iPad Air M2 (2024) vs iPad Pro M4 (2024): is the $600 tablet just as good?

Earlier this year, the iPad Pro was refreshed with a brand-new M4 chip inside, and the iPad Air got the excellent M2 as a hand-me-down. Not only that, the iPad Air (2025) now comes in two sizes — 11" and 13". So, you have access to that big slab form factor by paying much less than what the iPad Pro 13" costs.

To top it off, the new Air also supports the newly released Apple Pencil Pro, too. So, is it actually the better choice than the iPad Pro? Why pay the extra cash, right? Well, the Pro line still has some perks, like the 120 Hz screen, but at its core — the new iPad Air is excellent.

Let's explore the teeny tiny differences, then.

iPad Pro 11-inch M4: Save up to $520 with a trade-in

The iPad Pro M4 is here! You can now get the 11-inch model with a brand-new OLED screen and a powerful M4 chipset straight from the source and save up to $520 with select trade-ins.

$520 off (52%) Trade-in

$479

$999

Buy at Apple

iPad Pro 13-inch (2024): Save up to $520 with a trade-in

Get your 13-inch M4-powered iPad Pro and save up to $520 with select trade-ins. Minimum savings amount is $40. At the time of writing, no discounts are available before trade-ins.

$520 off (40%) Trade-in

$779

$1299

Buy at Apple

iPad Pro 11-inch (2024): Save $50 at Amazon

The powerful 11-inch iPad Pro M4 is available at Amazon. With its impressive M4 chipset, this tablet gives you the ultimate iPad experience. Get the 256GB slate in Silver for 5% off and save $50!

$50 off (5%)

Buy at Amazon

iPad Pro 13-inch (2024), Wi-Fi: Save 11% at Amazon

Need a larger screen? In such a case, we suggest the larger iPad Pro M4 at Amazon. With its impressive M4 chipset, this tablet gives you the ultimate iPad experience. You can now order the Wi-Fi model with massive 1TB storage for $200 off its regular price.

$200 off (11%)

Buy at Amazon

11-inch iPad Air M2: Up to $555 off with trade-in at Apple

The powerful 11-inch M2 iPad Air sells at its standard price at Apple.com. However, you can trade in an eligible device to save a maximum of $555 on the high-end 11-inch slate.

$555 off (93%) Trade-in

$44

$599

Buy at Apple

Get 13-inch iPad Air M2 at Apple at up to $555 with trade-in

The 13-inch iPad Air with an M2 chip is also available at the official Apple store at a fantastic max discount of $555. To get it, you must provide an eligible trade-in in good condition.

$555 off (69%) Trade-in

$244

$799

Buy at Apple

Get the 11-inch iPad Air M2 at Amazon for 17% off

If you don't have a suitable trade-in, choose Amazon as your trusted retailer. Over here, you can buy the iPad Air M2 with an 11-inch display for $100 off its usual price in select colors. Don't miss out.

$101 off (17%)

Buy at Amazon

13-inch iPad Air M2 (Starlight, 128GB): Save $100

For the first time, Apple has also released a 13-inch iPad Air M2 model. This one gives you more screen real estate to play with, and it's $100 off, just like the smaller model. Get yours in Starlight and save.

$100 off (13%)

Buy at Amazon

The modern iPad Air line is there to give you an iPad Pro for less money. The corners that were cut — it has a 60 Hz screen instead of 120 Hz ProMotion, it lacks a Face ID array and uses Touch ID fingerprint reading instead, and doesn't have the new OLED display of the Pros, but more on that later.

However, the Air does have an 11-inch and 13-inch model, and does support the new Apple Pencil Pro (or an older gen Apple Pencil, if you so wish). It's also a lovely deisgn, 0.24 in (6.1 mm) thick for both models, weighing 1.02 lbs (462 g) and 1.36 lbs (617 g) for the 11-inch and 13-inch variants respectively.

The iPad Pro looks familiar, but has in fact been redesigned. The new Pro slates are now ultra-thin, at 0.21 in (5.3 mm) and 0.2 in (5.1 mm) for the 11" and 13" model respectively. They are also quite light at 0.98 pounds (444 grams) and 1.28 pounds (579 grams).



