Now in its sixth generation, the iPad Air is no longer the thinnest or lightest in the range – that title N stands with the new iPad Pro. However, it now gains a 13-inch version and the M2 chip, making it a more affordable alternative.
Prices start from £599 for the 11-inch model, and £799 for the 13-inch model. Both are available with four storage capacities, from 128GB up to 1TB, and Wi-Fi only or Wi-Fi and Cellular.
While the 11-inch iPad Air looks and feels very similar to the old model, the 13-inch version is new. Its closest comparison is the 6th-generation iPad Pro, from which it’s both lighter and thinner, weighing 617g with a 6.1mm depth. The Air comes in a wider choice of colours than the Pro, with blue, purple, starlight and space grey. Apple’s M2 chip was previously used in the iPad Pro but now it comes to the Air models. This is a big step up from the previous M1 chip. All iPad Air models feature an 8-core CPU and a 10-core GPU, with a 16-core Neural Engine. All models also have 8GB of RAM. The new Air is more than capable of running graphically and processor intensive apps. The iPad Pro will crunch through 4K Pro Res video and multitrack audio faster, but the Air is still very capable. Despite these upgrades, the battery life for the iPad Air is a respectable 10 hours of web or video playback, or 9 hours over a mobile network.
The front camera is now on the landscape (longer) edge, rather than the portrait or shorter edge. If you frequently video call in landscape mode, it allows for a more natural position. The 12MP wide-angle camera array on the back of the iPad Air remains unchanged, with a new version of Smart HDR (Smart HDR 4) for more accurate images. Unlike the Pro, there’s no adaptive True Tone flash on the back, so it’s better suited to using natural light. It does shoot 4K video at up to 60fps and slo-mo video at up to 240fps and has a time-lapse video function.