Apple iPad Air 2026 Review: Worth Upgrading To?

Is the new iPad Air a real upgrade over the iPad Air M3, and is it even worth buying compared to the base iPad 11, or the iPad Pro M5? To find that out, we spend the last 2 weeks using both the 11’’ and 13’’ tablets almost daily. I used it at home for streaming videos and TV shows, for gaming and editing videos, and I even wrote this review on the new iPad Air. And spoilers: there’s a very clear reason why you should get this year’s iPad Air instead of the base iPad and iPad Pro.

Apple Pencil Pro: Stylus Test

Let’s start with the biggest selling point of the iPad Air. The Apple Pencil Pro support. 

The Apple Pencil Pro is the same one as on the iPad Pro and iPad Air M3. It connects to the top side of the tablet and charges magnetically. 

There’s a reason why so many digital artists opt for iPads with the Apple Pencil instead of other tablets. It feels great to write and draw with, and supports intuitive features like double tap or squeeze for quick setting changes.

Here is where the 13’’ Air really shines. The larger display gives you a far bigger canvas for drawing. You won’t have to constantly readjust your display to just continue a line or a sentence when writing.

We tested the stylus in the Sketchbook App for drawing, and in Goodnotes, OneNote and CollaNote for taking notes. The Pencil has no issues in any of the apps. Although we think that it would be nice if there were a softer pencil tip so it doesn’t clack as loudly when writing.

Of course, you can also opt for the cheaper, non pressure-sensitive Apple Pencil USB-C for basic notetaking. It’s actually quite a solid stylus if you just want to write with it, and the iPad Air will still support tilt detection in drawing apps, which is great for shading. 

Display: 11” & 13” LCDs

The new iPad Air display is the exact same as last year’s. So that means it still is an LCD panel with just a 60Hz refresh rate. Even budget Android tablets typically have 90 or 120Hz these days. The peak brightness is also only 500 nits for the 11’’ model; it’s bright enough for doing anything indoors but not quite enough to use under the sun.

By the way, the 11’’ iPad Air actually has a 10,9’’ display. You only get a true 11’’ display with the iPad Pro thanks to its smaller display bezels. 

The 13’’ Air actually hits 600 nits of peak brightness, which makes a noticeable difference. The screen resolution of the 13’’ model is also higher, but both have the same pixel density at 264ppi and look equally sharp.

On the bright, well, bright enough side, the iPad Air still has one of the best LCD displays you can find for colour sensitive work like graphic design, or for streaming movies and TV. The contrast level is much better than a typical LCD display, although of course it’s not on the level of the iPad Pro with an 1000 nits bright OLED display. The colours are very punchy, and the viewing angles are stable. It’s everything you’d want from a display when watching a movie. I watched most of Neon Genesis: Evangelion on the tablet and it was really enjoyable. 

The display is a big reason why you should get the iPad Air instead of the standard iPad. It’s laminated, so there’s no visible air-gap between the display and glass when writing, and it’s also slightly less reflective than the iPad 11’. 

Speakers: Not Quite Pro Level

Don’t let the 4 speaker openings on opposing sides of the tablet fool you; the 2026 iPad Air still has a dual stereo speaker setup. But the speakers are great. The bass is punchy, the overall sound is balanced and there’s very little distortion at higher volumes. Of course, the iPad Pro with 4 stereo speakers gets louder and sounds even better, but the difference isn’t huge. 

In a pinch, you can use these speakers to stream music with decent results. And of course they’re going to be good enough for watching YouTube when eating breakfast or something. 

Battery Life

The iPad Air’s biggest weakness is the battery life. We test battery life by running an HD Youtube video on repeat with the screen at max brightness, and in this test, the iPad Air 13’’ lasts just 5 hours and 33 minutes. The 11’’ Air is even worse. It dies after just 4 hours and 30 minutes.

The iPad Pro 11’’ does better in this test despite having a brighter screen. It lasts a good 12 hours and 50 minutes in the same test thanks to its OLED display technology.

