Apple iPad Air M3 (2025) Review

Screen

• Two size options: 11 and 13-inch
• No OLED upgrade
• Bright and colourful

The iPad Air M3 comes in two screen size options, just like the higher-end, higher-priced iPad Pro. There’s a smaller 11-inch option, which is great for media and commuters, along with a 13-inch alternative that I’d recommend to anyone hoping to transition away from a laptop.

Having a duo of screen sizes is great, and there aren’t any sacrifices if you plump for the smaller, cheaper model (or vice versa). Both have the same features, same storage options and same colour choices.

I’ve been testing the smaller 11-inch model, watching countless hours of YouTube and Netflix, playing games and trying to use the iPad as much as a MacBook replacement as possible. The thing with the screen is that it’s good in many respects – it’s the same panel as the outgoing Air model, with no noticeable changes – but it feels like it could have done with a little bit of spruce up.

As this iPad sits in the middle of the range, it has a screen that is very much the middle child. It’s better than the base iPad, but comfortably worse than the Pro. The fully-laminated display means you don’t get the air gap so visible on the cheapest iPad, however the Air still comes with an LCD, so it lacks the perfect blacks and punchy colours of the iPad Pro’s OLED.

The iPad Air also still has that locked 60Hz refresh rate, making it much slower than the Pro’s 120Hz panel. You won’t notice this if you’re coming from an older Air, but you will if you’re coming from a Pro. The difference can be a little jarring.

Still, while there’s nothing new here, the screen is good. It is mostly on par with other tablets in this price range, with enough brightness for most environments. It can’t crank up anywhere near the same level of brightness as the Pro, but it can combat a sunny afternoon working in a cafe.

Design

• Four colour choices
• Great quality build
• No notable changes over the previous mode

Apple rarely gives its products huge design refreshes year-on-year anymore, and we haven’t really seen a hefty redesign of the iPad since the home button was ditched and the bezel reduced.

The iPad Air M3, then, is the same as the model I reviewed last year. The dimensions are the same (for the 11-inch model that means it measures 247.6 x 178.5 x 6.1mm) and while it’s a couple of grams lighter, that’s negligible.

Even though this iPad has the Air moniker, which to me should signify lightness, it’s the iPad Pro M4 that is both lighter and drastically thinner.  The 11-inch iPad Pro M4 is just 5.3mm thick and 446g. It does raise the question of whether Apple should rebrand its mid-range tablet, as the Air name no longer holds much significance.

But, unless you’re directly comparing the two models, the iPad Air 2025 is still a thin, light and very portable tablet, whichever screen size you opt for. The aluminium body is sturdy, and it allows for some more colours than you get with the Pro iPads.

It is a little disappointing that Apple hasn’t refreshed the colour options, as this is usually an easy way to distinguish between models. Instead, there are the same four hues available: Space Grey for those who want something neutral, blue and purple for a bit of style, and then Starlight (a light gold) for those who want something with a touch of glamour.

Both the purple and green colours are subdued pastel shades, quite different to the vibrant punch of colour on the iPhone 16 models. They’re so light that in some instances, and in brighter rooms, they both can just look silver.

Whichever colour you pick, the finish is matte – not glossy – so fingerprints and smudges don’t really appear, and are easy to wipe off when they do.

The buttons and connectors will be familiar to anyone who has used a recent iPad. Biometric security is handled by the Touch ID fingerprint scanner, which is built into the slightly elongated power key.

Setting up and adding a fingerprint is quick and you can do this when you set up the device for the first time. You can add multiple prints, ideal for other family members. When it comes to unlocking and authorising payments, everything is quick, and I found the Touch ID more reliable than Face ID on the iPad Pro, mostly as you don’t need to be looking directly at the iPad for it to work.

There’s a USB-C port on the bottom. This can be used for charging, and attaching dongles like an SD card reader to transfer photos directly to the iPad. It’s not a Thunderbolt/USB 4 port like on the M4, but it’s still more versatile than the older Lightning port.

Along the tablet’s long edge, there’s a magnetic connector that wirelessly charges and connects the Apple Pencil Pro. Both the Apple Pencil Pro and Apple Pencil USB-C are sold separately as extras, and only the Pro model utilises this connector for charging and connectivity. It’s certainly worth spending the extra on Apple’s flagship stylus if you want the best writing and drawing experience.

There’s a second connector on the back, dubbed the Smart Connector. This is where the Apple Magic Keyboard accessory docks and receives its power.

Performance

• Bump to an M3 chip
• Storage up to 1TB
• 8GB memory, Wi-Fi 6E

The only upgrade this version of the iPad Air has is the new chip. Rather than the M2 chip that powered the 2024 iPad Air, the new model has the M3. It’s not quite the M4 that sits inside the iPad Pro range (and many of Apple’s other machines) but it’s very close.

The M3 chip has an 8-core CPU (4 efficiency cores, 4 performance cores) and a 9-core GPU. There’s a 16-core neural engine for AI tasks, and all models come with 8GB RAM.

I’m actually a little surprised Apple has decided to put a chip inside the Air that offers performance numbers so close to the flagship iPad Pro. But then, with the majority of Apple Silicon chips performing well, there isn’t a bad chip.

