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The new iPad Pro pretty much stole the show in the Apple event on May 7. The M4 chip and OLED display are exciting upgrades. It’s powerful enough (and expensive) to almost seriously compete with the Macbook. The iPad Air, on the other hand, leaves a lot to be desired, especially if you’ve waited almost two years to upgrade.

What’s new here is a new 13″ size. We’ve seen 11-inch or smaller iPad Airs since they were introduced in 2013. This is the first iPad Pro-sized iPad Air. Apple mentioned that inspiration came from the 13-inch iPad Pro, which accounts for about 50% of iPad sales.

The The 13-inch Air retails for $800and The 11-inch model is $600. We also get a 128GB base model for the same price as a 64GB base model of the M1 iPad Air. Without the price increase given inflation, the increased cost of materials and the chip upgrade was impressive enough. Still, the fact that the base model now offers double the storage for the same price is even better.

Another exciting change found across the new iPad line is that the front camera is now landscape instead of portrait. This makes Facetiming in Landscape a little less awkward.

iPad Air M2 13-inch display and design

Still LED

The iPad Air’s display didn’t get any exciting updates this generation. It’s still Liquid Retina LED and the refresh rate is still 60Hz with a resolution of 2732 by 2048. You get 600 nits of peak brightness on the 13-inch model, and the 11-inch iPad drops it to 500 nits. I watched a lot of Ashley Madison documentary on Netflix (which made me very uncomfortable by the way) and the brightness was acceptable for daytime viewing sitting next to my huge bedroom window with a lot incoming light. There was significant glare from the sun as well as my bedroom light. It was significantly better at my workplace as I was in much lower indoor lighting. However, this can make reading on the beach a problem.

The colors didn’t stand out to me, and the contrasts weren’t particularly impressive. It didn’t have as much clarity or depth, especially compared to the OLED iPad Pro. You’ll probably be fine with casual day-to-day viewing, assuming you’re not in a position where you struggle with glare.

The strange thing about the iPad Air is that it no longer lives up to its namesake. The M4 iPad Pro is actually lighter and thinner at 5.1mm. At 6.1mm, the iPad Air is noticeably thicker and a whopping 36g heavier than the new Pro, which isn’t very Air on its part.

Touch ID is the only method to log into the power button (besides using a passcode). Reaching for the power button is a hassle every time and I occasionally smudge it with my greasy fingers. Makes me wish Face ID was on this thing.

iPad Air M2 13-inch performance and battery life

Expected upgrade from M1, but nothing special

The M2 iPad Air’s performance upgrades are also pretty flawless. The M2 chip won’t support any of the fancy neural engine features or ray tracing promised in the iPad Pro’s M4. It has an 8-core CPU with 4 performance and 4 efficiency cores, a 10-core GPU and a 16-core neural engine, but the latter is not capable enough for complex AI tasks.

The M1 iPad Air scored 7252 on the Geekbench CPU test and the M2 iPad Air maxed out at 9993. Using it for my daily productivity tasks and streaming YouTube videos was quite smooth. I didn’t experience any hiccups or stuttering, of course. After all, this is still an M-series chip, and that’s no bad thing.

But, as I said, there is a slight jump in performance, but not a huge jump from the previous generation, especially if that’s the maximum performance you want. It doesn’t offer much incentive to upgrade from the last Air, and it looks rather dull compared to the feature-laden iPad Pro, which is better suited for creative workloads.

Camera resolutions are the same as the 2022 iPad Air: a single 12MP wide rear camera and a 12MP ultrawide front lens. The new landscape position of the front camera is a welcome change; it was much better to not look like I was staring off into space while FaceTiming in landscape mode. I barely use the rear camera on the iPad, although the lack of a better camera is still disappointing.

The pair of landscape stereo speakers on either side of this iPad are powerful enough to fill my room when the volume is turned all the way up. I didn’t need to reach for my headphones while watching Netflix. I miss the days when I could plug a pair of old headphones into my iPad. With the 3.5mm port now removed, I’m thankful the speakers are decent, as I’m too lazy to connect headphones via Bluetooth to listen to music or chat.

Apple promises 10 hours of battery life on Wi-Fi and 9 hours on cellular data. I’ve been using the Air for daily notes, Netflix, Instagram, and YouTube for about a week now, and I’ve gotten just over 8 hours of juice on Wi-Fi.

iPad Air M2 13-inch Verdict

Wait for this generation

With its new pressing and rolling functions, updated Pencil Pro makes drawing significantly easier (and more enjoyable). I’m not an artist, but I tried to draw just because the Pencil Pro was such a pleasure to use.

This iPad isn’t exciting enough to switch from the M1 iPad Air. Still, it makes sense to upgrade if you have an ancient iPad with an A-chip. I also wouldn’t recommend this if you’re looking for a hardcore machine that can handle everything for you. That’s what the iPad Pro is for. The M1 iPad Air is very easy to transfer. The upgrades aren’t very exciting and nothing you can find in this is present in the Pro. If anything, the lighter and thinner Pro is more iPad Air than iPad Air itself.

At $1300, 13-inch Pro it’s undoubtedly a lot more expensive than the $800 Air, so it’ll definitely be an investment you should consider. However, at least the extra $500 will guarantee a powerful M4 chip, a beautiful OLED display and other top-of-the-line specs. If your budget won’t allow it, check out what the 2025 batch has to offer, but upgrading from a 2022 iPad to this year’s might leave you feeling underwhelmed.