There’s not much new in Apple’s latest refresh of the iPad Air, so there’s not much to say about it, but it’s worth taking a brief look regardless.
In almost every way, this is identical to the previous generation. There are only two differences to go over: the bump from the M2 chip to the slightly faster M3, and a redesign of the Magic Keyboard peripheral.
If you want more details about this tablet, refer to our M2 iPad Air review from last year. Everything we said then applies now.
Apple released a new version of the basic $349 iPad this week, though you could be forgiven for not noticing. The new 11th-generation iPad (also known as the "iPad (A16)" or just plain-old "iPad") looks identical to the previous version, it was introduced in a single paragraph buried in the middle of an iPad Air announcement, and the company didn't offer to send any to reviewers. The one I have I bought myself for our 5-year-old, whose hand-me-down 2019 iPad Air 3 is slightly older than he is and a little worse for wear.
There's nothing exciting or even particularly interesting about this tablet. The design is recycled from 2022's 10th-generation iPad, which was itself a lower-rent version of the 2020 iPad Air design. It's powered by a variant of the Apple A16, originally an iPhone chip from 2022. It still doesn't support the regular Apple Pencil or Pencil Pro or the same keyboard accessories as other iPads. It still doesn't have an anti-reflective screen coating, and the screen doesn't feel as nice to use as an iPad Air's or Pro's.
But for all that, this is still probably the purest expression of what the iPad is: a cheap Internet-connected screen for reading and watching things. I say this as someone who has tried every new piece of hardware and software that Apple has introduced to try and make the iPad a powerful and versatile laptop replacement—it still feels like trying to make a square peg fit into a round hole. The more expensive iPads are nice, but I don't end up using them much differently from how I use this bare-bones tablet.
The iPad Air moves up from an M2 in last year's Air refresh to an M3 chip, which is capable of Apple Intelligence and more graphics rendering. The Magic Keyboard gets a new layout with a larger trackpad and a physical function key row.
iPad Air and its Magic Keyboard.
Credit:
Apple
That's a notable upgrade for anybody doing real, portable-minded work with an iPad, but there's even better news: The new Magic Keyboard with those physical keys is backward-compatible with previous iPad Airs: 4th and 5th generation, 11-inch M2 and M3, and 13-inch M2 and M3 models (better news, that is, if you're good with the $270 price).
Apple has introduced new 11-inch and 13-inch iPad Air models with the M3 chip. The new iPad Air can be preordered starting Tuesday, and will launch on March 12. The device starts at $599 for the 11-inch model and $799 for the 13-inch model. It comes in four colors: blue, purple, starlight, and space gray, […]
