iPad air 5 vs M1 iPad Pro — don’t WASTE your money!

Ever since the iPad Air 4 dropped, people have been asking me “should I get the Air or should I get the pro”, and the difference between those devices was always pretty clear. But now that the iPad Air 5 comes with the M1 chip, is it still such an obvious decision? Let’s talk.

The differences between the iPad Air and the M1 iPad Pro, especially the 12.9 inch version, have always been pretty obvious and it was always easy for me to recommend one or the other depending on the users’ needs. The Air was for casual consumption and light work, and the Pro was for… well… pro users. However, now that Apple slapped the M1 chip onto the iPad Air 5, it became a lot more pro, and the differences between these devices, in terms of use cases, are not that black and white anymore. And a lot of you have been asking my opinion on which iPad to get? Should you get new M1 iPad Air 5 and maybe save some money, or is the M1 iPad Pro still the better option?

I’ve seen a lot of great comparisons between the iPad Air 5 and the 11 inch iPad Pro and we will definitely touch upon that as well, but for the purpose of this article I wanted to pit the new iPad Air against Apple’s “big boi”, the fully specced out 12,9 inch iPad Pro and see if their flagship is worth the significantly higher price tag.

Design

So let’s start with the design, which is pretty much identical to the iPad Air 4. Same dimensions, aluminum frame and of course the glass surface. The iPad Air 5 does have far more color options than the iPad Pro, which only comes in space grey or silver. I personally really love this blue, so much so that I didn’t even put a Dbrand skin on it, which is usually the very first thing I do. It has physical volume buttons — by the way, fun fact, the iPad Mini and the Air both have “smart” volume buttons, which means the direction of the volume adapts to the orientation of the iPad. The iPad Pro does not have that feature.

It has 4 speaker grills, although that doesn’t mean 4 speakers, but we’ll get to that later. It has dual microphones, a spot for the Second Gen Apple Pencil, a single camera on the rear and of course the front facing or selfie camera and we will spend some more time on the cameras later on as well.

Unlike the iPad Pro, it does NOT have Face ID but it DOES have touch ID and that is either a pro pro or a con, depending on your preference. I quite like touch ID myself, but remember to scan your left index finger, as well as your right one because if you’re using the iPad Air in landscape mode or inside the Magic keyboard, the fingerprint scanner will be on your left hand side. And you can of course use this iPad with a Magic Keyboard because the iPad Air comes with the smart connector dots on the back which makes it compatible with all the same accessories.

And lastly, the iPad Air 5 has USB C, unlike the iPad Pro which comes with a Thunderbolt port. But this USB C port is actually twice as fast as the USB C port on the iPad 4. It now has transfer speeds of up to 10 Gbps, rather than 5Gbps. Nevertheless, it pales in comparison to the Thunderbolt port on the iPad Pro, which delivers speeds of up to 40gbps, and it does really make a big difference. When copying a 2GB video file from the Lacie Rugged SSD onto the iPad the iPad Air takes about 5 seconds to copy the file, whereas the iPad Pro did it in less than a second. Needless to say that both are plenty fast and I doubt that many people will actually feel the difference in their daily use. Anyway, something to consider if you do move a lot of files.

Fire power

The more important question of course is what are the differences under the hood? And to be honest, there aren’t that many. Both tablets have the M1 chip, they both have an 8 core CPU, 8 Core GPU, and a 16 core Neural Engine. And those similarities are reflected in the benchmark tests as well, which show almost identical readings. They both use the same version of iPadOS which means that the iPad Air can also make use of cool new features like universal control and it works perfectly well for one of my personal favorite features: sidecar. Well then, what’s the difference?

Well for starters, there is the issue of storage. The base model iPad Air 5 comes with only 64 GB of storage, which can be enough if you really only use your iPad for web browsing and some light work, but if you plan to store videos or you like to play games — forget about it. I mean some games these days are 20 gigs in file size. And the next and only available option on the Air 5 is 256 gigs. This means two things. One, there is no 128GB option, which for many people would have been the sweet spot. And two, if you are a power user and you need more than 256 gigs, you have no choice to move to an iPad Pro which has way more storage options, including 128GB, and all the way up to 2TB. And if you do go up to 1 or 2TB, you will also get 16GB of RAM which is double that of the iPad Air 5. But even if you don’t need that much storage, as soon as you need more than the 64GB it might be worth considering the iPad Pro because the 11inch version is only 50 bucks more than the high storage model iPad Air, but with all the extra bells and whistles that come with the Pro.

