Apple iPad (2025) vs. iPad Air (2025): Which is right for you in an AI era?

Apple had a big unveil earlier this month when it unveiled two new iPads. While a new entry-level iPad was longer overdue, it also took the opportunity to unveil a modestly upgraded M3 iPad Air only ten months after it released its predecessor.

Neither of these tablets is a revolutionary upgrade over the prior models. In fact, we were more surprised by what the budget iPad (2025) left out than what it added: in an era of Apple Intelligence, the new iPad is the first device to be released without any of Apple’s new AI features.

Along similar lines, the new iPad Air gets a powerful new M3 chip, but little else over the M2 version. It’s a nice boost, but it’s hardly enough to make anyone rush out and upgrade from last year’s model.

However, that’s not really the point. Apple’s latest iPads won’t do much to entice recent buyers, but they’re healthy upgrades for anyone toting an older model, or even coming to the iPad family for the first time. If you’re in the market for a new iPad, the trickier question isn’t whether you should buy one of these two models (the answer is an unqualified yes), but rather which of the two you should opt for. Let’s dive in and take a look at what sets them apart.

Apple iPad (2025) vs. iPad Air (2025): specs

Apple iPad (2025) vs. iPad Air (2025): design

Thanks to Apple’s decision to redesign the base iPad in 2022, you may have a hard time telling the entry-level iPad (2025) apart from its more expensive counterpart, the iPad Air (2025) at first glance. Both iPads have an 11-inch screen and similar dimensions, although the more premium model shaves around a millimetre off in each dimension.

That may not sound like much, but it gives it a slimmer look by narrowing the bezels ever-so-slightly. It’s also a few grams lighter to match. Those aren’t differences you’ll likely notice unless you’re holding the two side-by-side, but combined with more subtle colors, the iPad Air (2025) has a more premium look. The iPad Air (2025) is also available in a larger 13-inch version that the lower-end model lacks. The larger model increases the height and width, but retains the same thinness as its smaller sibling.

Apple’s color choices make the differences between the two tablets the most apparent. The iPad (2025) is available in fairly generic silver, blue, pink, and yellow shades. They’re vibrant and feel a bit “Fisher Price” in their saturation, as if Apple is deliberately going for finishes that will appeal to younger kids. By contrast, the iPad Air (2025) limits its colors to more muted blue and purple shades, which are joined by neutral space gray and Starlight, giving the pricier tablet a more serious look.

Other than the colors and slight size differences, the iPad (2025) and iPad Air (2025) are cut from the same cloth, with all the buttons, speakers, cameras, and microphones in the same spots. The iPad (2025) has a Smart Connector on the side opposite the camera, designed to attach Apple’s Magic Keyboard Folio, while the iPad Air (2025) places the connector on the rear to support the Magic Keyboard for iPad Air. There’s also a magnetic dock on the camera side of the iPad Air (2025) for charging the Apple Pencil Pro. The iPad (2025) only works with the Apple Pencil (1st Generation) and Apple Pencil (USB-C), neither of which support wireless charging.

As usual, Apple’s iPads come without any guarantees of dust or water resistance. The company doesn’t offer IP ratings for its tablets. Unlike the Ceramic Shield on its iPhones, it also doesn’t say anything about how tough the front glass is. We recommend avoiding water and using a protective case for both models. Thankfully, the iPad Air (2025) and iPad (2025) have dimensions identical to those of their predecessors, so there are already plenty of cases on the market for both the new models.

While the designs are very similar, the iPad Air has an edge by being slightly thinner and offering a larger 13-inch option.

Winner: iPad Air (2025)

Apple iPad (2025) vs. iPad Air (2025): display

It may surprise you that the iPad (2025) has essentially the same quality display as its more expensive counterpart. Both 11-inch models feature a 2360 x 1640-pixel LED-backlit IPS display that can reach 500 nits of maximum SDR brightness. The 13-inch iPad Air naturally has a higher resolution of 2732 x 2048, but that’s just to account for its larger size. The pixel density is 264 pixels per inch (ppi) across all three models.

While the base specs of the LED panels are virtually identical, the iPad Air (2025) has a few extra perks. It sports a fully laminated display with an antireflective coating. This noticeably reduces glare and improves touch responsiveness and the experience of writing or drawing with an Apple Pencil or other stylus. It’s not a matte screen by any stretch — you’ll have to shell out at least $1,000 more for a flagship iPad Pro (2024) with a premium nano-texture display upgrade to get that — but it still does a better job of improving visibility in awkward lighting conditions.

The iPad Air (2025) also features a P3 wide color gamut. This provides a 25% wider range of colors than the sRGB display on the iPad (2025). This will mostly be of interest to those who work in areas where a broader spectrum and more accurate colors matter, such as photography, video editing, and design. It makes images on the iPad Air (2025) look more punchy and vivid, but it’s not something you’ll likely notice if you’re playing casual games or watching most stuff on Netflix, as it only affects HDR content that’s color-graded for the wider gamut. You won’t see any difference at all with SDR content.

