If you’re experiencing déjà vu, rest assured: The 2025 Apple iPad Air is in many ways identical to the 2024 release. It still starts at $599 for an 11-inch model, and aside from an updated M3 processor, precious little else is new. The M3 chip gives the 2025 Air an edge over the outgoing tablet when it comes to speed, battery life, media playback, and camera performance. We like that it’s available in two sizes, offers up to 1TB of storage, and runs Apple Intelligence. Otherwise, the use cases and value proposition remain the same: Slotted between the $349 standard iPad and the $999 iPad Pro, the iPad Air strikes a compelling balance between performance and price. It’s an ideal option if you want a tablet that does more than browse the web but doesn’t need to perform the most power-intensive tasks, making it our Editors’ Choice iPad for students and creators.
Design: Not Much Room to Improve
There are no external changes to the 2025 iPad Air compared with the 2024 model. All the updates are on the inside, which means you get the same high-quality tablet as before. Apple sells the iPad Air in two sizes: 11 inches (starting at $599) and 13 inches (starting at $799). I received the 13-inch model for testing.
(Creidt: Eric Zeman)
Both the small and large Airs mirror their predecessors’ dimensions and weights. The 11-inch model measures 9.74 by 7.02 by 0.24 inches (HWD) and weighs 1.02 pounds, which is nearly identical to the 11-inch iPad Pro (9.83 by 6.99 by 0.21 inches, 0.98 pounds) and the standard iPad (9.79 by 7.07 by 0.28 inches, 1.05 pounds).
The 13-inch iPad Air has a bigger footprint at 11.04 by 8.46 by 0.24 inches and 1.36 pounds, which is close to the 13-inch iPad Pro (11.09 by 8.48 by 0.20 inches, 1.28 pounds). Like before, the 13-inch Air is the heaviest of all the current iPads.
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(Credit: Eric Zeman)
As for comparable Android tablets, the 10.9-inch Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 FE from 2023 (starting at $549.99) is the closest competitor. It measures 10.01 by 6.53 by 0.26 inches and weighs 1.15 pounds. Samsung released a pair of high-end Galaxy Tab S10 tablets (starting at $999.99) in late 2024, but it has yet to introduce a new midrange option such as a Tab S10 FE.
Choosing between the two iPad sizes is a matter of preference and trade-offs. The 11-inch model fits into smaller bags and is generally easier to tote around, but it has less screen space. The 13-inch model requires a bag big enough to fit a standard laptop, but the additional screen real estate really comes in handy when you need to get work done.
The iPad Air’s back surface and side edges are aluminum, and a large piece of glass covers the entire front of the tablet. Apple doesn’t specify what type of glass the iPad Air uses to protect the display, but we know the tablet doesn’t have an IP rating to keep it safe from dust and water. Samsung’s Tab S9 FE has an IP68 rating and can survive full immersion in water. If you intend to use your iPad near water, we highly recommend you find a watertight case.
(Credit: Eric Zeman)
Apple keeps the power button on the left edge close to the top corner and the volume buttons on the top edge close to the left corner. These buttons have excellent travel and feedback. Since Face ID is not available, you need to rely on the fingerprint reader embedded in the power button for biometric security. It works really well, but Face ID is generally faster and more convenient in everyday use. I found it necessary to register both of my index fingers and thumbs to ensure I always had a finger near the reader.
The USB-C port is centered on the bottom edge. Apple’s three Smart Connector pins are on the rear panel, close to the USB port. If you spring for an optional Apple Pencil, it charges on the top edge. The tablet’s two speakers are on the short edges and produce stereo sound when you hold the tablet in landscape orientation.
(Credit: Eric Zeman)
The device tucks its camera lens into the top left corner of the rear panel. The Air does not have a rear flash like the Pro model. The selfie camera is centered on the top long edge for video chats. If you opt for a cellular model, you won’t find a SIM tray, as Apple has switched to eSIM.
Apple hasn’t updated the color selection for 2025. The iPad Air still comes in Blue, Purple, Space Gray, or Starlight. I received the Blue model, which is pictured in this review.
