Apple iPad Air M3: best tablet for creators in 2025

Thursday, 27 March 2025, 2:09 pm
Article: Bill Bennett

Seventh generation iPad Air at a glance:

This review focuses on the blue 11-inch model with a SIM slot for cellular connectivity and 1TB of storage.

A speed bump upgrade

You couldn’t describe Apple’s seventh generation 11-inch iPad Air with its M3 chip as groundbreaking. Yet that doesn’t stop it being the best choice for anyone looking for a tablet capable of more than basic creative tasks. I recommend it for students, creators and people looking for a more portable alternative to a laptop for business and productivity applications.

It is fast. The new tablet is around 20 percent faster than last year’s model. It’s much faster than my third-generation iPad Pro, which uses the A12X Bionic chip. We’ll look more closely at this later.

Last year’s iPad Pro with the M4 processor is faster again which brings us back to the key point: the 2025 iPad Air balances price and performance.

Ray tracing

There’s more to the processor upgrade than raw speed. The M3 processor has hardware-accelerated ray tracing.

This makes the new iPad an even bigger step up when it comes to gaming and graphics intensive applications. While there will be creative professionals who need the iPad Pro, the Air delivers enough power for all but the most demanding tasks.

The iPad Air may feel light and thin, yet, surprisingly, it is not as light or as thin as the current iPad Pro model. There’s not much in it, the Air is a mere 1mm thicker.

Screen

Apple sent an 11-inch iPad Air for review, but there’s also a 13-inch model. The extra screen real estate is wonderful if you want to watch streaming video. In mid winter you’ll find me lying in bed in the wee small hours watching football, Rugby or cricket from the other side of the world on my 13 inch iPad Pro.

In practice the 11-inch model does not feel a huge step down. I sat on the sofa for the recent All Whites World Cup qualification games and found the smaller iPad was more than adequate. Incidentally, it did a fine job with AirPlay sending pictures to Apple TV.

The screen is bright enough, despite Apple sticking with the LCD panel even though Mini LED technology is available. In sunlight you will need to crank brightness all the way up. I have an eye condition that means I need more brightness than most people, but it was never an issue with the iPad Air.

Battery life

Apple’s marketing material says you’ll get 10 hours from the battery if you’re browsing or viewing video. In practice I found that’s about right.

Typically you can get a full day’s use before a recharge. More demanding apps might cut into that battery life a little, but in practice I didn’t notice this and I spent a lot of time with demanding apps.

Perhaps you might prefer a MacBook Air

In New Zealand the base model MacBook Air with 128GB of storage costs NZ$1200. That’s enough storage to get you started, but most people will quickly bump up against its limits. My iPad has roughly that amount of stored music files from my ripped CD collection.

If you want plenty of music and the ability to take a small video library on your next away from home trip, then you should consider at least the 256GB model at $1400.

Beyond that additional storage gets expensive. The 512GB model adds $400 taking the price to $1800 and the top-of-the-line 1TB storage version is $2200.

Prices for 13-inch iPad Air configurations are $350 extra. So a 13 inch model with 1TB costs $2550. Cellular, which few of us really need, adds a further $300. Add an Apple Pencil, you can choose from a standard $160 model and a Pencil Pro for $250. Round it all off with an Apple Magic Keyboard and you are looking at $3008.

The same money will buy you a 14-inch MacBook Pro with a faster M4 processor, but only 512GB of storage. Or you could get change from your $3000 and buy a 15-inch MacBook Air or a 13-inch MacBook Air with 1TB of storage. Both the MacBook Airs have M4 chips.

All of the above are fine options, you can’t argue there isn’t plenty of choice.

Who should buy the iPad Air?

Like every iPad, the 2025 iPad Air is great for reading documents, viewing stored or streamed video, browsing the web and social media.

While the sound quality isn’t great for listening to music, you can easily pair the iPad Air with ear buds or headphones. The review model works equally well with Apple’s AirPods and my more upmarket, but now ageing JBL Live 660NC Bluetooth noise cancelling headphones.

