Apple is kicking off March with a week packed full of product announcements, and first up is a new iPad Air powered by its M4 processor.

Apple refreshed the iPad Air just a year ago with the M3 chipset, and this latest update feels very similar. The design is exactly the same, but now it’s powered by the M4 chip. According to Apple, that makes it up to 30 percent faster than the M3 iPad Air and up to 2.3x faster than the M1 version.

The M4 iPad Air comes in the same two sizes as before: 11 inches and 13 inches. Pricing also remains unchanged, with the 11-inch model starting at $599 and the 13-inch at $799. A Wi-Fi + Cellular model is also available, starting at $749 for the 11-inch version and $949 for the 13-inch version.

The tablet is available in four colors — space gray, blue, purple, and starlight — and will be available for pre-order starting on March 4, ahead of its March 11 launch.

“iPad Air gives users more ways than ever to be creative and productive, offering powerful performance and incredible versatility to help them turn their ideas into reality,” said Bob Borchers, Apple’s vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing, in a press release. “With its blazing performance thanks to M4, incredible AI capabilities, and game-changing iPadOS 26 features, there’s never been a better time to choose or upgrade to iPad Air.”

Brand

Apple

Storage

128GB, 256GB, 512GB, 1TB

CPU

M4

Memory

12GB

The M4 iPad also gets two other upgrades

Apple has increased the amount of RAM in the tablet

Beyond the jump to the M4 chip, Apple has made a couple of other meaningful upgrades to the new iPad Air.

First up is networking. The tablet now uses Apple’s in-house N1 wireless chip, which supports Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, and Thread. If you opt for the Wi-Fi + Cellular model, it’s equipped with Apple’s new C1X cellular modem, which first debuted with the iPhone Air last year. Apple says it offers up to 50 percent faster cellular data performance, along with 30 percent better energy efficiency compared to the M3 iPad Air.

Apple has also bumped up the unified memory. The M4 iPad Air now comes with 12GB of RAM, a 50 percent increase over the 8GB in the M3 model. Memory bandwidth has also increased to 120GB/s, which Apple says will help users run AI models faster.

The M4 iPad Air will be available for pre-order starting March 4, with the 11-inch model with 128GB of storage starting at $599. The 13-inch model with 128GB of storage starts at $799. Along with the M4 iPad Air announcement, Apple also introduced the new iPhone 17e.