iPad Air M3: Is It Worth the Upgrade?

Apple just dropped the new iPad Air with the M3 chip. It's not a huge surprise. Apple's been updating their gadgets to support Apple Intelligence, but this time, they've gone and released a whole new model. The new iPad Air starts at $599 for the 11-inch model and $799 for the 13-inch model. It comes in the same light colors as before. The M3 chip is a decent upgrade, but it's not a massive leap from the M2. In real-world use, the difference is barely noticeable. Apps open just as fast, games look and play the same, and even heavy-duty apps like Procreate and Logic are equally responsive. The new Magic Keyboard is a game-changer. It adds a row of function keys, making the Air a more credible laptop replacement. The keyboard is also backwards compatible, so if you have an M2 Air, it'll work just fine with the new keyboard. The new keyboard is a great accessory, but it's pricey, starting at $269. The Pro keyboard is still the best one, though: it's made of aluminum, has backlit keys, and just feels nicer to tap on. The new iPad Air should support Face ID. Touch ID makes more sense on phones, which you typically hold the same way all the time, than on a tablet where notions of “bottom” and “top” are ever-changing. On the Face ID iPad Pro, you hardly ever need the power button; just tap the screen, and it wakes up and unlocks. On this Air, like other Touch ID iPads, it’s just annoying to sweep your thumb around the edges looking for the power button, where the sensor is. Size matters. It might seem silly to say that a 13-inch iPad is very different from an 11-inch iPad, but those two inches of screen size really do change everything. When I use a 13-inch iPad, which is mostly what I’ve been testing recently, I hardly ever pick it up; it’s a desk-bound, keyboard-attached thing. An 11-inch model, on the other hand, is so much easier to hold in two hands (or even in one) that I find myself carrying it around a lot more. Apple Intelligence is the open question here. I haven’t been able to try the new base-model iPad yet, but I suspect that its story is fairly straightforward: the A16 Bionic chip is a nice upgrade, and it’ll be great for watching movies, browsing the web, and the other things everybody does on their iPad. But there are a couple of things the base model can’t do, like Stage Manager (not a problem) and the Pencil Pro (maybe a problem! ). It’s also the only current iPad that doesn’t support Apple Intelligence. Right now, that does not matter one tiny bit. Seriously: I can’t think of one reason Apple Intelligence would cause you to buy one device over another in the near future. But if you’re bullish on the future of AI and you think Apple Intelligence is likely to be good before you’re looking to upgrade your iPad again, you might want the Air. I have no idea how to handicap the likelihood that AI gets good before your iPad dies — though it’s not a great sign that Apple just once again delayed the Siri improvements that might actually make Apple Intelligence compelling. Either way, that’s the biggest and most consequential difference between the devices right now.