OK, so the iPad Air gets to look a bit more "old style" — that's not a big deal. The good news is that it is compatible with the old Magic Keyboard accessories, which were originally released for the 2020, 2021, 2022 iPad Pros. Then again, the new Magic Keyboard for the iPad Pro M4 sure looks nice — bigger touchpad with haptic feedback, aluminum arm rest, function key row — pretty desirable upgrades.

At least, both the Air and Pro fit and pair with the new Apple Pencil Pro — an upgraded stylus that now has a squeeze control, haptic feedback, and a gyroscope for barrel rolls and angle brushing.

The iPads have had USB C ports for a while now, so no change expected there. But, as before, we have Thunderbolt file transfer speeds (40 Gbps) exclusive to the iPad Pro M4 line, and the iPad Air M2 has USB 3 (10 Gbps).

The display sizes of the Airs and the Pros are the same, but that's where the similarities end. The new iPad Pro M4 (2024) comes with a brand-new Tandem OLED screen — dual layers of OLED with better color balance and increased brightness (1,000 nits SDR, 1,600 nits peak HDR). Plus, they are still 120 Hz ProMotion panels, keeping the high refresh rate exclusive to the Pro models. The whole package has been dubbed Ultra Retina XDR.

The iPad Air M2 (2024) sticks to good old 60 Hz LCD (ahem, Liquid Retina) and has a 500 nit max brightness (600 nits for the 13-inch model).

Aside from those very core specs, the displays do share premium features — like a laminated construction, where the glass and the touch panel are fused for an overall thinner build. And they have a special anti-glare coating that has been on the premium iPads for years now — pretty effective. The specs page also lists oleophobic coating — we do wish this one is upgraded in some way as well. Ever since the Apple Pencil has been introduced, the oleophobic coating on iPads was changed to something… far less effective. And that goes for all units that support some version of the Pencil.

In our benchmark tests, the outcome is pretty clear. The iPad Pro reaches significantly higher peak brightness of nearly a 1,000 nits, while the iPad Air is reaches just above 600 nits. Both have equally accurate displays, so the only major difference is the brightness that each one of these achieves. 

Display Measurements:

The 1 TB and 2 TB iPad Pro M4 models can also be upgraded to nano-textuded glass for glare reduction. That's a $100 extra, but if you're already buying a 1 TB or 2 TB model… we imagine it won't bother you too much.

Speaking of the Apple Pencil, the iPad Air M2 (2024) now gets the Pencil Hover feature — just going over the screen with the tip of the stylus will act as a cursor. This was introduced with the iPad Pro (2022) and was exclusive to that model until now.

The upper-range iPads have been getting the Apple M processors for a couple of years now. The M1 from the MacBooks made it to the iPad Pros of 2021, then the M2 was put in the iPad Pro (2022), while the iPad Air (2022) got the M1. See the trend? We thought we did, but lo and behold — the iPad Pro (2024) is the first device to get the newest M4 chip! Before it makes it to a Mac or anything else.



And it's not just a rebranded M3 — the new M4 is legit more powerful than the chips you get with the latest MacBooks. Now, whether you will make use of that power is another question. But here's how the benchmarks went:

Does this mean that the iPad Air M2, or — indeed — the iPad Pro (2022) are now… bad? Nah, not nearly. M-class processors have insane headroom, especially when it comes to mobile applications. Sure, the new M4 is fancy and capable, but in real life — both of these tablets fly. 

Performance Benchmarks:

Well, obviously, the Pro feels smoother thanks to that 120 Hz screen, but rest assured that the Air can render video and audio, apply photo edits, and game just as well!

Where the Air line differs is its base storage tier. It has now been upgraded to 128 GB at tier 1 — and that's for the same $599 price as before. Not incredible, but you can live with 128 GB in 2024 if you do some housekeeping. The iPad Pro's minimum storage is now 256 GB, but the starting price for the M4 model has now jumped to $999.