From a real-world perspective, it’s hard to notice much difference in day-to-day use between this M3 model, the M2 model from last year and the M4 iPad Pro. Whatever I threw at the iPad Air M3 was managed with ease, and unless you’re exporting a video or importing a lot of RAW images on the iPad Air M3 and iPad Pro M4 next to each other, then you won’t notice any obvious speed differences.

The M3 chip is a bit of a gaming beast, especially for a tablet as portable as this. It supports hardware-accelerated ray tracing in certain titles, and there’s a good selection of console ports available on the App Store. If you’d told me a few years ago that I could play Death Stranding on an iPad with a connected PS5 controller and it’d run in a playable manner, I’d have been thoroughly impressed.

Storage options are nice and varied, with all the big sizes catered for. It really depends on how much you want to spend, and what sort of offline files, games and videos you want quick access to.

The base 128GB is too small for many, especially with apps and games coming with larger install sizes, whereas the 256GB size is the sweet spot for me. There are also 512 GB and 1TB options.

In terms of connectivity, the iPad Air M3 supports Wi-Fi 6E, so those who have updated to a new Wi-Fi 7-enabled router are out of luck. You can also get a cellular version of the tablet too, for those who want 5G connectivity away from Wi-Fi networks.

There’s one camera on the back of the iPad Air M3 and another placed in the middle of the horizontal bezel on the front. The front 12-megapixel camera is very good, producing accurate skin tones and plenty of detail during video calls.

Apple’s Center Stage software ensures you’re always centrally positioned in the frame, and it does a good job at following movement. Center Stage isn’t restricted to Apple’s apps either, and it works a treat on Zoom meetings.

The rear 12-megapixel is fine. It’ll get the job done in a pinch, and I have used it for scanning in documents to sign. It can shoot 4K 60 video too, which is a nice touch combined with the screen acting as a huge viewfinder.

Software and Apple Intelligence

• iPadOS 26 update coming this year
• Apple Intelligence included, although not a reason to buy
• Loads of apps

Apple has recently unveiled iPadOS 26, which is a pretty substantial update to the core iPad experience. Much of the headlines focus on the new Liquid Glass interface, which adds a layer of depth and transparency to the OS that wasn’t there before. 

However, the big changes for the iPad are mostly to do with multitasking and how apps can be windowed and moved around. From early impressions, it seems like iPadOS 26 will work more like macOS than before, and this could be great news for owners of powerful iPad models like this. iPadOS 26 won’t be out for everyone until later in the fall, so it doesn’t have much sway on this review.

For now, the iPad multitasking options revolve around splitting apps side-by-side and using the slightly janky windowing modes inside the Stage Manager setup. I think these will be massively upgraded once iPadOS 26 arrives.

The current software that ships with the iPad Air is iPadOS 18, and it is a familiar experience. It performs well, with apps opening up quickly. There are so many excellent iPad-sized apps and games on the App Store that a lot of the core system’s shortcomings can be forgiven. I have always found apps on iPadOS smoother and more reliable than those on Android tablets and even Windows.

There are AAA games, like entries in the Assassin’s Creed series, pro-grade editing apps like Final Cut and everyday tools like the Office suite, Photoshop and Lightroom. Not all have parity with the desktop alternative, but you can get a lot done on the iPad.

The Apple ecosystem is, of course, fantastic. If you use a Mac, you can use your computer’s trackpad and keyboard to control the tablet with Universal Control. There’s a selection of features under the Continuity umbrella too, like opening up the same app on a Mac as is open on the iPad, and vice versa.

I can praise a lot about iPadOS, but Apple Intelligence isn’t one of them, at least not yet. All the AI features included here, from the generative drawing app Image Playground to the Clean Up feature in Photos, are nothing more than adequate.

I’m not a huge fan of the Writing Tools either. These pop up on the keyboard, offering to help craft your emails or change the formality of an email. It’s all standard AI stuff that’s available elsewhere, and it feels like Apple hasn’t quite yet managed to show us why we need it, or why it deserves quite such a prominent place in the marketing hype for these devices.

Battery Life

• USB-C charging
• No battery life upgrades
• Strong endurance overall

I have the 11-inch iPad Air M3 for review, so all my battery thoughts are restricted to this size. Even though the larger 13-inch model has a bigger battery, the extra screen will likely require that power – so I don’t think there’s a huge difference in terms of endurance between the two sizes.

For as long as I can remember, Apple has touted the same ‘10 hours of surfing the web or watching video’ with all full-size iPad models, and it’s the same here. It feels that Apple is happy with this number, and isn’t actively trying to increase it, instead focusing elsewhere.

For instance, when it made the iPad Pro M4 – it could have kept it the same thickness as before, and just added a larger battery, but it decided to make the thin chassis a key selling point.

Apple’s 10-hour claim translates into about all-day use, depending on the task. Although as most people’s use of a tablet is different to that of a laptop, this will likely spread out as a few hours of use per night over a multi-day period. I did use the iPad Air for a full work day and it lasted with around 20% left. That was after having the Magic Keyboard connected and brightness set to a comfortable 60%.

I also tested the video playback claim on a flight from London to San Francisco, with a number of videos downloaded from both the Apple TV app. My tests showed a result of closer to 11 hours than Apple’s 10 so this is a great travel companion.

Charging is done via USB-C, and you’ll find a cable in the box. In the UK and some other markets, no power adapter is provided. You can use any 20W or faster USB-C plug though, like the one that comes with a MacBook. In the US, a 20W plug is included as part of the package.

Should you buy it?