Apple just revealed the iPad Air M4. Its price might be its best feature

 

Apple just announced the new iPad Air M4, which sits alongside the iPhone 17e and AirTag 2 as the company’s first new pieces of hardware for 2026. And, as has been the case with multiple recent Apple product announcements, the new iPad Air is all about under-the-hood changes. There’s also a good piece of price news that you might not have expected, especially if you’ve been paying attention to greater tech trends. Let’s break down everything that’s new and everything that’s not, so you can decide if you want to preorder on Wednesday, March 4, ahead of the March 11 release date.

A performance boost without a price hike

The iPad Air M4 looks to be all about getting more of the iPad Air M3, which we think is the best tablet for power users, without spending more. Apple kept the M3’s $599 entry-level price for the 11-inch model and $799 price for the 13-inch model, which gives me hope for any other imminent announcements from the company. In a moment where generative AI-related memory shortages are expected to spike prices across the board, and we just saw the Samsung Galaxy S26 debut at $100 more than before, this is a big win.

Apple

Apple’s press release says the M4 chip makes this iPad up to 30% faster than the M3 iPad Air and up to 2.3x faster than the M1 iPad Air, so it definitely looks future-proof on paper. That kind of power isn’t exactly needed for making albums in Apple Photos or writing emails, so the company positions the M4’s performance as a win for creators, referencing its own applications such as the Pixelmator Pro image editor and the Final Cut Pro video app. Those who want to play demanding games such as Death Stranding on their iPads will also be happy to hear Apple’s claim of 3D pro rendering with ray tracing that’s four times faster than what the M1 iPad Air offers, which should allow for smoother graphics with better lighting and reflections.

And since this is an Apple product, expect the iPad Air M4 to be a little better at generative AI than its predecessors. The company’s announcement included news that the iPad Air’s now packed with 12GB of higher-bandwidth 120GBps memory for faster AI model performance, and that this tablet’s Neural Engine is three times as fast as that of the M1 iPad Air. Fortunately, these gains won’t just be for people using generative AI, as Apple claims you’ll also get better performance when searching for subjects and texts in photos.

The M4 iPad Air also gains better mobile and Wi-Fi connectivity from the Apple N1 and C1X chips, including Wi-Fi 7 support to take advantage of the latest Wi-Fi routers and mesh routers. Previously, you had to get an iPad Pro M5 to get Wi-Fi 7, as the M3 iPad Air packs Wi-Fi 6E, which has lower data bandwidth.

Here’s what stays the same

Just like before, the iPad Air M4 comes in 11-inch and 13-inch designs, with both still measuring a mere 0.24 inches thick. The larger model is the most important for those users who don’t push the regular iPad 11 to its performance, but want a bigger display for multitasking without spending iPad Pro money.

These new iPad Airs also have all the other dimensions as before, so old cases and accessories should still work given the lack of changes to the size and weight. Similarly, Apple Pencil and Magic Keyboard owners will be happy to learn that the M4 iPad Air doesn’t change anything on compatibility there, either.

The iPad Air M4 is also sold in the same color finishes as before: blue, purple, Starlight and Space Gray, all of which are pretty faint on actual color. Speaking of color, Apple’s still packing its very nice Liquid Retina displays in these tablets, which have accurate picture quality and a sharp 264 pixels-per-inch density, though the iPad Pro M5 still offers the top iPad screen with its tandem OLED panel. Apple’s also still using a 12MP Center Stage front-facing selfie camera that will adjust to keep you in frame on video calls.

The takeaway

The new iPad Air M4 is just like the iPad Air M3 in that it’s for iPad users who feel limited by the regular iPad 11’s performance or display size. All that said, if you’re an iPad Air M3 owner, I’m not sure you’ll feel the need to go grab a new model for that 30% speed boost, since not much else has actually changed. This has been the story with many of Apple’s Mac and iPad releases in the last few years, so I can’t wait to get the iPad Air M4 in my hands to see how it feels to use. I’m just happy it has the same price as the previous model, and I hope Apple continues that trend throughout 2026.