Display: No Change, But It Still Looks Good
According to Apple, the 2025 iPad Air has the exact same screens as the 2024 model. It’s an LED-backlit IPS LCD rather than the more contrasty OLED of the iPad Pro. I like that the bezels are uniform all the way around the screen.
(Credit: Eric Zeman)
The 11-inch model packs a resolution of 2,360 by 1,640 pixels for a density of 264 pixels per inch (ppi), while the 13-inch model has a resolution of 2,732 by 2,048 pixels at the same 264ppi density. The glass is fully laminated and has both anti-glare and oleophobic coatings. The displays also support Apple’s True Tone tech, which controls the white balance and adjusts automatically depending on the ambient light. Disappointingly, the displays carry over the static 60Hz refresh rate of last year’s models. The iPad Pros have faster, adjustable 120Hz screens, which are better for some tasks, like editing video and gaming. Brightness is another big factor that separates the Air from the Pro. The 11-inch Air generates 500 nits of brightness, and the 13-inch model tops 600 nits. The Pro models are far brighter, with a peak of 1,600 nits.
In terms of everyday use, the iPad Air looks good and is bright enough for most places. The Pro models are better at rejecting glare, and their additional brightness helps a lot with outdoor visibility. Still, the iPad Air has a quality screen that is leagues better than the glare-prone glass of the base model iPad. I am fond of the 13-inch model’s additional workspace.
(Credit: Eric Zeman)
Comparatively, Samsung’s Tab S9 FE has a 10.9-inch LCD screen with a resolution of 2,304 by 1,440 pixels and a refresh rate of 90Hz, while the pricier Tab S10+ has a 12.4-inch AMOLED screen with a resolution of 2,800 by 1,752 pixels and a refresh rate of 120Hz.
Performance: The Biggest Differentiator
The most significant update for 2025 is the processor. Apple swaps out the M2 chip of the 2024 iPad Air for the M3 processor. What’s curious is that this is the first iPad with an M3 chip. The 2024 iPad Pros skipped over the M3 in favor of the M4. Still, the M3 gives the newer iPad Air a performance boost over last year’s model.
The M3 has an 8-core CPU (4 performance cores, 4 efficiency cores), a 9-core GPU, and a 16-core NPU (what Apple calls a Neural Engine). We don’t know the relative clock speeds of these components, nor those of last year’s M2 iPad Air. The M3 includes hardware-accelerated ray tracing, however, which makes it better than the 2024 Air for gaming.
Both the 11- and 13-inch Air ships with 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, or 1TB of storage, and they all have 8GB of RAM. These are the same configurations as last year, though I think it would be appropriate for the 13-inch model to start at 256GB of storage, considering how much space creative projects often consume. Prices run from $599 for the 11-inch Air with 128GB to $1,299 for the 13-inch model with 1TB.
(Credit: Geekbench/AnTuTu/PCMag)
I turned to benchmarking apps to see just how much faster the M3 is than the M2. The iPad Air recorded scores of 3,001 and 10,839 for the single- and multi-core tests on Geekbench 6; it ran 6,535 frames at an average of 39.1fps in the 3DMark Wildlife Extreme test; 3,768 frames at 58.6fps for the Aztec Ruins test in GFXBench; and scored 2,110,706 on the AnTuTu benchmark.
For comparison, the M2 iPad Air scored somewhat lower on most tests, with 2,581 and 9,887 on Geekbench 6; 36.7fps on 3DMark; 60fps for GFXBench; and 1,997,738 for AnTuTu. Note that the M2 actually ran GFXBench at a slightly higher frame rate than the M3.
The M4 iPad Pro, meanwhile, scored significantly higher across the board with 3,679 and 14,647 on Geekbench 6; 51.5fps for 3DMark; 60fps for GFXBench; and 2,746,950 for AnTuTu.
In other words, on paper, the M3 isn’t staggeringly faster than the M2, and yet it falls noticeably short of the M4.
In daily use, I couldn’t tell much of a difference between the performance of the M3 Air and the M4 Pro. Both tablets felt about the same when opening or switching between apps, loading large projects in GarageBand, or editing photos in Lightroom. The only palpable difference is Apple Intelligence. Image Playground, in particular, is quicker on the M4 iPad Pro than the M3 iPad Air, which in turn is quicker than the M2 iPad Air.
