Apple iPad pro vs iPad air: Which tablet comes out on top?

Buy now £749, Apple.com

Screen: 11in LCD or 12.9in liquid retina XDR

Security system: Face ID

Processor: Apple M1

Connectivity: USB-C Thunderbolt

Compatibility: Apple Pencil 2nd generation, magic keyboard

Storage: 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, 1TB or 2TB

Colours: Space grey or silver

Price: 11in from £749 with wifi or from £899 with wifi and cellular; 12.9in from £999 with wifi, from £1,149 with wifi and cellular

The new iPad is not only the fastest and most powerful tablet you’ll come across, it also outdoes most laptops – even high-end ones. The pro has the best of everything Apple makes, hence the premium pricing.

For a start, there’s the M1 processor which is also found in the Apple MacBook pro: putting a top-notch PC performance chip in a tablet is unheard of. The iPad air is also really fast, thanks to its A14 Bionic chip also found in the latest iPhones, but the increase in power on the iPad pro is a real step-change. That said, much of the time you may not notice the difference, as the air is fast enough for most situations. It’s when you’re running really power-hungry applications that the pro comes into its own. Apps such as those that provide video editing, where the iPad pro can work with multiple super-high-resolution video files simultaneously with no delay or slowdown, are particularly impressive.

One place where you will notice the difference is the display. LCD screens usually have just one backlight, occasionally a few more than that. This means that black shades are rarely blacker than dark grey, because the wash of the backlight is visible. Apple’s displays have always been good at disguising this, but the new liquid retina XDR screen here – on the 12.9in iPad pro only – is phenomenal.

That’s because it has more than 10,000 tiny backlights using a technology called miniLED. These LEDs can be controlled as 2,500 locally dimmed zones. This means the dark areas of the screen are truly deep blacks, so those black bars when you’re watching a letterboxed movie disappear altogether, while colours are bright and punchy. It also offers amazing brightness, which helps the screen look even more eye popping.

The 11in model has the same screen as last year’s iPad pro, that is, a highly effective LCD screen. It still outdoes the display on the iPad air in several ways. First, it’s that little bit bigger, measuring 11in instead of the air’s 10.9in. It also has “ProMotion”, which means it dynamically adjusts the refresh rate of the screen as needed. This means scrolling through menus, screens or anything else looks especially smooth, for instance, but a lower refresh rate will be implemented when it’s not needed, saving battery life.

The liquid retina XDR display is the only difference between the 11in and 12.9in iPad pros, apart from the physical size difference and price tag.

Then there’s Face ID, the super secure and intimate way to unlock your device just by looking at it, which the air doesn’t have. It also has even thinner bezels around the display than other tablets, which explains why the pro 11in screen fits exactly the same space as the air with its 10.9in one. Still, the air, as we’ll see below, has a great alternative to Face ID.

The iPad pro upgrades the connectivity of the tablet. Both the air and pro have a USB-C connector, but on the pro models it’s a Thunderbolt connection, which is faster. This means that if you’re a professional photographer, for instance, you can transfer big photographic files to or from the tablet more quickly.

We’ve all been doing more video-conferencing than we would have liked recently, and Apple is at least aiming to make this a more enjoyable experience. It’s replaced the wide-angle lens on the front of the iPad pro with an ultra-wide one. This works with the M1 processor in a feature called “centre stage”. The camera zooms in on you, wherever in the frame you are, and if you move around the room it pans intelligently to ensure you stay the centre of attention.

Then there’s 5G. This is the first 5G-capable tablet, assuming you buy the wifi plus cellular option. It means that not only do you have the versatility to connect to the internet away from a wifi network, but if it’s a strong 5G signal, it’ll be extremely fast, and more secure than some wifi. We tested the iPad pro using the EE network and the results, in London, ranged from decent to phenomenally fast.

There are two rear cameras on the iPad pro. Though a large, flat slab of glass and aluminium does not make for an ergonomic camera, the large display does make for a great viewfinder.

There’s also a LiDAR scanner, which helps improve photography by grabbing depth information very quickly. LiDAR is also used in augmented reality apps, and on the iPad pro an updated app called Clips lets you create videos with impressive special effects.

Buy now £579, Apple.com

Screen: 10.9in LCD

Security system: Touch ID

Processor: A14 Bionic

Connectivity: USB-C

Compatibility: Apple Pencil 2nd generation, magic keyboard

Storage: 64GB or 256GB

Colours: Space grey, silver, rose gold or green sky blue

Price: From £579 with wifi; from £709 with wifi and cellular

The iPad air looks like a very slightly thicker version of the iPad pro 11in, though with wider bezels around the 10.9in display. But where the pro has Face ID thanks to extra sensors next to the front-facing camera, the iPad air uses Touch ID, the fingerprint sensor which has been on Apple tablets since the iPad air 2 in 2014.

Until now, it’s been on the front of the tablet, below the display. This model, which is the fourth-generation iPad air, introduces a new version that sits in the power button on the top edge. It works amazingly: it’s fast and reliable. In convenience terms it’s even better than Face ID, though in security terms, Face ID trumps it.

In almost every respect, the iPad pro components outdo those of the air, but that doesn’t mean this is a second-class tablet. The A14 Bionic processor is identical to the one in the iPhone 12 series that’s very fast indeed.

The air only comes in two storage options, the larger of which is only an eighth of the maximum option on the iPad pro. Still, that will be enough for most people.

There’s only one camera on the iPad air, a 12MP wide lens, and there’s no LiDAR scanner. Even so, photographs taken on the air are very good.

Like the iPad pro, the air is compatible with the magic keyboard, or indeed a more affordable smart keyboard folio from Apple. The Apple Pencil accessory also works well, attaching magnetically to the side of the tablet for safekeeping.

The display is great: unless it’s side-by-side with the iPad pro, you won’t feel short-changed. It’s not as bright as the pro, and lacks the super-high maximum brightness of the 12.9in iPad pro, but it’s the same resolution and includes features like the “true tone” display which monitors the colour temperature of your surroundings and adjusts the output accordingly, so a white page still looks white, for instance.

Battery life is the same as the pro – in fact, an iPad pro 12.9 user who watches a lot of demanding content on the miniLED screen may find their battery burns a little faster than it does on the air.