iPad offers but who don’t need all the power of the iPad Pro. The M2 processor means it can handle advanced creation apps, the plentiful storage makes it more capable for larger projects, the reconfigured cameras help with video chats, and it’s compatible with the best version of the Apple Pencil for artists. All this makes the iPad Air an Editors’ Choice winner for students and creators who need an intermediate tablet for work and play. Professional artists and digital creators should still consider the iPad Pro for its advanced power and capabilities, while casual users who only expect to surf the web, enjoy social media apps, and stream media can save a considerable amount of money on the standard iPad.
Pros
Powerful performance
Nice screen
Excellent cameras for a tablet
Plenty of connectivity options
Supports Apple Pencil Pro
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Cons
Pricey accessories
iPadOS could be smoother
The Bottom Line
The iPad Air offers more than enough power for students and creatives to get work done on an appealing tablet that doesn’t break the bank.
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