Apple announced the iPad Air 4 back in 2020, powered by the A14 Bionic chipset. Today, the company has announced a refresh of the tablet, with a major processor upgrade. The iPad Air 5 is powered by the M1 chip.
The upgrade naturally gives the new iPad Air 5 more number-crunching capabilities. Now that it’s sharing the same chip as the iPad Pro, it also gets the new features. This includes the 12MP front-facing camera with Centre Stage, as well as 5G connectivity. Beyond that, you get the familiar items on the spec sheet like the 10.9-inch Liquid Retina display, and Touch ID being built into the power button.
Shipping with iPadOS 15 also means that it gets all the multitasking features that it provides. This ranges from the easier split view access, the shelf, as well as the automatic grouping. On that note, Apple also says that iPadOS 15.4 will be released next week.
Apple says that the iPad Air 5 will have WiFi-only models, as well as one that support mobile networks. There are also two storage options, which are 64GB and 256GB. Prices start from US$599 (~RM2505) for the 64GB WiFi model, going up to US$749 (~RM3133) for 256GB of storage. As for the 5G models, the prices are US$749 and US$899 (~RM3760) for the 64GB and 256GB storage options, respectively.
As for availability, Apple says the iPad Air 5 will be available starting 18 March. Though we’ll still have to wait a while more for local details.
