Apple has refreshed the iPad Air with the M4 chip and a big memory boost.
Apple has bumped the RAM from 8GB on last year’s model to 12GB on the latest one. “With the new iPad Air, unified memory jumps 50 percent, to 12GB, and memory bandwidth increases to 120GB/s, helping users run AI models faster,” Apple says.
Other internal upgrades include the introduction of Apple’s N1 chip, which supports Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, and the Thread smart home protocol. It also improves the reliability of Apple’s Personal Hotspot and AirDrop.
(Credit: Apple)The new iPad Air also gets the homegrown C1X modem, which the company claims improves cellular data performance by 50%.
All of these spec bumps are available for the 11- and 13-inch iPad Air M4 variants, delivering 30% faster performance than iPad Air with M3, Apple says. The company has pitched the new tablet as ideal for base iPad and iPad Air M1 users, and they will come with iPadOS 26 out of the box.
Despite the increased unified memory and the ongoing memory supply crisis, Apple has kept the starting price unchanged. The 11-inch iPad Air M4 with 128GB storage (Wi-Fi only) starts at $599, while the 13-inch variant starts at $749. For the Wi-Fi + Cellular version, the pricing starts at $749 for the 11-inch model and $949 for the cellular model.
(Credit: Apple)Available storage configurations include 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB, while colors include blue, purple, starlight, and space gray. Preorders begin at Apple’s online and physical stores on March 4, with general availability on March 11.