iPad Air M4 Review: Apple’s Sweet Spot, Perfected

There’s quite a problem in the tablet market that nobody talks about: mostly ‘mid-tier’ tablets are either outperforming within a year or over-priced themselves with promises to deliver Pro-level experiences without actually delivering them. That has always been Apple’s intent with the iPad Air powered by M4 and 2026 is the most advanced version of that idea yet.

I have had my hands on this 13 inch tablet for 3 weeks for all of my content, writing, editing, reference photos and everyday work and I have no doubt that this is not an ordinary $799 tablet. It’s on a sweet middle ground that’s not too difficult for the heavy users while not too easy for casual gamers. It’s one of the most extensive portable computing experiences Apple has ever provided for those who use the computer frequently, but not quite at Pro levels.

Design and display:

The 13-inch iPad Air isn’t that much different in design and that’s a good thing. The bezels are flawlessly flush, the chassis is spotless and the four colors: blue, purple, starlight and space gray, are tasteful and not flash. I ordered mine in space grey and it’s exactly as beautiful as it looks like in pictures.

The Liquid Retina display on the 13-inch model is 2732×2048 resolution and it’s easy to work on in the middle of a hot, sunny day at 600 nits brightness, which I had an opportunity to test during one such session working from a rooftop and it’s also great for watching videos at night. 

True Tone corrects the white balance setting based on the ambient light automatically and after 3 weeks, I didn’t notice it anymore, which is the goal. The antireflectivity coating is excellent and it’s not surprising since, barring direct head-on lighting, you won’t have too much glare.

One thing that is missing from the previous generations, is the ProMotion. While the 60Hz refresh rate isn’t a big issue at this price, and once you have played on a 120Hz display, the occasional scroll stutter will be noticeable. The one place where the Air does remind you that it’s not the Pro. 

Performance: where the M4 gap actually showed up

When Apple said the M4 was up to 30 percent faster than M3, up to 2.3x faster than M1, my initial reaction was, “real but irrelevant”. To be honest, the M3 iPad Air was already fast enough for most things. It was all in good order. Later I realized, I was just misinterpreting this.

The improvements are usually not felt when things are going well. They are experienced when things become difficult. I was making a 4K video of a product review in FCP 4K, multi-track, mixed ProRes and H.264, color graded and the preview was smooth and jello free that on older gear I would have to drop to proxy resolution to get it to preview smoothly. 

This project got almost one-third of the export time when compared to the same project on my colleague’s M3 Air. You don’t notice that you have CPU headroom while composing an e-mail. It’s something you feel when you ask the chip to juggle five things that are all important at the same time.

The enhancements to the Neural Engine have an impact on the Apple Intelligence features I use daily and third-party AI applications. The summary process provided by GoodNotes of a 40 page handwritten notebook would have been akin to looking at a progress bar finishing its work. 

On my M4 Air, the operation is completed even before I get around to starting the function. As per Apple’s claim, the Neural Engine has 3x in speed compared to the M1’s. I feel this is quite humble in my opinion. It’s finally reached a stage where AI functions on the device are not just made for the sake of being made.

The RAM is pretty amazing. The jump from 8GB of unified memory on the M3 to 12GB is 40% more, which is a technical upgrade but sounds like one that is important until you experience it first-hand. At the time of the afternoon I had 12 tabs open in Safari, Final Cut, Lightroom, Notability, LumaFusion and Mail. None of them reloaded when I switched back. 

After a few minutes out of the screen, Safari tabs would be frozen in the M3 Air. On this iPad, everything that I left open, remained open, responsive and ready to go. That is not just a benchmark improvement, it’s a real improvement in its usability. 

The M4’s efficiency is not just about speed but the chip which runs noticeably cooler during sustained workloads. No throttling, no warm back panel. You can push the performance limits without it getting too hot on you.

Camera:

The iPad Air features a 12MP Wide rear camera with 4K video, as well as a 12MP Center Stage selfie camera on the landscape edge, which is great when the tablet is docked in the Magic Keyboard.

