It isn’t just a certain honey-haired burglar child who argues that aiming for the middle of whatever is the way to go. Middle-of-the-range is often good, whether it’s porridge or an iPad. And so it is with Apple’s iPad Air M4, only just released onto the market last month and already on sale at $520, down from the retail price of $599. When people ask which iPad they should buy, my mind goes straight to the iPad Air before I press further on what they intend to use it for, since the iPad Air is the best iPad for most people.

the goldilocks ipad

Just like the grocery store, there’s a whole spread of Apples when it comes to iPads. There’s the iPad mini, which isn’t the cheapest in the iPad lineup. That honor belongs to the iPad, which in its 11th generation is just referred to as the iPad A16, in reference to its A16 chip. Then you’ve got the iPad Air that sits above it in the full-sized iPad product family. And the mama bear of them all is the iPad Pro M5, which at $1,000 retail is priced for hardcore users, such as graphics designers and photo editors, who do a lot of serious work on their iPads.

As the middle child of the iPad range, the iPad Air is more capable of mobile gaming and graphics design without hobbling your bank account. Until now it’d been saddled with the Apple-designed M3 chip. It was plenty capable, but the M3 had debuted in October 2023 on the MacBook Pro. Even by the close of 2025 it’d be supplanted not just once but twice. Apple’s MacBooks were onto the M5 chip by then, and the iPad Air just soldiered on with the M3 chip.

It was overdue that Apple would bestow upon the iPad Air a newer chip. Apple obliged last month by releasing the iPad Air M4. You still have to step up to the iPad Pro if you want the latest M5 chip, but Apple’s chips are awfully good. The A-family chips, such as the base-level A16 chip, are borrowed from the iPhone lineup, but the M-family chips, including the M4, are taken from the MacBook line of laptops. Lots more power for serious, demanding tasks.

If you find yourself wanting more from your iPad than streaming videos, surfing the internet, and anxiously checking your email, but you don’t need the full, expensive power of the iPad Pro for pro-level tasks, the iPad Air is the right tool for mobile gaming and making digital art.

Pair it with the Apple Pencil USB-C for expanded abilities when drawing. I use one to scribble handwritten notes during podcasts, but it really comes into its own for creating digital art.