Apple iPad Air 11″ M3 (2025) – Review

Combining style with substance is never easy, but Apple has found the perfect balance, making its consistent execution appear effortless. Known for its strong, reliable blend of aesthetic identity and performance, the Cupertino giant continues the tradition across its range of offerings from one generation to the next, and among its trifecta of MacBook laptops, iPad tablets, and iPhones. 

And with its latest iPad Air powered by Apple’s M3 chip, this ultraportable workhorse packs plenty of kick for that heavy-duty lifting, while still offering more flexibility on the go. 2025’s iPad Air also serves as the middle child in the company’s three-act hierarchy of hardware, nestled between the traditional laptops and maintaining several step-ups in functionality over the pint-sized phone – fittingly boasting greater performance over the normal iPad, and for those not looking at the souped-up iPad Pro models.

The middle child can sometimes occupy a weird space, where it’s either an ideal package of features for its price, or seemingly doesn’t offer enough for its asking price. But with the M3 beefing up performance, the iPad Air is more than ready to lead Apple’s latest round of yearly refreshes, cementing its hard-earned reputation as a productivity heavyweight.

Like before, the Air model is available in two sizes – an 11-inch, which this review unit comes in, and a 13-inch option. The former weighs 460 grams and measures 247.6 x 178.5 x 6.1mm, versus 616 grams and 280.6 x 214.9 x 6.1mm on the larger sibling, reinforcing its lightweight, svelte profile. True to its name, it feels airy in hand, is a delight to lug around, and while not recommended, can be tossed easily into the air.

Other furnishings remain unchanged, too. A small pill-shaped cutout at the rear houses a 12-megapixel (MP) camera, with TouchID integrated into the top button. The volume rocker sits along the right frame, leading to a USB-C port at the base and the speaker grill on both ends. It’s a familiar layout for existing users, who can expect decent audio and a highly responsive touch sensor, alongside crisp, delectable visuals.

A staple across generations, the 11-inch Liquid Retina display boasts a 2,360 x 1,640-pixel resolution at 264 ppi or pixels per inch, alongside various visual enhancers, such as P3 wide colour and True Tone that work in tandem to deliver vibrant hues and viewing comfort. The anti-reflective coating is also a nifty touch, making it easier to work and play in bright environments by reducing eye strain and increasing visibility.

The iPad Air with M3 may not sport an OLED panel like last year’s M4-powered Pro model, but it still promises sharp detail, rich, accurate colours, and good contrast levels. Watching the trailer for the Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX anime yielded striking colours and smooth mecha action, despite the 60Hz refresh rate, while Disney+’s Daredevil Born Again oozed deep blacks and natural hues. 

Under the hood is where the power boost happens. While the M3 isn’t Apple’s latest chip (that honour goes to the M4), its configuration of an 8-core CPU, 9-core GPU, and 16-core Neural Engine has plenty of hardware chops to spare. On paper, performance will be nearly two times faster than the iPad Air with M1, clocking a 35 per cent increase in CPU speeds across tasks like editing and audio mixing, as well as a 40 per cent uptick in GPU performance, aided by the newly added dynamic caching, hardware-accelerated mesh shading, and ray tracing, and 60 per cent faster Neural Engine speeds. 

It isn’t quite possible to verify these figures, but the iPad Air with M3 does carry its own weight in various benchmarking tests. Starting with Geekbench 6, it scored 3,014 and 11,789 in the single-core and multi-core CPU categories, respectively, with GPU numbers coming in at 45,388 – slightly above the iPad Pro M2 (45,478). The Neural Engine, meanwhile, registered the following on Geekbench AI:

• Single precision score: 4,181
• Half precision score: 30,789
• Quantized score: 34,386

Over at 3DMark, the Steel Nomad Light test yielded an overall score of 2,452 and an 18.2 FPS (frames per second) average, which according to the app, is 84 percent better than results from all other devices. Capping off the findings is AnTuTu, highlighting a total score of 1,968,562 that includes CPU (440,581), GPU (771,616), and memory (363,791) readings. An in-app comparison shows that iPad Air with M3 outperforms its M2-powered predecessor (1,953,117), falling just ever so slightly short of the iPad Pro M2 (1,976,491). 

