The iPhone Air is an impressively slim 5.6mm-thick smartphone that really showcases the best of Apple’s engineering prowess. It’s just a shame the same can’t be said for the similarly-branded iPad Air.
Despite the iPad Air branding suggesting that, like the iPhone Air, it’d be super thin and light, that’s not actually the case. The iPad Air is not the thinnest iPad on the market, nor is it even the thinnest tablet in Apple’s current line-up – and that just doesn’t make much sense.
The iPhone Air is the thinnest iPhone yet…
The iPhone Air is an impressive feat of technical engineering, managing to measure in at 5.6mm thick, making it the thinnest iPhone to date and indeed the thinnest available in 2025 – but it’s more than a slimline iPhone.
From a technical standpoint, it’s impressive that Apple managed to squeeze most of the components into the upper camera bump, leaving the rest of the ultra-thin chassis for the battery. It’s feats like that that get me truly excited about Apple’s smart glasses – but that’s a story for another article.
Despite the thin design, Apple’s use of titanium and its second-gen Ceramic Shield screen protection tech, it claims that it’s actually one of, if not the most durable, iPhones to date.
I’ve seen videos where the iPhone Air is noticeably bent using a hydraulic press, only for it to return to its original flat form, free of any kind of damage. I’m not sure my Galaxy S25 Ultra could withstand the same…
And as my colleague Max noted in his glowing 4.5-star review of the iPhone Air that went live earlier this week, it makes a significant difference to the overall experience of handling and using the phone.
“It’s so light and thin that it sort of just disappears into your hand,” he explained, describing the iPhone Air as “an absolute joy to use. It feels new, feels different to the dull slabs, and it feels like the actual future of the smartphone”.
It’s so thin and light, in fact, that there were several occasions where Max’s hand shot to his pocket for fear of leaving the phone somewhere. “It can be tough to feel the Air in a pocket”.
What I’m trying to say is that the iPhone Air, while certainly not to everybody’s tastes, is a marvel of engineering that truly represents what Apple’s ‘Air’ branding should offer. It’s just a shame that doesn’t apply to Apple’s similarly-branded iPad Air.
… but the iPad Air isn’t the thinnest iPad
The iPad Air, despite the Air branding, isn’t the thinnest tablet on the market – in fact, it’s not even the thinnest full-size iPad in Apple’s collection.
The latest iPad Air M3, released in March 2025, measures in at a respectable 6.1mm thick and 460g which, in many respects, is fairly thin and light – especially for a tablet with an 11-inch screen.
The larger 13-inch model, for context, measures in at a similar 6.1mm, though it’s heavier at 616g. Again, pretty good for a big-screen tablet – the similarly-sized OnePlus Pad 3 measures in at 6mm and 675g.
The problem? It’s Apple’s top-end iPad Pro M4, and the 13-inch model specifically, that takes the crown for being the slimmest iPad around, measuring in at 5.1mm thick and 579g. The 11-inch model measures in at a slightly thicker 5.3mm and 444g, for reference.
Imagine Apple launching an iPhone Air that was actually a little thicker than the iPhone 17 Pro Max; that’s essentially what’s happening in Apple’s tablet range, and it doesn’t make sense.
I get the idea behind giving the iPad Pro a super-thin design, especially when paired with a not-so-portable 13-inch screen, but if it’s going to be the thinnest, you shouldn’t continue using the Air branding on a separate product.
It not only confuses consumers who’d assume the Air would be the thinnest and lightest iPad, but it doesn’t really mean anything here. It seems that, to Apple, the Air branding on tablets means ‘hybrid of base and top-end iPad’ and nothing much to do with the overall design.
Yes, the original iPad Air that launched back in 2013 was the thinnest full-size iPad at 7.5mm thick, but even then, it was still thicker than the 7.2mm-thick iPad mini and Android competitors like the 6.9mm-thick Sony Xperia Tablet Z, so this odd branding exercise isn’t exactly new.
A true iPad Air could be a game-changer
Imagine for a second that Apple applied the iPhone Air ethos to the iPad Air; not just delivering the thinnest iPad in the current range, but a tablet that’s leagues thinner than most tablets on the market.
With more internal space on a tablet than on a phone, this seems, at least from my non-engineering perspective, more doable.
I mean, there’s a reason why most tablets already measure somewhere between the 5- and 7mm mark, while regular bar phones still consistently measure closer to the 8-9mm point – and it’s a similar story with foldables, with the likes of the Honor Magic V5 measuring in at just 4.1mm unfolded.
If Apple could overcome whatever issues surface when trying to make a truly ultra-thin tablet, imagine how transformative that would be.
The iPhone Air has already shown us that sufficiently thin tech essentially transforms into just a screen, and that idea seems even more compelling when it comes to big-screen tablets.
It could bring us a step closer to those truly paper-thin tablets we saw in early noughties Sci-fi movies, at the very least, with a form factor that’s no longer big, weighty and uncomfortable to use, particularly on the go. That’s the iPad Air that I want.
Tidying up the iPad range
Apple’s iPhone 17 range switched things up in more ways than one; not only did it introduce a new Air-branded iPhone, but it finally brought its previously Pro-exclusive 120Hz ProMotion tech to all members of the family – including the base-level iPhone 17.
This is great for consumers and, for me at least, represented the biggest pain point of the entry-level iPhone experience until now. However, it also makes the iPads look dated in comparison.
On Apple’s big-screen slabs, it has long been the iPad Pro range that has utilised the 120Hz display tech, with the entry-level iPad, iPad mini and even the iPad Air all locked to the same, now ageing, 60Hz refresh rate.
Logic dictates that now this ‘Pro’ barrier has now been broken, we’ll start to see the tech in non-Pro-branded Apple products – like the iPad Air.
The problem is that the iPad Air is already very similar to the iPad Pro. Thin dimensions aside, both sport support for the latest Apple Pencil and Magic Keyboard accessories, boast the same size screens – albeit LCD vs OLED – and even the same desktop-level M-series chip power, even if the Air trails slightly behind with its M3 vs the iPad Pro’s M4.
If the iPad Air also gains the 120Hz refresh rate, it’ll be an almost-identical iPad Pro clone – and that’d likely cannibalise sales of its top-end iPad Pro range.
But if Apple took the iPhone Air route and gave the Air a distinct personality aside from being a stepping stone between the iPad and iPad Pro, that could help solve things.
I’d even take a downgrade in power (even the older M1 is more power than most people need in a tablet) and a smaller battery if it helped achieve its ultra-slim aims. The Pro tablets are still there for those that need the very best performance, just like Apple’s iPhone Air and iPhone 17 Pro.
It’s all about variety, and that’s something the current iPad line is desperately missing.