Lastly, the display on the iPad Air (2025) has one other trick up its sleeve with support for Apple Pencil hover. This allows you to hold your Apple Pencil Pro or Apple Pencil (USB-C) a few millimeters above the screen to preview where your mark will land before you place it. iPadOS 18 also uses hover to highlight on-screen tools when you place the tip near them. The iPad (2025) doesn’t support the Apple Pencil Pro, but hover isn’t available even if you use it with the Apple Pencil (USB-C).

Although the core display specs are the same, the iPad Air (2025) will provide a better viewing experience thanks to its fully laminated, antireflective display and wider P3 color gamut.

Winner: iPad Air (2025)

Apple iPad (2025) vs. iPad Air (2025): performance

The chip in the iPad (2025) came as a bit of a surprise. In an era of Apple Intelligence, Apple shipped its first iPad lacking its much-hyped AI features. Instead, Apple not only used a variation on the 2022-era A16 Bionic chip but also stepped it down a notch by removing one CPU core and one GPU core.

The A16 Bionic has a 6-core CPU and 5-core GPU and was originally used in the iPhone 14 Pro and later came to the iPhone 15. However, the A16 chip in the iPad (2025) no longer carries the “Bionic” designation. It’s just an “A16” now, and features a 5-core CPU and 4-core GPU, although it still boasts the same 16-core Neural Engine (NPU). Ironically, that part of the chip is faster than even Apple’s M2 NPU, but the iPad (2025) lacks the RAM to power Apple Intelligence, with the same 6GB that accompanied the A16 Bionic in the iPhone.

Nevertheless, as much as Apple has been promoting Apple Intelligence, there’s much more to an iPad than just AI, and the A16 chip is still a solid choice for a budget tablet. As we wrote in early 2023, the A14 Bionic in the iPad (2022) already delivered solid performance for gaming and even video editing. The A16 chip promises a 30% improvement over that, so there’s no reason to believe you’re going to find the iPad (2025) to be even the slightest bit sluggish.

The iPad (2025) can handle everyday tasks without breaking a sweat. While it won’t even touch AAA console games like Resident Evil Village or Assassin’s Creed: Mirage, it can handle Genshin Impact just fine as long as you don’t try to max out the frame rate and resolution settings simultaneously.

Although Apple’s entry-level tablet will deliver enough performance for most folks, it doesn’t hold a candle to the iPad Air (2025), which packs in Apple’s M3 chip. That’s the same class of chip used on the 2024 MacBook Air, and only one generation behind the base chip used in most of today’s Macs.

The iPad Air (2025) is a powerhouse, but it also delivers way more power than you’re likely to need — especially on a tablet. Apple Intelligence is here in spades, of course, and there’s support for the most demanding games on the App Store that require an M-series chip. However, the real power is for folks who want to do more sophisticated video editing work.

That’s because the M3 has a dedicated media engine that provides hardware-accelerated encoding and decoding for 8K HEVC, 4K H.264, ProRes, and ProRes RAW, plus hardware AV1 decoding. The A16 has none of that, which means the iPad (2025) has to do it all in software. If you’re looking for a tablet that can run Final Cut Pro or DaVince Resolve, the iPad Air (2025) is it. While the iPad (2025) is the budget iPad, the iPad Air (2025) is the budget iPad Pro. It’s hard to imagine anything that this tablet won’t be able to handle, but it’s also way more power than most people really need.

Winner: iPad Air (2025)

Apple iPad (2025) vs. iPad Air (2025): software and features

The iPad (2025) and iPad Air (2025) both ship with iPadOS 18.3, Apple’s latest tablet operating system. Although Apple doesn’t make update promises, there’s reason to believe they’ll both receive at least five years of updates.

This puts both on par in core software features. However, Apple’s choice to leave the iPad (2025) out of the AI party means the iPad Air (2025) can do quite a bit more. Apple Intelligence features like Writing Tools, Image Playground, Genmoji, Priority Notifications, and summaries are exclusive to the pricier model. By comparison, owners of the 2025 iPad will find their user experience nearly identical to that of the 2022 model.

If you don’t need AI features — or don’t care about Apple’s take on them — then this won’t matter as much. The rest of the software user experience is virtually identical, and the base-model iPad can still run standalone AI apps like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini, and handles those just as well as the iPad Air (2025).

Still, the iPad Air has some additional hardware support that will make it more appealing to budding artists and graphic designers. The standard iPad only supports the legacy Apple Pencil (1st Generation) and Apple Pencil (USB-C), making for a slightly confusing landscape. The USB-C version is the best stylus for most folks, as it charges over USB-C, magnetically attaches to the side of the iPad (but won’t charge from there), and even supports Apple Pencil hover on the iPad Air. It’s great for writing notes and basic sketching but lacks pressure sensitivity for more sophisticated drawing.

