Apple jacked up prices across its lineup last week, but there’s one deal flying under the radar. The 11-inch iPad Air with M3 chip, 128GB storage, and both Wi-Fi plus 5G cellular is now $499 at Best Buy.
That’s just $50 more than the base iPad — which jumped from $349 to $449. The Air is a better machine in nearly every way. You get a laminated, antireflective display with wider color gamut, Apple Pencil Pro support, and Apple Intelligence capability.
The M3 chip makes a real difference too. It leaps ahead of the base iPad’s A16 with more CPU cores, GPU upgrades like dynamic caching, and better sustained performance. It’ll also support iPadOS 27 when it ships later this year.
Compared to the newer M4 Air starting at $749 Wi-Fi only, the M3 model is only slightly slower with 8GB RAM instead of 12GB. For most people, that gap won’t matter. For everyone, the $250-$400 difference matters a lot.
