Right on queue, Apple announced a refresh of the iPad Air with a few internal upgrades, like a new chip, and the same price as last year.
The new iPad Air sports Apple’s M4 chip, boosting the memory and performance over last year’s model. Apple says the M4 iPad Air is up to 30 per cent faster than the M3 Air, and up to 2.3 times faster than the M1 Air.
Alongside the new M4 chip, the Air also now includes Apple’s latest connectivity chips, the N1 and C1X. The N1 handles wireless networking like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Thread, while the C1X handles cellular connectivity like 5G. These chips enable Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, and Thread (a network protocol for smart home devices). Additionally, Apple touted the energy savings, noting that the C1X modem uses up to 30 per cent less energy than the modem on the M3 iPad Air.
Apple also highlighted how the M4 chip boosts AI performance. Things like the unified memory (up to 12GB), increased memory bandwidth of 120GB/s, and the three times faster, 16-core Neural Engine all help boost AI performance.
You can find all the pricing for the new iPad Air below:
iPad Air M4 11-inch
- 128GB – $799
- 256GB – $949
- 512GB – $1,229
- 1TB – $1,509
iPad Air M4 13-inch
- 128GB – $1,099
- 256GB – $1,249
- 512GB – $1,529
- 1TB – $1,809
If you want the cellular model, it adds $200 to the above prices. And if you want accessories like the Apple Pencil or Magic Keyboard, you can add them for $109 and $379, respectively. The M4 Air is available in Space Grey, Blue, Purple, and Starlight colours.
Pre-orders for the M4 iPad Air open on March 4, with availability starting March 11. You can pre-order the iPad Air on Apple’s website.
Image credit: Apple
