iPad Air M4: The 3 biggest upgrades for Apple's new tablet

Apple's March event is off to a big start, as the company just announced the all-new iPad Air M4. Clearly, the star of the show here is the speedy performance from the M4 chip, but that's not the only upgrade coming to Apple's popular tablet.

The iPad Air M4 upgrade is set to deliver faster CPU and GPU speeds, so expect greater performance for editing, gaming and creative work. With the iPad Air M3 already being one of the best tablets around, this takes Apple's popular tablet a step further — all for the same $599 starting price.

As expected, the new iPad Air isn't a major revamp, as it's more of a spec bump. So, what else is new? As it turns out, there are a few more changes that make Apple's latest Air model even better value than its predecessor. Here are the biggest upgrades you can expect.

M4 delivers even faster performance

Let's start with the main attraction: M4. We've seen this chip in action in the iPad Pro M4, and we've been blown away by the performance it offers, especially for the price.

Now, the M4 comes to the iPad Air, with Apple claiming a 30% speed boost over the iPad Air M3. This means you're getting the might of the M4-equipped MacBook Air in the form of a tablet, and also for a much more affordable price of $599.

The M4 chip in the new iPad comes with an 8-core CPU (with three performance cores and five efficiency cores), a 9-core GPU and a 16-core Neural Engine. That's actually the same as the M3, although that comes with four performance and efficiency cores.

We'll have to test the iPad Air M4 once we get our hands on it, but here's a look at the performance gains we can expect over the iPad Air M3, comparing it to our Geekbench benchmarks on the iPad Pro M4 and MacBook Air M4:

Now, the MacBook Air M3 understandably offers slightly better performance than its iPad counterpart (3,082 single-core / 12,087 multi-core), so there's a tiny difference between tablet and laptop. But either way, there's a significant bump in speeds. In fact, you can think of the iPad Air M4 as a more affordable version of the iPad Pro M4 (just without an OLED option).

From video editing and gaming to browsing the web, the iPad Air M4 is already looking to be quite the upgrade. Plus, M4 delivers higher memory bandwidth at 120GB/s, so it's faster at reading and writing data from RAM. Speaking of...

More memory!

Despite the RAM crisis, Apple managed to deliver even more unified memory into the latest iPad Air M4. More RAM means improved multitasking, better performance in demanding creative work or 3D modelling (and gaming, of course) and more apps staying open in the background without needing to reload.

Apple's next tablet is fitted with 12GB of memory, a 50% jump over the M3 iPad Air's 8GB. In fact, that's the same as the base iPad Pro M5, and with that being the most powerful tablet on the market, that only shows just how much the new iPad Air is catching up.

With the increase in RAM, expect multitasking to run even more smoothly. This will come in handy with iPadOS 26's windowing system, which lets you work with multiple app windows at once.

So, an overall faster experience to keep up with M4's performance!

Wi-Fi 7 arrives

Apple has its own wireless networking chip and cellular modem now, with the N1 and C1X, respectively. We got a look at the N1 silicon in the iPhone 17 series, along with the C1X 5G modem in the iPhone Air. Now, it arrives on the iPad Air M4.

With N1, Apple's tablets finally get Wi-Fi 7 connectivity, bringing faster and more efficient speeds, along with significantly lower latency. That makes it better for Apple's own AirDrop, and casting your own personal hotspot, too. We've heard Apple's N1 delivers faster speeds on weaker Wi-Fi, so that's a bonus if you're using the iPad Air M4 while you're out and about!

For those who opt for the cellular option, the C1X modem comes with Apple's 5G. As the Cupertino tech giant claims, the successor to C1 brings a 50% boost in cellular data performance, along with a 30% drop in energy usage.

So, this M4 tablet brings faster connectivity over the iPad Air M3's Wi-Fi 6E and Qualcomm SDX70M 5G modem.

Worth the upgrade?

The iPad Air M4 may not be a huge change over its predecessor, but in terms of performance, it already looks to knock it out of the park. We'll have to put the new iPad Air through its paces in our testing lab, but we already have an idea of what to expect: Faster performance, more RAM for smoother multitasking and even greater connectivity capabilities.

Is it worth an upgrade over the iPad Air M3? You'll pay less using Apple's trade-in program, but depending on what you use it for, you may not see any immediate improvements that make it worth the extra spending.

But that's entirely dependent on what you use an iPad Air for. For intensive creative work, heavy multitasking and the like, you'll likely get more use out of the upgraded M4 iPad Air. And for those who have older models, you'll see an even bigger difference.

Stay tuned for our full review on the iPad Air M4, and in the meantime, our iPad Air M4 vs iPad Air M3 will fill you in on all the differences.

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