As mentioned above, there are differences in USB transfer speeds, too. The iPad Air M2 has a USB C with 10 Gbps (which is pretty fast, actually), the Pro line has Thunderbolt ports for insanely fast 40Gbps transfers.

Currently, both tablets run iPadOS 18. However, iPadOS 18.1 with lots of Apple intelligence features is coming soon to both tablets. You can check out more about the AI features coming soon near a tablet near you here. 

Typically, you want two cameras on a tablet — the selfie camera for video calls, and then some kind of rear-facing camera to scan documents or for some sort of emergency "Hey, look at that" picture-taking.

The iPad Air and iPad Pro lines typically have a 12 MP selfie camera with the ultra-wide lens that enables Center Stage (the camera follows your face automatically), and a 12 MP main camera in the back, which is pretty usable.

The same story repeats here, though, the iPad Pro now has a new adaptive True Tone flash on the back, which is supposedly better for balancing out colors when you are taking photos of documents specifically.

The iPad Pro M4 also has the LiDAR sensor on the back for better accuracy in AR applications — something that hasn't really gone mainstream, but Apple hasn't decided to axe it yet. The same can not be said about the ultra-wide camera — iPad Pros used to have ultra-wide snappers, the 2024 models do not.

The iPad Air line has two speakers, located on the top and bottom of the tablet — otherwise known as "landscape stereo", as they end up as left and right speakers when watching movies or YouTube videos. The iPad Pros have quad speakers, full stereo in both landscape and portrait (arguably, when held in portrait mode, the left and right side are so close to each other that it's not real "stereo" sound).

The Air's dual speakers are only slightly worse than the Pro. They sound a bit boxier, with a slight mid hump, and compress a bit more at higher volumes, where the quad speakers of the iPad Pros find it easier to push air and sound a bit more spatious. The difference is there but is not huge, so the speaker setup will not be a make or break here.

iPads, any model iPad, generally give us around 10 hours of screen-on time. We've used the large 12.9-inch iPad Pros, the 11-inchers, the Airs, and the base iPads, and it's usually the same story. They are dependable for a full day, unless you want to play those shiny console-level games or render 4K video on them, of course. 

The iPad Air M2 11" comes with a 7,607mAh battery, while the larger iPad Air has a 9,705mAh battery. Meanwhile, the iPad Pro M4 11-inch has an 8,160mAh battery on deck, while the larger model has a 10,290mAh battery.

How much do these last? 

In our custom web browsing test, which aims to emulate a regular browsing experience, the iPad Air wheezes past the iPad Pro, achieving more than three hours extra than the iPad Pro.  The latter, however, fares better in our custom video streaming and 3D gaming tests, where it beats the iPad Air. The iPad Air charges quicker, though. 

PhoneArena Battery and Charging Test Results:

The iPad Air typically trucks a step behind the iPad Pro. So, it wasn't a surprise that the new Airs get the M2 chip. The surprise was the M4 chip in the Pros!

So, the iPad Air M2 (2024) is coming in as an iPad Pro (2022) replacement, more or less. You will still miss the 120 Hz display and, if you ask us, once it launches — it will be better to hunt down an iPad Pro 11 (2022) at clearance prices rather than going for a new iPad Air.

So, does the iPad Air M2 replace the iPad Pro M4? Not entirely — the Pro line has the new design, Face ID, the new OLED panel, and that sweet, sweet 120 Hz refresh rate going for it. Do these features warrant paying $400 more for the entry model, over the cheapest iPad Air M2? Maybe not...

In fact, we kind of think now's the best time to buy an iPad Pro (2022). Retailers will begin clearing them out, and stock will last for a couple of months — keep an eye out for discounts! That'll be a better tablet than the current iPad Air M2, and just a slight downgrade from the iPad Pro M4 (2024).

Yup, right now, at this very moment, your best options are either to go all out and find an old iPad Pro while they are around, or go all out, buy the newest iPad Pro, and enjoy that OLED goodness. A few months from now — that's when the iPad Air M2 will be a viable choice. The old Pros will simply be gone.