Apple’s iPads are some of the most popular and full-featured tablet computers around. That shouldn’t be a surprise, since the original iPad essentially created the category, or at least made it mainstream. The iPad line’s branched out into four families, from the low-cost suffix-less iPad, to the compact iPad mini, to the powerhouse iPad Pro. But if you’re looking for a tablet that could replace your laptop and be your primary device without busting your budget? Get the iPad Air.
The iPad Air with M3 processor is the midrange of Apple’s iPad lineup. It costs more than the entry-level iPad, but less than the iPad Pro, while offering power and performance with broad appeal. We took a good look at the Apple iPad Air 11-inch (M3) in the BestReviews Testing Lab, and we think it’s the best iPad to get if you want high performance at a reasonable price.
In this article: Apple iPad Air 11-in. (M3), Apple iPad Pro 11-in. (M4), Apple iPad (A16) and Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 FE
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Dimensions: 9.74 x 7.02 x 0.24 in | Weight: 1.01 lb | Display: 2360 x 1640 px LCD | Processor: Apple M3 | Memory: 8 GB | Storage: 128, 256, 512 GB, 1 TB | Battery life: 10 hrs
The iPad Air 11-in. (M3) is a thin-and-light tablet computer for productivity and entertainment. It is powered by an Apple M3 processor with an 8-core CPU and 9-core GPU and 8 GB of memory. It boasts a 10.86-inch (diagonal) Liquid Retina LCD touchscreen display with 264 ppi pixel density, 60 Hz refresh rate, P3 wide color and a maximum brightness of 500 nits. It has an estimated battery life of 10 hours. It supports Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3 connections, and is also available in a version with a 5G LTE cellular radio. It features front and rear 12 MP cameras, two landscape speakers and connectors for the Apple Pencil and Apple Magic Keyboard. Its case is made of anodized aluminum available in subtle metallic blue, purple, Starlight (gold) and gray.
The 11-inch iPad Air M3 looks and feels more svelte in hand than the entry-level iPad (A16). Somewhat surprisingly, the Air felt heavier than the A16, despite being a few grams lighter, an effect we think of its slimness.
In terms of fit and finish, our test model was superficially flawless. We didn’t notice any notable bending during a hand flex test, and the subtle anodized finish was untouched by scratches during typical desk and handheld use. You probably would want to cover the screen, however, no matter how scratch-resistant it may be.
The 10.86-inch Liquid Retina display on the iPad Air is bright, vivid and realistic. It compares favorably with the OLED display of an iPad Pro and is visibly more vivid than the display on an iPad (A16). Its maximum brightness of 500 nits was enough to clearly see content in direct sunlight, and its wide P3 color gamut showed more shades and degrees of color than the sRGB display of an iPad (A16).
The Air’s display is laminated, with no gap between the glass and the LCD layer. This is supposed to make it feel more immediate and responsive, but we didn’t particularly notice this while sketching with an Apple Pencil. We did appreciate the display’s coating that made reflections darker and harder to see. The Air lacks the ProMotion adaptive refresh rate of an iPad Pro, but we didn’t miss it while gaming or viewing video.
The iPad Air’s M3 processor with 8 GB of memory barely broke a sweat in any of our tests. Apps such as Safari, Numbers, Pages, iMovie and Garageband opened instantaneously, and switching between them was smooth and stutter-free. Complex games like Genshin Impact and Call of Duty Mobile operated smoothly at high default frame rates with excellent detail. We could even mirror the display wirelessly to a nearby TV and play simultaneously on both screens.
Multi-window multitasking in Stage Manager also posed no problems, with windows easily opening, minimizing and resizing. We created a 30-second video from an iMovie template and rescaled it from 1080p to 4K in 25 seconds, while downscaling to 720p took four seconds.
Having 8 GB of memory allows the iPad Air to run Apple Intelligence. While Apple’s Image Playground AI generator isn’t the most useful thing in the world, we did get it to generate cartoon images (“a baseball floating on waves at the beach during sunset”) within two to three seconds.
Heat didn’t prove much of an issue. The hottest the back panel ever got was during initial setup, although some of the games caused the Air to warm up. It never got too hot to handle however.
Apple has always given an estimate of 10 hours of battery life for all its iPads. Our battery drain test bore out the estimate: 9.5 hours with the screen on playing a looped video, plus an inactive period overnight, before the battery died. The iPad Air ships with a 20W Apple USB-C adapter and woven-finish USB-C cable.
The Air has a single 12MP back camera. It takes good, but not great, photos and usable, but unspectacular, video. It’s the front camera where the action is, with a 12 MP sensor, 2X zoom out, and Apple’s Center Stage feature that works wonders on video calling and livestreaming. It won’t match a dedicated camera and laptop setup, but it’s a solid replacement on the go.
Audio-wise, the Air’s two speakers provide agreeable detail and separation, and support Dolby Atmos for dimensionality. Predictably, there’s no significant bass presence from such a thin device, but the overall sound quality was good enough for watching movies, TV shows or podcasts. Dual mics capture voice effectively enough for calls or conferencing.
