iPad Air 2026 review: M4 and other chip bumps make a difference

The latest iPad Air is an iPad with a chip — and perhaps the most advanced iPad Air with a chip yet. Inside this new device are, in fact, three upgraded chips compared to last year’s model: the M4 processor, the C1X cellular modem, and the N1 chip that brings Air Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, and Thread support. Here’s the full list of upgrades on this year’s device.

Apple talks about the Air in a very direct way: it’s where Apple’s latest technology goes after it retires the iPad Pro, usually once a better version becomes available and Apple can produce the current version with more scale and cost-effectiveness. Does this make the iPad Air a product of Apple’s operations department as much as its design and product teams? Absolutely not! But in some ways, that also led to the Air being Apple’s most compelling tablet for most people: good tech at a good price.

In fact, right now, if you were in the market for a new iPad, I’d probably tell you to buy the Air. (I recommend most people get the 11-inch, but if you’re using a 13-inch tablet, know that I respect your game.) Basic iPad It’s starting to look seriously underpowered and doesn’t support some of Apple’s best accessories; The Pro remains more of a tablet for more money than most people will need. Yes, I wish the $599 price of the Air got you 256GB of storage instead of 128GB, especially when Apple is doubling the base storage on many of its devices. Yes, I would like a smoother 120Hz OLED display from the Pro instead of a 60Hz LED display. until iPhone 17 base He has a ProMotion screen now! I still miss FaceID too. But if you have to make trade-offs to get to the price, it’s a reasonable trade-off.

Back to the chipset bumps: In my tests, the M4 Air performed about 20-25 percent faster than Air M3 on CPU tasks, and 10-15 percent faster on GPU tasks. (It also measures a hair above the M4 iPad Pro for CPU, and a hair below for GPU, despite ostensibly having the same chip. Strange.) That’s a good performance increase over a 12-month-old device, but as is often the case, you’ll never notice the difference. Even side by side, the two Airs launch apps the same way, and look similar when playing high-end games – the only point I’ve noticed the M4 Air being consistently faster is in generating search results in Spotlight search.

But that’s not the comparison that matters. Let’s say, conservatively, that you should be able to buy an iPad expecting it to work well for five years. (Realistically, I think the number is a year or two higher, but let’s stick to just five.) If you’re in the market for this year’s iPad Air, that means you probably bought the fourth-generation iPad Air from 2020 or the 10th-gen iPad from 2022. Both devices have the A14 Bionic chip. The M4 measures between 80 percent and 250 percent faster than the A14 Bionic chip on CPU tasks, and more than three times better on GPU tasks.

Believe me: you are will Note that the upgrade. Everything about the new iPad, from small animations to high-end games, will look smoother, better and faster than your previous device. Even if you don’t do anything new on this iPad, you will like this device better.

If you have an M3 iPad Air from last year, or an M2 model from 2024, you definitely don’t need to upgrade. This is good news! Apple hasn’t dreamed up some big new ideas about iPads since you bought yours; It keeps the iPads charged a little better. But at this rate, by the time you need a new one, all those bumps will have added up to something impressive.

As for other chips, Apple’s C1X chip in particular seems to have been a revelation. I’ve long been an ardent believer in cell-enabled iPads, because there’s something about that constant connectivity that makes the iPad instantly more useful as an on-the-go way to do email, read, or browse the web, the things the iPad was designed for. They also make great hotspots, thanks to their massive batteries. In my tests so far, the M4 Air has consistently been the fastest cellular-enabled device I’ve had, and in poor service areas it sometimes delivers speeds several times faster than recent iPhones, Pixels, and even other iPads.

The other chip, the N1, I don’t notice much. Like most people, I don’t have a Wi-Fi 7 setup in my home, so the Air works as quickly on Wi-Fi as any other modern device. Bluetooth remains equally good and challenging, regardless of the version number. And the thread… I don’t really know why it’s there. I I’m not sure Apple does thatalso.

There are a lot of iPads these days, which Apple seems to release at fairly random intervals. But the story is actually fairly straightforward: The Pro is the best iPad, and it’s not particularly close. (I don’t want to spoil the proceedings here, but if you can find a good deal on an M4 iPad Pro now then… M5 model out(You should jump on it.) The basic iPad is a cheap device, but every day that passes without a meaningful upgrade, this device becomes a worse deal. iPad Mini is for people who use iPad Mini, you know who you are.

For others, there’s the iPad Air. It’s not perfect, but it’s great, and the price is about right. My advice with iPads is always the same: buy the best you can afford, keep it for as long as you can, then enjoy the spoils of all those bumps.