The upgraded prowess is further conveyed through play sessions, where Apple’s latest tablet impressed with its competent thermal management and handling of high GPU demands. In an in-house gaming test covering Genshin Impact, Zenless Zone Zero, Wuthering Waves, PUBG Mobile, and Alien: Isolation, it was able to run everything fairly smoothly in Game Mode, delivering a more-than-enjoyable time – and on a bigger display to boot, versus the smartphone experience. 

Per tradition, productivity continues to be a key focus for the iPad, further blending the tablet and laptop divide. On top of accessible multitasking tools like split view, users will have access to the whole suite of latest Apple Intelligence features, from Writing Tools in Mail, Messaging and other writing-based apps, and Audio Recording and Transcription to Clean Up in Photos. The first allows for rewriting, proofreading, and summarising text in supported apps with just a tap, while Notes can now record and transcribe audio to generate summaries. Much like the Content Aware functionality in Adobe Photoshop, Clean Up works to remove undesired subjects in an image without altering any of the original elements. More specific to iPadOS 18, Freeform proves handy for brainstorming and discussion, with Snap to Grid introducing the ability to align content on the board and join objects together with magnetic lines that can be anchored anywhere, making it easier to create diagrams and connect ideas. 

Transforming the iPad Air with M3 into a portable workstation further sharpens the productivity edge, and the separately available Magic Keyboard and Apple Pencil Pro are to thank for that. The typing accessory, which also serves as a protective case, can be easily attached to or removed from the device, and the keyboard now inherits the 14-key Function row from its Pro lineup (even though it should have been a basic feature from the start), offering convenient on-the-fly access to media control keys and settings like brightness level or volume. Typing feels comfortable and satisfying with crisp feedback, although smaller keys such Enter/Return may cause accidental misclicks and require some getting used to.

It adds some heft to the device, but the touch of convenience is well worth the compromise, especially for those who are often on the move (this review was, in fact, written entirely on the iPad Air with M3). The USB-C connector also includes support for pass-through charging, while the floating cantilever design adjusts to multiple viewing angles, allowing for use in various scenarios and environments – whether it’s on a table, the bed, or on one’s lap.

As for the new Apple Pencil Pro, the stylus grants more control over intuitive features including squeeze, which brings up a tool palette in Notes or Freeform, and can be customised in Settings to a different key bind, and barrel roll, where rotating the barrel changes the orientation of shaped pen and brush tools. Haptic feedback is still present, transmitting a light tap with each successful action or when a smart shape snaps into place.

One of the most important considerations of a portable machine is battery life, and the iPad Air with M3 has enough fuel to keep it going for a typical workday. Despite the boost in horsepower, Apple claims the tablet delivers up to 10 hours of video playback that’s difficult to verify against, since individual mileage would differ based on various factors. For this review, a 40 per cent dip was observed over the course of approximately six hours on a light use load, spanning note-taking, watching videos, playing music, and writing.

Starting at S$899 for 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage on the base Wi-Fi model (S$1,129 for Wi-Fi + Cellular), Apple’s latest tablet elevates the best of what the iPad has to offer with more powerful hardware. The everyday user, however, might be hard-pressed to make the switch, as the incremental improvements don’t feel all that different from more recent releases and lack other forms of incentive. But for those coming from a few generations back, this upgrade brings a lot more performance, at exceptional value.

Si Jia

Si Jia is a casual geek at heart – or as casual as someone with Sephiroth’s theme on her Spotify playlist can get. A fan of movies, games, and Japanese culture, Si Jia’s greatest weakness is the Steam Summer Sale. Or any Steam sale, really.