iPads are pretty commonly gifted during the holidays, with 9% of iPad owners reporting that they received their iPad as a gift during Q4 2024. If you’re looking to gift an iPad to a loved one, especially given the fantastic Black Friday Week deals – you might be wondering, which iPad is more worthwhile? We’ll be comparing Apple’s recently released M5 iPad Pro to its recently released M3 iPad Air.
First of all, if you’re buying a new iPad as a gift, you’re probably more likely to be considering the cheaper iPad models, like the iPad (A16) and iPad Air. If that’s the case, you can read my comparison for those two models.
If you’re shopping for yourself, or just have much deeper pockets to afford gifting an iPad Pro, you can keep on reading.
Displays
The key upgrade with the iPad Pro is the display. iPad Pro features a Tandem OLED display, versus the typical LCD panel on the iPad Air. That means the iPad Pro offers up to 1000 nits of brightness (versus 500 on iPad Air), excellent HDR performance, much punchier colors, and deeper blacks.
iPad Pro also offers a ProMotion display with an up to 120Hz refresh rate, meaning you’ll notice much smoother scrolling, faster animations, and a more responsive experience. Unfortunately, iPad Air still offers a typical 60Hz panel.
That’s not to say the iPad Air display is bad, necessarily – it still offers P3 color support, and 500 nits is still plenty bright. That said, if you’re someone who’ll use your iPad as your Netflix/Disney+/etc machine, the iPad Pro could be worth springing for.
Performance
Apple refreshed the iPad Pro with the M5 chip last month, utilizing the 3rd generation 3nm process. The M3 chip in the iPad Air utilizes the 1st generation 3nm process.
In all honesty, you’re unlikely to feel a difference here when it comes to typical iPad activities. I will note, though, that the M5 iPad Pro offers 12GB of unified memory, whereas the M3 iPad Air offers 8GB. With heavy multitasking and web browsing, this might be a difference you feel.
In terms of synthetic benchmarks, Geekbench 6 places the M5 chip around 40% ahead of the M3 chip in CPU performance, and around 60% ahead in GPU performance.
Will you notice this in real-world usage? Probably not, especially given the fact that the M3 at best only needs to push content at a 60Hz refresh rate, so its incredibly unlikely you’ll face stutters even when you’re pushing your iPad with a heavy task like 4K video editing.
Quality of life
Display and performance are absolutely the two key reasons you’d want to consider an iPad Pro over an iPad Air, but there are some noteworthy quality of life features to the iPad Pro that also make it worthwhile.
iPad Pro, for one, offers Face ID. Despite the fact that it’s been 8 years since Apple introduced Face ID on the iPhone X, and over 7 years since it debuted on the iPad Pro for the first time, it’s still yet to trickle down to any device besides the iPad Pro. So, if you want fast and easy biometrics, you’ll unfortunately need to buy an iPad Pro.
iPad Pro also offers quad speakers, whereas the iPad Air only offers dual speakers. Luckily, the iPad Air is still a stereo setup (which hasn’t always been the case). Even though the iPad Air has four speaker cutouts, only two of them are actually real. If you want a more full-sounding speaker experience, spring for the iPad Pro. If you’re someone who uses your AirPods most of the time, then the iPad Air will do just fine.
Lastly, the iPad Pro offers a more premium Magic Keyboard made of aluminum, whereas the iPad Air Magic Keyboard is made of a silicone material.
Commonality
Before wrapping up, I’d also like to highlight that these iPads also have a lot in common. They both offer the exact same stylus experience with Apple Pencil Pro, both are made of solid aluminum (though the iPad Air does offer more color options than the iPad Pro), and both offer the same 11-inch and 13-inch display options.
There used to be a time where you’d need to buy an iPad Pro if you wanted a larger display, but luckily that isn’t the case anymore.
You’ll also get all of the latest windowing and multi-tasking features in iPadOS 26 on both iPads.
Wrap up
All in all, I’d say the iPad Air is probably great for most people. Both iPads offer a nearly identical experience, just that the iPad Air has slightly less flair.
In short, spring for the iPad Pro if you (or your loved one) would appreciate a much nicer display for watching content, otherwise stick to the iPad Air. At the end of the day, iPad Air costs half the price of the iPad Pro, and those savings aren’t something I’d scoff at.
- iPad Air 11-inch – $449 on Amazon
- iPad Air 13-inch – $649 on Amazon
- iPad Pro 11-inch – $899 on Amazon
- iPad Pro 13-inch – $1199 on Amazon
- Apple Pencil Pro – $95 on Amazon
Where do you fall on the iPad Air vs iPad Pro debate? Are you buying an iPad this holiday season? Let us know in the comments.
My favorite Apple accessory recommendations:
- Anker MagSafe/Qi2 Ultra-Slim Battery Pack
- Apple 40W Dynamic Power Adapter with 60W Max
- MOFT MagSafe Wallet Stand, fits up to 3 cards
- Logitech MX Master 4 Mouse for Mac
- ESR CryoBoost 3-in-1 25W MagSafe Charging Stand
- AirPods Pro 3 (2x ANC vs AirPods Pro 2!)
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