You can comfortably do all the above on a plain vanilla iPad. If that’s all you want from an iPad, then choose the low-end model and save NZ$500.

Apple Intelligence

The 2025 iPad Air does better than the basic iPad when you move beyond the basics.

Apple’s AI initiative Apple Intelligence does not run on the vanilla iPad, you need an iPad Air or Pro to use it.

It’s hard to see that anyone might pay that extra $500 for an iPad Air just to run Apple Intelligence in it current state. Apple’s AI software is limited and adds little to the iPad experience. But the tech sector has spent a lot of time convincing customers it’s a must have feature.

Maybe this will change with future Apple Intelligence iterations, but for now, it’s not a good enough reason to pay extra for the Air model.

iPad Air as a writing tool

I’ve long been a fan of writing on the iPad. And have written an in depth guide on using the iPad as a writing tool. It’s a great tool for the task.

While the lowest model iPad is an excellent portable writing device, the iPad Air will give you a better experience for two reasons.

First, the faster processor gives it extra snap. You won’t notice it much while writing, but you may when switching between your writing app and other tools, such as when researching or checking notes.

Magic Keyboard for iPad Air

An even better reason for picking the iPad Air over the iPad is that it has a much better keyboard.

The Apple Magic Keyboard for iPad Air isn’t cheap at NZ$550, but it allows you to get the most out of your iPad Air when using a word processor or text editor. (Check out my iPad writing guide to understand why you might be better off with a word processor or a text editor).

I’m going to write a separate post about the Magic Keyboard that goes into more depth. But for now, if you add a decent keyboard to your iPad you have all the advantage of a tablet and almost all the functionality of a laptop in a single device.

iPad Air for music production: Can it handle pro apps?

While using the iPad Air as a writing tool is a step up from the vanilla iPad, it is not an essential step up. When it comes to creative apps like Final Cut, Logic Pro, FL Studio Mobile or third-party creative tools like Photoshop, the iPad Air’s M3 processor is a must.

For the last two years I’ve run Logic Pro on my third-generation iPad Pro with the A12X Bionic chip.

The software runs fine on the older iPad, but quickly runs up against power and capacity limitations if there are too many processor intensive plugins. When this happens, the playback noise starts to break up.

Eventually playback stops and you’re asked to freeze all the tracks. It may take a minute or two to freeze the track. When this happens the plugins continue to operate, but can’t be adjusted until they are unfrozen. In practice this slows things down a lot when working on tracks.

The M3 iPad Air can handle many more concurrent plugins. All my existing projects that freeze on the old iPad Pro can run without hindrance on the newer iPad.

As an exercise I began adding and duplicating tracks to find the point where the app will freeze on the 2025 iPad Air. Eventually we got there, but it requires a far more complex project than I would naturally create. In other words, the M3 processor can handle the workload.

Logic Pro is OK on an 11 inch screen, but the app works better with the larger 13 inch screen. If Logic Pro is your reason for buying a new iPad Air, get the larger model.

FL Studio Mobile

FL Studio Mobile is another iPad music creation app that benefits from the M3 processor. In general use, FLSM is lighter on resources than Logic Pro, but it still occasionally tops out on my older iPad.

The app has CPU and memory indicators on the main display to help you understand the load on the system. A green indicator means everything is fine, you’ll see red when the app pushes close to your hardware’s limits. This was rare with the iPad Pro, but no unknown. I didn’t see it at all with the M3 iPad Air.

Verdict: Apple iPad Air M3

It’s not worth upgrading if you have last year’s M2 iPad Air, there’s a speed bump and not much else. But then you shouldn’t even think about buying a new iPad ten months after the last model was released. You won’t notice a huge difference coming from the M1 iPad Air, but it’s a huge jump from earlier models.

© Scoop Media

Bill Bennett

Freelance journalist.

Auckland-based Bill Bennett writes technology and business stories that are directly relevant to New Zealand readers.

His emphasis is on telecommunications, but he also covers other aspects of technology and business. You can find his features in the New Zealand Herald and hear him regularly on RNZ Nine to Noon and the NZ Tech Podcast.

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