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The base iPad Air model has 128 GB of storage, which can be a little skimpy in 2025, with high-end games taking up as much as 30 to 50 GB. Preinstalled apps include Apple’s free iWork suite plus media creation and editing in the form of Photos, iMovie and GarageBand. While you can draw and take handwritten notes with a stylus or Apple Pencil in Pages, Freeform or the Notes app, iPads don’t ship with a dedicated sketching or painting app.
The iPad Air has supported windowed multitasking in the form of Apple’s Stage Manager since the feature’s introduction. WIth the release of iOS 26, all iPads now support full windowed multitasking, but we appreciated the Air’s ability to handle a lot of open apps and windows without issues even before the new OS came out.
The iPad Air has a single USB-C port for both power and data. It supports USB 3 speeds of 10 GBps, plus DisplayPort for connecting a cable to an external monitor. We found it’s usually more convenient to cast wirelessly to a TV, however, using Apple’s AirPlay 2 protocol. The Air allowed us to mirror our Air’s screen, extend it for an extra desktop, or mirror just one window, although stability could be an issue.
The Air has a magnetic connector to hold both the Apple Pencil Pro or the Apple Pencil (USB-C). The connector also charges the Pencil Pro. A three-contact connector on the back is meant to work with Apple’s Magic Keyboard accessories, but you can pair any Bluetooth keyboard wirelessly. The Air supports Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3.
Dimensions: 9.79 x 7.07 x 0.28 in | Weight: 1.05 lb | Display: 2360 x 1640 px LCD | Processor: Apple A16 | Memory: 6 GB | Storage: 128, 256, 512 GB | Battery life: 10 hrs
The iPad (A16) is an excellent consumer tablet, but the iPad Air with M3 is superior. It’s a millimeter thinner in every dimension, which may not seem like much, but is definitely obvious when holding them side by side, and 17 grams lighter. The plain iPad’s sRGB display is a little duller as well, and it lacks the Air’s anti-reflective coating or full lamination.
Inside, the A16 processor is good enough for everyday productivity, but is slower, with less RAM, than the Air’s M3. Games, for example, default to a slower frame rate and less rendering detail than on the Air. When it comes to accessories, the iPad (A16) doesn’t support the Magic Keyboard or the Apple Pencil Pro, just the Apple Pencil (USB-C).
Dimensions: 9.83 x 6.99 x 0.21 in | Weight: 0.98 lb | Display: 2420 x 1668 px OLED | Processor: Apple M4 | Memory: 8 or 16 GB | Storage: 256, 512 GB or 1, 2TB | Battery life: 10 hrs
The iPad Pro is one of the most powerful tablet computers around. It’s even thinner and lighter than the Air. But when we tested it, we wondered who would benefit most from its power and price.
The iPad Pro’s OLED screen has darker blacks and faster refresh than the Air, but the Air’s display was already excellent in our tests. The M4 processor is faster and more powerful than the M3, but that might be only apparent in tasks like on-the-go music production or video rendering.
The iPad Pro’s camera system trounces the Air’s, offering ProRes quality, audio zooming and stereo recording with the back camera, and portrait mode enhancements in the front camera. Again, these features are aimed at the creative pros that give the iPad Pro its name.
Dimensions: 10.02 x 6.53 x 0.24 in | Weight: 1.096 lb | Display: 2304 x 1440 px TFT | Processor: Samsung Exynos 1580 | Memory: 8 GB | Storage: 128, 256 GB | Battery life: 21 hrs
Samsung’s Galaxy Tab S10 series tablets are Apple’s direct competitors in the high-end tablet market, and the Galaxy Tab S10 FE is a good comparison to the 11-inch iPad Air M3.
The S10 FE+ has a more rectangular screen than the iPad Air, although both measure 10.9 inches diagonally and are LCDs instead of OLED. Both have 8 GB of RAM and start at 128 GB of storage, but the Samsung’s Exynos 1580 processor pales in comparison to the Apple M3. Still, the Samsung has a lot of things going for it, like an included S-Pen stylus that we found ideal for note taking in previous Galaxy Tab testing and up to 21 hours of battery life.
One thing that a Samsung tablet offers that iPads never do? Storage expansion. The S10 FE has a slot for a MicroSD card up to 2 TB. With an iPad, you’re stuck with the storage you bought, although you could plug a flash drive or SD card reader into the USB-C port.
We conducted hands-on testing on a 128GB Space Gray iPad Air 11-inch with M3 processor on areas such as design and build quality, performance, display and audio, cameras, connectivity and battery life. We:
The iPad Air with M3 processor sits in the middle of Apple’s tablet lineup. It’s got a winning combination of computing power, fast performance, vivid screen and slim design, at a price that is still attractive for most consumers. If you want an iPad as a laptop replacement, to be a primary device, or a full-powered additional device, the iPad Air with M3 is your best choice.