Given the $400 price difference between the iPad Air and the iPad Pro, the M3 Air provides plenty of value here, especially if you don’t need the horsepower to run extreme workflows like ProLogic.
Battery: Slight Improvements
Apple has consistently kept iPad battery life at 10 hours since the original tablet arrived in 2010. I wish it would channel some of the efficiency gains of its modern processors into extending that to 12 hours (or longer), but that appears to be wishful thinking at this point.
(Credit: Eric Zeman)
That 10-hour battery rating is for surfing the web over Wi-Fi or watching videos—it drops to 9 hours if you surf the web over 4G or 5G. In using the tablet for everyday tasks, I found these estimates to be more or less on point. I was unable to drain the battery fully in regular use even across multiple days.
Running our battery test, however, provides a different result. We officially gauge battery life by streaming video over Wi-Fi with the screen brightness set at the maximum level. In this scenario, our 13-inch iPad Air ran for 7 hours and 21 minutes, a nice gain over the 6 hours and 47 minutes of the 2024 model, but still behind the iPad Pro’s result of 7 hours and 43 minutes. Meanwhile, Samsung’s Galaxy Tab S9 FE+ ran for 7 hours and 23 minutes.
The iPad Air ships with a quality braided charging cable and Apple’s 20W brick. With these accessories, the battery needed 1 hour and 49 minutes to recharge from 0% to 100%, which is just a couple of minutes faster than last year’s model. The iPad doesn’t support features like wireless or reverse charging.
Connectivity: Quick and Reliable
According to Apple, the M3 iPad Air has the exact same radio package as the M2 iPad Air and M4 iPad Pro. That means you get sub-6GHz 5G, Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.3, GPS/GNSS, and support for Wi-Fi calling. You don’t get faster mmWave 5G or ultra-wideband. The iPad also skips Apple’s custom C1 modem, which debuted with the iPhone 16e.
(Credit: Eric Zeman)
I connected the iPad Air to Tello Mobile, an MVNO that uses T-Mobile’s network for service. In testing, the iPad did well and reached speeds of 425Mbps down and 128Mbps up.
On Wi-Fi, the Air reached an outstanding 810Mbps down and 248Mbps up when tested near a Wi-Fi 6 router with 1Gbps service. An iPad Pro tested in the same spot hit 790Mbps down and 224Mbps up.
The Bluetooth radio easily connects to wireless earphones and headphones. Apple’s AirPods work really well with the iPad thanks to their advanced first-party integration and seamless switching between devices like an iPhone and MacBook.
For wired connections, Apple carries over the same USB 3 spec from last year’s M2 iPad Air. It supports DisplayPort and can drive a 6K monitor at 60Hz. Wired data speeds top out at 10Gbps. The M4 iPad Pro has a faster USB 4 ThunderBolt port that supports 40Gbps data speeds.
Audio: Simple Stereo Speakers With Better Decoding
Apple doesn’t claim to support Dolby Atmos or any other advanced playback profiles. The Air’s dual speakers, one on each short edge, produce enough sound to fill a fair-sized room (~85dB). The tablet handled our test track, The Knife’s “Silent Shout,” surprisingly well by reproducing the bass notes with plenty of punch. The speakers also do well with video content, such as movies, and deliver more low-end than you might expect from a tablet.
(Credit: Eric Zeman)
The M3 gives the 2025 iPad Air a small media advantage over the M2 iPad: It can handle hardware-accelerated 8K HEVC and ProRes and ProRes RAW formats, whereas the M2 can’t. It can also encode and decode ProRes content and decode AV1, an open codec for streaming video over the web. In other words, you’ll run into fewer compatibility problems with audio and video content you find online.
Camera: The M3 Ups the Quality
At the hardware level, the M3 iPad Air carries over the camera components from the M2 iPad Air. It has a single 12MP camera on the rear that can capture 4K video and a single 12MP Center Stage camera on the front for selfies and video chats. This is the same arrangement as the M4 iPad Pro.
(Credit: Eric Zeman)
The rear camera has a five-element lens at f/1.8 that supports up to 5x digital zoom, autofocus, HDR 4, Live Photos, panorama shots, and wide color. It continues to be among the best cameras available on any tablet. If you take photos outdoors during the day, you’ll get sharp results with proper exposure and no noise. Using the camera at night leads to images with more grain and less detail, but they are still good.