Performance Specs, Impressions and Benchmarks

So there’s clearly some weaknesses, but raw performance isn’t one of them. The new iPad upgrades from the M3 to the M4 processor, and brings 50% more RAM. So now, the base RAM starts at 12GB instead of 8GB. 

Even though the base RAM is higher, storage still starts at a pitiful 128GB. On a cheaper tablet, we find that acceptable, but if you’re going to be making use of the iPad Air’s power for editing videos, photos or gaming, that 128GB is going to fill up really fast. We think a 256GB base should be the minimum. That’s how much you get on the iPad Pro.

The M4 processor is fast enough for nearly everything you throw at it. It’s a laptop-level chip, after all. You honestly can get by with just the base iPad 11’ for browsing, light editing and gaming. The iPad Air is way overkill for those tasks.

If you’re going to edit video on the iPad, you’ll have a surprisingly good time. We tested Davinci Resolve using a 10 minute 4k clip. Applying effects and colour grades is basically instant. Only when we imported a 200MP photo and overlaid it on top of the video, the playback started to lag. And the app still didn’t crash then. Less extreme video editing should be a breeze. 

Let’s take a closer look at performance using benchmarks. For testing the CPU speed, we use Geekbench 6. In CPU single and multi-core, the Air M4 is the second fastest tablet we’ve ever tested, and it’s only beaten by the iPad Pro with the M5 processor by a small margin. The CPU single-core speed is 20% faster than the Air M3, and the multi-core speed is 10% better.

3DMark’s benchmarks give us an idea of how these tablets perform in games. In the Wildlife Extreme test, the new iPad Air improves over last year’s tablet by 20%. It’s actually 25% slower than the M5 iPad Pro in this test as well. However, that puts it above every Android tablet. In 3DMark’s Steel Nomad Light, the iPad Air M4 is just 8% faster than the M3. 

Judging by these results, the M4 is going to perform similarly in games compared to the M3 processor. It’s just a shame that you’ll rarely be able to utilize all that power since you’re limited to a 60Hz refresh rate because of the display.

Gaming

The iPad Air is ideal for the type of gamer who enjoys singleplayer RPGs and strategy games on-the-go. And it’s not for competitive shooter game players. That comes down to the 60Hz display. 

Let’s start with our favourite, Fortnite. As expected, you can only run the game at 60FPS, but that’s regardless of how high you turn the graphics up. The game looks great and doesn’t lag or stutter, and we find the experience acceptable. Of course, a higher refresh rate would be desirable. 

Resident Evil: Village is a more suitable game for this tablet. And it’s the only game we found that won’t run well at max graphics at the native display resolution. Enabling some upscaling with a lower resolution makes the game run at 30-45 FPS with other settings at max. This is also probably the best looking game we’ve ever seen run on a tablet, and the lower FPS doesn’t bother us because of the slower game pace.

If you’re not a horror-fan, which we find perfectly understandable, a relaxing turn-based strategy game like Civilisations VI might be more your cup-of-tea. The game is infamous for long loading times between turns, especially in the late-game on large maps, but the iPad’s CPU absolutely crunches through turns with no problem. This is a perfect game to play on the plane or train when you’re bored. It’s not too hard on battery life and you’re still getting a near PC-level gaming experience right on your tablet.

Read: Best Gaming Tablets For Playing Games Reviewed

Cameras 

We often see people taking photos of landmarks using their iPads, and it’s hard to blame them; recent iPads come with solid rear and front cameras that can rival a low-end mobile phone. The new iPad Air uses a dual camera setup with a 12MP main wide camera on the back and a 12MP “center stage” front camera. The front camera has a super wide viewing angle, which makes it great for group photos and videocalls, but selfies don’t look super sharp because of that. 

Taking photos in daylight yields good results, but the iPad truly shines for video recording. The rear camera is capable of capturing 4k 60FPS footage with excellent quality; that’s rare from a tablet. 

