Pros
Cons
The newiPad Propretty much stole the show at theMay 7 Apple event.
An M4 chip and an OLED display are exciting upgrades.
Its powerful (and expensive) enough to almost seriously compete with a Macbook.
Photo: Dua Rashid / Gizmodo
Whats new here is a new 13 size.
Weve seen either 11-inch or smaller iPad Airs since their inception in 2013.
This is the first iPad Pro-sized iPad Air.
Photo: Dua Rashid / Gizmodo
The13-inch Air retails for $800, and the11-inch model is for $600.
Not bumping the price considering inflation, increased cost of material, and a chip upgrade was impressive enough.
This makes Facetiming in Landscape a little less awkward looking.
Photo: Dua Rashid / Gizmodo
Its still a Liquid Retina LED, and the refresh rate is still 60Hz with a resolution of 2732-by-2048.
There was considerable glare from the sun as well as my bedroom light.
It was considerably better at my workplace since I was in much subtler indoor lighting.
Photo: Dua Rashid / Gizmodo
However, it might make beach reading might be a problem.
The colors didnt pop out at me, and the contrasts werent particularly impressive.
There wasnt as much clarity or depth, especially when compared to the OLED iPad Pro.
The odd thing about the iPad Air is that it doesnt live up to its namesake anymore.
The M4 iPad Pro is actually lighter and thinner at 5.1mm.
Touch ID is the only login method in the power button (aside from using a Pass Code).
It makes me wish Face ID was on this thing.
Using it for my daily productivity tasks and streaming YouTube videos was fairly smooth.
I didnt experience any hiccups or stutter, of course.
At the end of the day, its still an M-series chip, and thats not a bad thing.
I didnt need to reach for my earbuds while watching Netflix.
I miss the time when I could plug any old pair of headphones into an iPad.
Apple promises 10 hours of battery life on Wi-Fi and 9 hours on cellular data.
This iPad isnt exciting enough to switch to from an M1 iPad Air.
It makes sense for you to upgrade if you have an ancient A-chip iPad, though.
I also wouldnt recommend this if youre looking for a hardcore machine that can handle everything for you.
The iPad Pro is for that.
The M1 iPad Air is very easy to pass on.
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