iPad Pro (2024) vs. iPad Air (2025): Which Apple tablet is best for you?

Apple just announced two new iPad models, an iPad Air with an M3 processor and a new 11th-generation iPad to revamp its base models. With the new iPad Air being the most advanced we’ve seen, you may be wondering how it compares to Apple’s flagship tablet, the iPad Pro. 

The iPad Pro comes in 11- and 13-inch sizes come with Tandem OLED displays that get surprisingly bright with better contrast for visual applications. They also feature the M4 chipset, while the more affordable iPad Air line gets bumped up to the M3 processor. 

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That’s all to say the iPad lineup is more convoluted than ever, and choosing the right one for you may not be as straightforward as you think. To help, I’ve rounded up the key buying reasons for the iPad Air and iPad Pro so you can best decide which of the two is ideal for your needs, use cases, and budget.

Specifications

You should buy the iPad Pro (2024) if…

1. You want the best-looking, most useful display available

The iPad Pro features the company’s best display on a tablet ever, with a Tandem-OLED panel called Ultra Retina XDR Display. By stacking the OLED panels underneath the glass, Apple says it’s solved one of the biggest pain points with the organic light-emitting diode technology: lack of brightness.

Thanks to the enhanced luminance, contrast, and dynamic range of the new OLED display, the iPad Pro is better suited for consumers watching content, editing photos and videos, and handling other use cases that involve attention to visual detail.

Also: The new iPad Air with M3 is here – with an updated Magic Keyboard to match

Unlike the LCD display on the iPad Air, Apple also offers the Pro the option to apply a layer of nano-texture glass, further reducing glare and other light reflections. That’ll come at an extra $100 over the previous model, but it should be worth the investment for users who work in brighter environments or are often outdoors.

2. You want Apple’s fastest processor: the M4

Last year, Apple unveiled the company’s next-gen M4 chipset, succeeding the M3 that had only just made its way onto the MacBook Air line months prior. In the context of the iPad Pro, the M4 processor is a major leap from the 2022 model’s M2 chip, delivering up to 1.5x faster CPU performance and up to four times faster pro rendering performance, according to Apple.

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In practice, the spec bump should be most noticeable when using the iPad Pro (2024) with graphics-intensive apps like Final Cut and LumaFusion. The M4 also comes bundled with a dedicated Neural Engine, which benefits AI and machine-learning tasks such as Live Captions, Visual Lookup, identifying objects in photos and videos, and more.

If you could see yourself leveraging the performance gains from the M4 chip, you’ll want to opt for the iPad Pro versus the less-capable iPad Air. And if you want the most powerful configuration of the iPad Pro, go with the 1TB or 2TB storage sizes, which come with twice the RAM (16GB instead of 8GB) and one extra CPU core (10 instead of nine) as the 256GB and 512GB variants.

You should buy the iPad Air (2025) if…

1. You’re on a budget (and don’t need the Pro features)

There are several differences between the iPad Air and iPad Pro this year, but lightness and portability are not on the list. Instead, iPad shoppers should consider the lower cost of entry and essential features that the Air model provides. 

At $599 — $400 less than the base model of the iPad Pro — the Air provides all the Apple tablet fundamentals like a more affordable Magic Keyboard and Apple Pencil support (including the newest Pencil Pro), the same Landscape FaceTime camera as the iPad Pro for video calls, a reliable M3 chip for work and play, and more.

Also: Why I pick this ultraportable Lenovo tablet over the iPad for multimedia consumption

The Apple Intelligence features coming to the new iPad Air are sure to run as smoothly as the new calculator iPad app, thanks to the M3 processor inside. In addition, Apple Intelligence is soon coming to third-party apps, which means you can use Image Playground’s image generation within Final Cut Pro. That should make the Air just as enticing for media lovers and entertainment buffs.

Alternatives to consider