WHEN it comes to tablets, Apple is king – and there’s another shiny jewel in its crown.
I’ve been secretly testing the new iPad Air 2024, an upgraded super slate that is thin, light, and extremely impressive.
It’s a gorgeous slab of metal and glass that comes in four colors: Starlight and Space Grey, as well as the new Blue and Purple.
I’ve also been trying it paired with the float-effect Magic Keyboard ($299/$349) and the squeezable, rollable Apple Pencil Pro ($129).
This turns into what looks like a laptop, but is easily pulled apart to its core tablet form depending on your needs.
It’s a fair bit of money to chuck on top of the $599 base price, but it’s well worth it as the upgrades these accessories offer are significant.
Unless you’re an artist, you can probably skip the Pencil Pro (or spring for the cheaper $79 Pencil).
But the Magic Keyboard looks fabulous, doubles up as a case, and allows much greater productivity.
The iPad Air is now available in two sizes that should suit most needs.
Apple’s 11-inch tablet is cheaper and offers plenty of screen real estate for casual gaming, movie viewing, or web browsing.
But you’ll get a much broader view from the pricier 13-inch option ($749), which also lets the tablet serve better as a laptop replacement.
That’s the one I’ve been using and I love it. The screen looks frankly giant, but it’s light enough to hold and use comfortably.
If you’re planning on using it as more than just a tablet, the 13-inch is a far more comfortable option for extended productivity use.
On that subject, if you want to get some (relatively) serious gaming or work done on the iPad Air, you’ll have a great time.
That’s because the new iPad Air is powered by Apple’s speedy M2 chip, which has previously featured in MacBooks.
This laptop-grade processor handles everyday tasks with ease, and will let you comfortably edit videos, photos, and music on the fly.
And it’s also a fairly efficient chip so you should be able to get a day of usage out of a single charge comfortably.
A small but welcome change is the front-facing camera’s move to the landscape edge of the iPad.
It means your eyes will be centered rather than off to the side when video calling.
And you’re less likely to leave finger smudges over the camera too.
Apple has made significant upgrades with its iPadOS, now allowing for far greater productivity versus older software versions.
For instance, the Stage Manager mode is a great laptop-style multitasking window arrangement that will feel more familiar to MacBook users.
Here's every iPad model ever released by Apple...
And we’re expecting more iPad software upgrades later this year, which will inevitably land as free updates for this model.
So is it worth buying the new iPad Air?
It’s easy to think that because the iPad Pro exists, the iPad Air is a casual machine. This simply isn’t true.
The iPad Air has enough computing power to outclass plenty of laptops, and is a steal at $599 or $799 (depending on the screen size).
At the same time, you have other options: the regular iPad is cheaper and is fine for very casual users, while the new (and costlier) iPad Pro is extremely powerful but might be overkill for many.
Three reasons to get it: The iPad Air is a happy medium that could work as a secondary professional device, a student laptop alternative, or a brilliant portable entertainment machine for almost anyone.
The Sun says: The best of both worlds, Apple’s new iPad Air sits at the heart of the tablet range and offers tremendous value for money. 5/5
The iPad Air is available for pre-order right now, and will be in stores from Wednesday, May 15.
Here’s how much you’ll pay:
All prices in this article were correct at the time of writing.