Photos are clean and color-accurate in good daylight with a rear camera (12MP Wide). Smart HDR works well for outdoor shots with a big range of contrast and the highlights get more detail. I used the rear camera to take reference pictures for the product review shoot and exported images to Lightroom which worked with little noise at ISO 100-400. But, this is not a camera you opt for instead of your iPhone.

Connectivity:

Apple introduced the N1 wireless chip and C1X cellular modem in iPad Air which was already added in the iPhone lineup and this is the technical upgrade I wish was getting more attention. Connecting to a router that supports WiFi 7 gave me download speeds I have not seen from any tablet before and a 2GB video file downloaded from cloud storage in less than 15 seconds. Apple claims 50% faster cellular performance from the C1X modem, and my two weeks of active daily use on 5G doesn’t contradict that.

Battery life:

The “All-day battery life” claim by Apple does not mean 10 hours of battery life, but up to 10 hours under favorable conditions. I did get close to that number after 3 weeks with video streaming while watching TV with Wi-Fi on and the brightness at a comfortable level. I was happy with my mixed productivity (writing, browsing, email, and occasional video review) as it was consistently around 7-8 hours, which I think is a real win. Sustained creative work is ~ 6 hours (Final Cut exporting while Lightroom was doing a background sync). 

I’m streaming it and my result is around 9 hours and 40 mins, which is close to the looping video test which Tom’s Guide gave. If you have lots of creative tasks on your agenda for the day, expect 6 hours, carry a charger. 

That’s not a criticism, it’s physics. I was impressed by not only the duration of the total runtime but also how the battery was used. The efficiency architecture of the M4 means that it will stay cooler when it is being used. Apple’s 10 hour headline is possible, it’s reasonable to get 7-8 hours, and in my experience, that’s plenty of time.

Specs table:

Image: Apple Pencil Pro / Apple

iPadOS 26:

iPadOS 26 didn’t hit me all at once. There was not even a single moment when I put the tablet down and thought, oh everything changed. Instead the experience felt more genuine. The updates are polished or refined but they still didn’t turn the iPad into MacOS. It does feel that Apple is moving in the right direction. The new windowing system is clear and the Liquid Glass redesign gives a clean and modern interface. Multitasking seems more natural and less restrictive. Writing Tools ended up being more useful than I expected. 

After 2 weeks it was no longer a feature I was testing, it was now a part of my writing on this device. This is more difficult to accomplish than a re-designed UI, but Apple got most of this right. The remaining iPadOS 26 is a dependable, developed upgrade. The one thing that stuck was Writing Tools.

Accessories:

The Magic Keyboard, which is $319 for the 13-inch version, is costly. It’s also not really an option if you are going to use this device for work. The 14-key swiping function row, the large glass trackpad, the magnetic floating hinge and the USB-C pass-through charging combine to make the iPad Air something worthy. The whole of this review was written using the Magic Keyboard. Once I connected a Magic Keyboard and turned on Window Apps mode, I can easily juggle, arrange and resize my usual mix of apps just like I do on my laptop. No complaints at all.

iPad Air works with Apple Pencil pro and Apple Pencil (USB-C). Two great options for everyday creativity. It has intuitive and precise control. Haptic feedback is subtle enough to be informative and yet not intrusive. When I first got a hold of it, the thing that impressed me was that it charged magnetically on the side, and if it was lost, it appeared on the app Find My.

Scoreboard:

Final verdict:

After just 3 weeks of using this iPad in conjunction with my laptop. I have found it to be not a substitute for my laptop, but it will get me things done quickly. The iPad Air comfortably replaced 70% of my work. The m4 is the model that it is, so don’t expect it to do what the model is supposed to do. The battery does what it says it will as long as you are reasonable about it and it goes hard when you’re not. 

I didn’t know that I would be unable to remember the hardware in the first week. This is always a good indication of something being done right not that I was impressed, but it just went away. The 13″ goes for $799, so you can find a better deal elsewhere. Few tablets, that will hype you up like this, will do this for this much of a price though, and I’m sure after 3 weeks, you will remember that I had a lot of peace and quiet.
For tablets alternatives you can also check our Samsung Galaxy S11 Ultra and also compare Galaxy S11 Ultra with iPad Air M4. And You can also read Galaxy Z Trifold, which serves phone and tablets features.