Apple iPad Air 5th Gen (10.9 Inch, 2022)

Great display ; Support for excellent accessories ; Seriously powerful internals ; Attractive design and array of colours

Annoying front camera placement ; No 128GB storage option ; Creaky body

Improvements haven’t been made in the areas I’d hoped for. Nevertheless, the iPad Air 2022 remains a superb tablet in a number of ways: it looks great, supports class-leading accessories, and comes packing top-notch performance.

Excellent performance ; Works with second-gen Apple Pencil ; Fits existing iPad cases and keyboards ; Light and easy to carry

Battery life could be longer ; No millimeter-wave 5G support

The 2022 iPad Air offers many of the benefits of the iPad Pro for hundreds of dollars less, making it the ideal tablet for creators.

Astounding M1 chip ; Great 10.9-inch screen ; Wealth of tablet-optimised apps ; Gorgeous design and colours ; 5G option

iPadOS can limit creative work ; 60Hz screen ; Middling camera ; Average battery life

The iPad Air (2022) gives you a great screen, ridiculous amounts of power, a cool and sleek design, and useful extra features. iPadOS is user friendly and packed with apps to take advantage of it, though is also still the thing that stops it reach its...

Great design ; Speedy performance ; Incredibly versatile

Too close in cost to iPad Pro ; Battery life only average ; 64GB is too little storage for base model

Excellent performance thanks to Apple M1 processor ; Improved front-facing camera ; 2nd Gen Apple Pencil stylus support

Still no Face ID ; Storage limited to 256GB (and still no 128GB option) ; Rear camera isn't great ; Accessories are expensive

If you don't need the scale of the iPad Pro, but want something more exciting than the 9th Gen iPad, the 2022 iPad Air's addition of an M1 processor helps future-proof it when it comes to running those ever-increasing power-hungry apps. If you own the...

Desktop-class performance in an affordable tablet ; 5G option is convenient ; Center Stage camera is useful for video calls ; Solid battery life

Version with more storage is expensive ; Price of accessories adds up quickly

Near-identical to iPad Pro 11 ; Incredible M1 performance ; iPadOS 15 is well polished

Display limited to 60Hz ; No Face ID ; Build quality issues with our sample

The iPad Air (2022) continues to be the sweet spot in Apple's tablet collection, offering more similarities to the premium iPad Pro 11 than ever without a dramatic price increase. It does practically everything you'll need from an iPad, and the M1 chip...

Unrivaled performance at this price ; Premium build quality ; Solid speakers ; Supports iPad Pro (11-inch) accessories

64 GB of base storage is a bit stingy, the only other option is a costly jump to 256 GB ; Expensive accessories