The front camera video isn’t that strong in comparison. You’re limited to just a FHD resolution, and the results are average. Still, it’s enough for Zoom or Facetiming a friend. 

Apple Magic Keyboard

The Apple Magic keyboard is almost the same one on the iPad Pro, with just a couple minor differences. The Pro gets backlit keys and a haptic trackpad at nearly the same price. 

Of course, the keyboard on the 11’’ iPad Air is smaller, and you’ll have to get used to typing on it instead of a standard laptop keyboard, but the 13’’ keyboard is a perfect size to type on like a laptop. 

The Magic Keyboard is a decent keyboard. The trackpad is nice and responsive, and you can click any corner of it instead of just the bottom. But the downside is the absolute heft of the thing, and that you can only tilt the display about 45 degrees because of the floating design. It’s also pretty much impossible to use on your lap without falling over since all the weight is in the back. 

You’re also missing out on the backlit keys and haptic trackpad that you would get on the Magic Keyboard for the iPad Pro. Despite both keyboards costing nearly the same at $269 for the Air keyboard and $299 for the Pro. And yes we know. That’s an insane amount for any keyboard, and it’s hard to justify paying so much with the tablet+keyboard instead of just picking up a MacBook or PC for laptop work. We can recommend the Logitech Combo touch instead if you want to save some money.

If we’re being honest, the price to performance of the 11’’ iPad Air gets a lot worse if you’re going to get the Apple Pencil Pro and Keyboard with it. The M4 Air only really makes sense if you’re just getting it for the laminated display and Apple Pencil Pro. Otherwise, we think you might as well get the 11’’ iPad Pro for $300 more for the whole package. 

Design

As we said earlier,the design and colours are the same as the iPad Air 2025. You can get them in space grey, blue, violet or a beige-white. 

Between the 11’’ and 13’’ iPad Airs, the only difference is the size and weight. The 11’’ Air weighs 464g compared to 616g on the 13’’. Both tablets are very thin at 6.1mm.

The back of the tablet has the Apple logo in the center, and a single camera ring on the top right. It’s classic, simple and it looks good. 

Even if you opt for the 5g model, there’s still no SIM-slot on the side of the tablet. That’s right. The new iPad Air is E-SIM only. So make sure you have access to one if you want to use a data plan on the tablet. The M4 Air boasts an upgraded modem, but we weren’t able to test it. 

The power button sits on the left top corner. It has an integrated fingerprint reader for Touch-ID, and it works very well for unlocking the tablet and autofilling passwords when you’re browsing. The iPad Pro trades the fingerprint reader for Face-ID instead. 

The right side of the tablet features the USB-C port for charging and data transfer. It’s a USB 3.1 Gen 2 port, which lets you output a display signal. That’s a big advantage on the iPad Air; you can extend your screen to an external display and use the tablet like a laptop with a mouse and keyboard. The iPad 11 can only mirror its display over USB-C.

Read: Best Tablets With 5G, 4G LTE & SIM Card Slot

Conclusion: Apple’s Still Got It 

In a nutshell, the iPad Air is still the excellent tablet that we praised so highly last year, even if there aren’t many upgrades besides the performance. It’s still the cheapest way to get Apple Pencil Pro support at $599 and it gives you a laminated screen which the base iPad doesn’t do.

Creative professionals and casual gamers will enjoy the improved performance and increased RAM. But if you have last year’s iPad Air M3, it doesn’t make sense to upgrade. We would wait at least another one or two generations. But if your iPad Air is a couple of years old already, you’ll start to notice a difference.

As we said, the Air gets less attractive if you’re going to upgrade the storage and buy the stylus and keyboard. In that case, the iPad Pro might just be the better deal if you can justify spending so much on a tablet. Make sure to watch our full review of the M5 iPad Pro if that’s something you’re looking into. It gives you even more performance and a better and brighter OLED display.