The Air is a surprisingly good video-capture device. The rear camera can handle 1080p or 4K resolutions up to 60fps and supports slow motion and time-lapse features. You don’t get the advanced tools of the Pro model, which include ProRes capture, stereo audio, and audio zoom. Brightly lit scenes lead to quality video footage.
Main camera sample (Credit: Eric Zeman)
The front camera has an aperture of f/2.4. It supports burst mode, lens correction, Smart HDR 4, stabilization, a screen-based Retina Flash, and time-lapse recording. However, it tops out at 1080p video capture. Again, you don’t get the front camera features of the Pro model, which include Portrait Mode with Depth Control, Portrait Lighting effects, and Animoji/Memoji, but you do get really good video quality for FaceTime. That’s likely enough for most people.
Selfie camera sample (Credit; Eric Zeman)
Overall, the M3 chip’s under-the-hood differences, compared with the M2, deliver slightly better photos and video on the 2025 iPad Air and much better results than you get from most Android tablets.
Software: Apple Intelligence All-Around
The iPad Air ships with iPadOS 18 and updates to iPadOS 18.3.2 when you first boot it. This means, among other things, that Apple Intelligence is active out of the box. If you prefer to ignore Apple Intelligence, you have to turn it off manually.
iPadOS 18 is a nice upgrade to older versions of the platform. It provides far more latitude to personalize your iPad and supports Stage Manager and other tools for improved multitasking.
Image Playground (Credit: Apple/PCMag)
Apple Intelligence is more complete now than it was when it first launched in October of 2024, but there are still missing features. Perhaps the most useful feature is Writing Tools, which is available in most apps and lets you change the tone of emails and texts, summarize text content, and create Smart Replies. You also get an updated version of Apple Photos, which allows for natural language search, automatically generates memories, and lets you erase things from photos. However, while some aspects of Siri have improved, we’re still waiting on the full revamp.
In testing, all the available features of Apple Intelligence run just as well on the M3 iPad Air as they do on the iPhone 16e and other Apple devices. The M4 iPad Pro still runs these features faster than the rest, but the M3 iPad isn’t far behind.
Accessories: A New Keyboard and the More Powerful Pencil
Apple has redesigned the Magic Keyboard for the iPad Air. It now more closely resembles the keyboard that’s available to the Pro models. It’s still big and heavy, but it has a better trackpad, adds a row of function keys, and features a backlit surface for typing in the dark. These all make it a much better companion than the outgoing model. The keyboard costs $269.
(Credit: Eric Zeman)
The M3 Air supports the $129 Apple Pencil Pro and the $79 Apple Pencil USB-C with features like squeeze to select, barrel roll for rotating pen tips, haptic feedback, hover, Find My support, and free engraving.
(Credit: Eric Zeman)
I tested the Magic Keyboard and Apple Pencil Pro with the iPad Air, and both worked well. The size of the 13-inch Air paired with the keyboard does make for MacBook Air-like dimensions and pricing. And in that case, you might prefer to have the full version of macOS. But if you like the touch-centric UI of iPadOS, the tablet and keyboard make for a powerful combo. The Apple Pencil remains a natural choice of stylus for the iPad and opens up lots of potential for taking notes and working within creative apps.
Verdict: A Light Refresh More Than Keeps the iPad Air Afloat
Apple has done little more than update the processor for the 2025 iPad Air. The M3 gives the Air a bit more oomph when it comes to performance and managing features like Apple Intelligence, battery life, and imaging. Otherwise, the hardware and most functions largely carry over from the previous generation. Despite this low-key upgrade, the iPad Air remains the best choice for students and creators who need a powerful tablet at a decent price, which is enough to earn the iPad Air our Editors’ Choice award. The iPad Pro is still our top pick for professionals, while the base iPad is easy to recommend to anyone who simply wants to browse the web, download apps, and stream videos.
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The Bottom Line
The 2025 iPad Air is largely the same as its predecessor, but a faster processor provides more power for students and creators to work and play.
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About Eric Zeman
Managing Editor, Consumer Electronics
