Apple this week launched new iPad Pros and new iPad Airs — yes, plural, the Air now comes in 11-inch and 13-inch sizes like the Pro models. It’s also interesting that the Air is more or less an “iPad Pro SE,” meaning the 2024 models use the Apple M2 chip that the 2022 Pros used, while the 2022 Air had the M1 like the 2021 Pros.
Is this starting to get confusing? Let’s put the model numbers aside and look at early performance benchmarks from the new iPad Pros, which use Apple’s all-new M4 chip, and compare them to the 2022 Pros. The Geekbench database doesn’t have the new Airs yet, but the 2022 Pros are a good alternative – as we mentioned above, they both use the M2.
In case you missed it, the Apple iPad Pro 11 (2024) and iPad Pro 13 (2024) use two different versions of the M4 chip and have different RAM capacities based on storage space. The 256GB and 512GB models have 8GB and M4 RAM with 9 CPU cores (3 performance, 4 efficiency), while the 1TB and 2TB models have 16GB RAM and 10 CPU cores. Central processing (4 performance, 4 efficiency). More details here.
The situation with Apple iPad Air 11 (2024) and iPad Air 13 (2024) is simpler – all versions have 8 GB of RAM and all use the same Apple M2 chip (4 + 4 cores). However, keep in mind that we chose the 16GB/10-core iPad Pro (2024) and the 8GB/8-core iPad Pro (2022) over the Air.
The results are nothing short of impressive, considering that the Apple M2 was announced in mid-2022. There is a bit of discrepancy, but single-core and multi-core performance are 40-45% higher than the M2 achieved. That’s an impressive two-year boost, especially since the M2 was already fast.
To be fair, the new chip was manufactured on the newer semiconductor node, TSMC’s N3E, while the M2 was manufactured on the N5P node. What’s interesting is that the N3E appears to be a less expensive version of the N3B node that was used for the Apple M3 series.
If you like what you see, you can already pre-order the new 2024 iPad Pro models. It’s available, of course, at Apple.com, but you can also get it at Best Buy. Or you can stick with the new iPad Airs, because like we said, the M2 was already very fast.
The table below shows prices for the different Pro and Air models with links to Best Buy if you’re interested. Note that the retailer is offering a $50 discount if you have Best Buy Plus and you can get up to $600 in trade-in credit.
| iPad Air | iPad Pro | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11″ | 13″ | 11″ | 13″ | |
| 128 GB | $600 | $800 | – | – |
| 256 GB | $700 | $900 | 1000 dollars | $1300 |
| 512 GB | $900 | $1100 | $1200 | $1500 |
| 1 TB | $1100 | $1300 | $1600 | $1900 |
| 2 TB | – | – | 2000 dollars | $2300 |
Prices listed are for the Wi-Fi-only versions of the tablet, while the Wi-Fi + Cellular versions cost an additional $200. Incidentally, the new nano-textured glass is only available from the Pros and only on the pricier 1TB and 2TB models – the glass itself is a paid upgrade at $100.
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