SOMETHING IN THE AIR: Apple iPad Air

The best affordable tablet you can buy, the iPad Air 5 delivers the power of a MacBook Pro in a stylish frame and with user-friendly software

- Josh Russell

SPECIFICATIONS

Display 10.9-inch 2360x1640 500-nit LED

Chip Apple M1

CPU 8-core

GPU 8-core RAM 8GB

Storage 64GB / 256GB Camera 12MP wide rear; 12MP ultra-wide front

Battery Up to 10 hours

OS iPadOS 15

Connectivity USB-C, Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5

Dimensions 247.6x178.5x6.1mm

Weight 4618/462g

The most recent iPad Air already felt like a modern tablet, just in need of a few tweaks. But Apple didn't just give the 5th-gen Air these small tweaks. It also strapped a jet engine to it: the Apple M1 chip, meaning this small, affordable tablet has as much power as some high-end laptops...

After the huge redesign the iPad Air had last time, Apple has left it physically the same, and that's okay.

It's still gorgeous and sleek in the hand. The front is all black glass, with the screen not quite edge-to-edge - but that's good in a tablet because it's useful having a little bezel to hold it without encroaching on the touchscreen. The flat sides and back are all aluminium, in one of five colours, giving it a huge splash of personality compared to some devices.

The iPad Air 5 has a 10.9-inch LCD LED screen with a resolution of 2360x1640 - at 264 pixels per inch, it's just as detailed as the screen in the iPad Pro models, and looks perfectly sharp at normal viewing distances.