Display

Apart from the storage thing, one major benefit of the iPad Pro over the iPad Air is the improved display, and this is especially true for this 12.9 inch model which has that crispy mini LED display. The display on the iPad Air is a Liquid Retina display, it has a refresh rate of only 60Hz, and a peak brightness of 500 NITS. The iPad Pro on the other hand has that 120Hz promotion display with 600 nits typical brightness, 1000 nits max full screen brightness and up to 1600 NITS peak brightness in HDR mode. And once you’re used to a 120Hz refresh rate, 60Hz really does feel slow and laggy. Between my iPhone 13 Pro and this iPad Pro, I really notice the difference when I switch to the iPad Air.

Whether the lower refresh rate is going to bother you, depends on what you plan to use the iPad for. For instance, I am totally fine with the 60hz on my iPad mini because I just use it to browse, watch some TikToks and do some reading. But if you like to play graphic intensive games or you are an artist, you will certainly benefit from the higher refresh rate on the Pro.

Drawing with the Apple Pencil is noticeably smoother on the Pro. Speaking of the Apple Pencil, I do appreciate being able to use the same Second Gen Apple Pencil between all my iPads, all I have to do is snap it onto the side of whatever iPad I am going to use, and bam. it’s paired. I use my Apple Pencil all the time and shoutout to my favorite accessory Paperlike for making that writing experience bearable.

Speakers

Moving on to another significant difference between these two iPads, and that is the speaker system. The iPad Air has the same four speaker grills but in reality it only has a dual speaker system. The Pro has four directional speakers, that adjust the audio according to the iPad’s orientation and they are also more directional which will give it a big advantage in terms of gaming, where it’s sometimes important to hear where sounds are coming from. But even for non-gamers, if you use the iPad to listen to music or watch movies, the quad speaker system will give you a much more immersive experience and a richer sound.

Camera system

Another substantial difference is the camera system. Both tablets now have a 12MP front facing camera and both have center stage, but only the Pro has the TrueDepth Camera system. Combined with the additional studio mics, that should in theory provide a better video conferencing experience. I did a little audio and video test on my YouTube Channel and to me, the Pro looks better and sounds much richer.

The cameras on the rear are also different, the Air has a single 12MP Wide camera, whilst the Pro has an additional 10MP Ultrawide camera and a LIDAR scanner. Personally I am not that fussed about the cameras on my iPad, I use them mostly for scanning documents, but the LIDAR scanner does add some real improvements to the camera as well as some fun features. I am very curious to see how Apple will develop the LIDAR sensor, because I do really think it has massive potential. Anyway, if the camera system is important to you, the iPad Pro is a clear winner.

The battery life on both tablets is the same and pretty much as advertised, 9 to 10 hours.

Price and conclusion

The biggest difference between these two tablets is the price. Whilst it is true that the higher storage option of the Air is awfully close to the 128GB 11 inch iPad Pro, and might therefore justify getting that over the Air, comparing it to the 12,9 inch iPad Pro is a different story. the 128gig base models will cost you $1100 dollars, which is quite a jump from the 750 you pay for the 256GB version of the iPad Air, and if you want those 16GB of RAM, you are looking at a price tag of at least 2K which is an entirely different league.

So, should you buy the iPad Air or the 12.9 inch iPad Pro? Here’s how I see it. If you use your iPad for media consumption, browsing the web and doing some light work, get the iPad Air 5 at 64GB. It is more than capable for all of that and will be for years to come. But if you need more than 64gigs of storage, I don’t see why anyone would choose the iPad air over the 11 Inch iPad Pro. It’s only marginally more expensive but you get better speakers, a thunderbolt port, more cameras, a flash and a lidar scanner and if you care about it, Face ID.

Ok but then who should get the specced out 12,9 inch iPad Pro? Honestly, only a very small user group. If you are an artist, or an absolute pro user and you MUST have the bigger and better display, or you have the money to throw around and you just want the top of the line, the 12,9 inch iPad Pro is the best iPad on the market. Having said that, you are not going to be able to utilize the 16gigs of RAM so the only argument there would be for future proofing, and something tells me that people who are willing to shell out 2K for an iPad, will want the newer shinier version of said iPad once that comes out.

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