It looks like the yearly update of the iPad Air from the M2 chip to the M3 chip wasn’t a fluke. Apple may have decided that this tablet, which sits between the entry-level iPad and the iPad Pro, deserves an upgrade every year. That’s right, my friends, Apple has just revealed the new-generation Apple iPad Air powered by the M4 chip.
Not surprisingly, aesthetically, it remains the same as the previous generation, right down to the dimensions and weight. So what has changed? The M4 chip, of course, and the wireless have both received a bump from Wi-Fi 6E to Wi-Fi 7. The M4 chip rocks an 8-core CPU, a 9-core GPU, and a 16-core Neural Engine, promising blazing performance, bolstered by higher memory bandwidth and 50 percent more unified memory over the previous generation. All told, it is up to 30 percent faster than the iPad Air with M3 and up to 2.3x faster than the iPad Air with M1. So yes, it would be a worthy upgrade if you are still on M1—or even M2. However, I am not sure if you should if you are already with M3. Just saying…
In addition, it benefits from Apple’s latest connectivity chips, N1 and C1X (for the Wi-Fi + Cellular model), delivering faster wireless and cellular connections, along with support for Wi-Fi 7 as mentioned earlier. Those are pretty much it as far as “upgrades” go.
The layout on the iPad Air with M4 is pretty much the same. There are speakers at the top and bottom, a top button with a Touch ID sensor, volume buttons on the right, a lone camera on the rear’s top-left corner, a magnetic connector at the center of the left side, a Smart Connector at the bottom rear, and a USB-C port at the bottom edge. As before, there is a front-facing camera and a microphone on the left black bezel.
The rest of the specs are identical to the M3 model. These include a Liquid Retina display featuring an LED-backlit Multi-Touch display with IPS technology, built-in Apple Intelligence, a 12 MP wide camera with up to 5x digital zoom, a landscape 12 MP Center Stage camera, support for video and audio calling, landscape stereo speakers, dual microphones for calls, video recording, and audio recording, Bluetooth 6, simultaneous dual-band Wi-Fi, eSIM (for the Wi-Fi + Cellular model), and a rechargeable lithium-polymer battery (28.93 watt-hours for the 11-inch model and 36.59 watt-hours for the 13-inch model). There is also a USB-C port with support for charging, DisplayPort, and USB 3 (up to 10 Gb/s), along with the usual sensors.
The Apple iPad Air with M4 is available in 11-inch and 13-inch models. They are offered in blue, purple, starlight, and space gray, with 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB configurations.
The new iPad Air with M4 is available for pre-order starting Wednesday, March 4, with a starting price of US$599 for the 11-inch model and US$799 for the 13-inch model.
Images: Apple.