To get pressure sensitivity on the entry-level iPad, you need to go with the first-generation Apple Pencil. That’s the stylus Apple debuted with the original 12.9-inch iPad Pro in 2015. It has a male Lightning connector on the end, designed to charge by plugging it directly into the bottom of the iPad. Of course, modern iPads no longer have a Lightning port, so you’ll have to use a cable and USB-C-to-Lightning adapter to charge it. To say that makes things awkward feels like an understatement. Also, the first-gen stylus has no hover support, and can’t be magnetically attached to the iPad, so you’ll need to find somewhere else to keep it when you’re not using it.

If you plan to use a stylus with your iPad for anything more than basic sketching, it’s worth upgrading to the iPad Air (2025) and going with the Apple Pencil Pro. This not only supports magnetic charging and pressure sensitivity, but also adds more features, including haptic feedback, double-tap and squeeze gestures to select drawing tools, and a barrel roll that can be used to reorient things like brushes. It’s a significantly better stylus experience. Apple’s Find My can even help you locate a misplaced Apple Pencil Pro.

Winner: iPad Air (2025)

Apple iPad (2025) vs. iPad Air (2025): cameras

Cameras aren’t usually a priority for most tablet buyers, and Apple knows it. Even the flagship iPad Pro has a single rear 12-megapixel (MP) lens designed for little more than scanning documents. The iPad (2025) and iPad Air (2025) have identical cameras.

Specifically, both models feature a single 12MP wide camera with an f/1.8 aperture, a 5x digital zoom, and Smart HDR 4 support. They can record 4K video at up to 60 frames per second (fps) or 1080p slow-mo video at up to 240fps.

The iPad Air (2025) has two relatively small upgrades in the front camera system, with a wider f/2.0 aperture for better low-light capture and adding True Tone to the Retina Flash for more balanced colors and less of a white-out effect. These subtle differences may give it a slight edge under certain conditions, but we don’t think it’s anything most people will notice.

Winner: Tie

Apple iPad (2025) vs. iPad Air (2025): battery life and charging

The iPad (2025) and 11-inch iPad Air (2025) both feature a 28.93 watt-hour (Wh) battery, while the 13-inch model gets a larger 36.59 Wh cell. These are the same batteries as their respective 2022 and 2024 predecessors, and battery life remains similarly unchanged.

While you’d think the larger battery in the 13-inch iPad Air would provide longer run times, that extra power is eaten up by the larger screen. The iPad and both iPad Air models all promise the same 10 hours of web-surfing or video playback, which drops to 9 hours if you’re using cellular data instead of Wi-Fi. Our testing found those numbers were accurate in the previous models, so we expect they’ll hold true for the 2025 releases.

All of Apple’s iPads charge solely over USB-C. A one-meter USB-C charging cable and 20W USB-C power adapter is included in the box. You can likely charge a bit faster if you supply your own higher-wattage adapter — tests have shown most iPads can charge at up to 30W — but the larger batteries mean that extra boost doesn’t make enough of a difference to be worth it. You should plan on charging overnight or at other times when you know you won’t need to use your iPad.

Winner: Tie

Apple iPad (2025) vs. iPad Air (2025): price and availability

Apple iPad (2025) vs. iPad Air (2025): verdict

At $349, the iPad (2025) is hard to beat, and we believe it’s the best iPad for most people. It’s not without its tradeoffs, but you’re getting solid performance that can handle all but the most demanding AAA games and complex video editing tasks, a great screen for surfing the web, reading, and watching Netflix, plus a solid front camera for video calls between friends, family, and colleagues. If that’s all you need your tablet to do, the entry-level iPad will fit the bill quite nicely.

Plus, the iPad (2025) solves the biggest problem with its predecessor by bumping its base storage up to 128GB. The 2022 version started at a paltry 64GB that was easy to strain, but the next bump up was 256GB, which was too much for most folks. The 2025 model hits the “Goldilocks” spot of 128GB, while offering the same 256GB upgrade for those who need it, and even a new 512GB tier if you plan to fill it up with a lot of stuff for your next road trip off the grid. However, that price puts you into iPad Air territory, so it may be a tough call.

That’s not to say the iPad Air (2025) isn’t an excellent tablet. If you’re willing to spend more, you’ll get a better tablet in every possible way. It’s just that it’s much more than most people need.

There are some very good reasons to splurge on Apple’s mid-tier iPad Air, including a better screen, top-notch gaming and video editing performance, an outstanding Apple Pencil Pro experience, and support for Apple Intelligence. However, it’s not significantly better than the standard iPad when it comes to everyday tasks unless you’re looking for a larger screen. If a larger 13-inch screen is on your list of requirements, the iPad Air is your only real choice unless you’re willing to pay MacBook prices for an iPad Pro.

It’s in comparison to these premium tablets where the iPad Air truly shines. The iPad Air is best thought of as a budget iPad Pro rather than an upgraded iPad. It delivers most of the power and capabilities of Apple’s very pricey flagship tablets at a fraction of the cost, but it still caters to an audience looking for a laptop replacement for serious work rather than casual home and family use.