I have been an iPad fanboy for a long time. I never leave my house without it (and the keyboard to go with it). I currently own an M4 iPad Pro (11-inch) which is really good for reading, writing, the Internet, email, Claude, a lot of Lightroom and watching YouTube. And of course, listening to music. You can find me sitting in some coffee shop or the other with one.

Yes I really do love my iPad Pro, and using it. Lately, I have been watching less video on the iPad (Vision Pro FTW), but it has replaced Kindle as my reading device. And whenever I am reading, I wish it was thinner, and lighter. I don’t dream of it being faster. I just want it to be lighter, so it feels weightless in hand.

My perfect iPad would be one with the innards, screen and oomph of the iPad Pro, but the svelte, lithesome body of an iPad Air. I have been looking at the brand new M4 iPad Air and that’s all I can think. This is the right form factor for a “pro” iPad. If only Apple could simplify its iPad line-up.

My iPad Pro M4 version is tiny bit lighter than iPad Air, yet feels heavier. Probably because I am using it with a case. And I was using the iPad Air without a case. No wonder it felt lighter. I clearly have my perfect iPad Pro. Jeez, talk about a rookie mistake. Duh!

I have had the iPad Air M4 (11-inch) for a few days. You know I don’t do quick reviews. I really take my time. Still, I have some early initial impressions. And they jive with the slew of reviews that are out in the wild.

I love the speed, I love the lack of weight. Obviously. The screen is good, but since it is nowhere near my iPad Pro, it is not blowing me away. But it will be good enough for those who are newcomers to the iPad world. If I was buying a new upgrade for my mom who does love her iPads, the M4 iPad Air would be a very good option. Nevertheless, my full review will emerge after I have used it for at least four weeks. During those four weeks, I have to NOT use my iPad Pro. And that’s the real challenge.

Still, I decided to sift through what other reviewers both on the web and on YouTube are saying, and cobble together some collective intelligence. Here is what I found.

The short version is this: the M4 iPad Air is still the best tablet you can buy. Not the best iPad, but the best tablet. It is also a product that has not evolved in any meaningful way except for its engine. And yet, somehow both things are true at the same time.

What Actually Changed

Two things. The M4 chip replaces the M3, and Apple swapped in its new in-house networking hardware. There is a new wireless chip for Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6, and the C1X modem on cellular models. That is the entire list of changes. Same design, same cameras, same 60Hz LCD display, same battery. Same everything else.

The chip is the story. If you are upgrading from an M1 iPad or earlier, you will feel the difference. If you are on an M3, you probably will not. That is why I don’t feel much of a speed bump with my own workflow. I am using the M4 iPad Pro.

The second change is memory. The M4 brings 12GB of unified memory, up from 8GB on the M3 model. More RAM means better multitasking and more headroom for demanding tasks. Transcription in Voice Memos and background removal in Pixelmator happen almost instantly. I feel it in Lightroom as well.

The Display Dilemma

Every single reviewer raised this. The 11-inch iPad Air in 2026 has the same LCD screen it had when the redesigned version without a Home button was released in late 2020. It is a good screen. Colors are accurate, brightness is fine, text is sharp. But I can’t really get with it, because I use an iPad Pro all the time. The gulf is obvious if you live on one and pick up the other.

iPadOS 26 Is the Real Change

iPadOS 26 improved the multitasking experience significantly. It still feels native to the iPad, but the Mac-like flourishes make it a lot easier to use as a main computer. The M4’s extra memory means it handles all of this with more headroom and less hesitation than earlier chips would.

Got Game

Multiple reviewers tested games seriously and came away impressed. Resident Evil 4, which struggled with occasional slowdowns on the M3 iPad Air, ran at a stable frame rate on the M4. Assassin’s Creed: Mirage on high graphics settings and Red Dead Redemption both felt smooth. I have no clue about gaming. I hardly play games, and never on an iPad. AI is my game, for now.

The Complaints

The reviewer chorus is unanimous on two things. First, no Face ID. This is table-stakes technology in 2026. I don’t think there is any convincing justification for withholding it. Second, battery life has not improved. The tested result is 9 hours and 44 minutes on the 11-inch model. Earlier generations broke the 10-hour mark.

Who Should Buy This

If you are on an M1 iPad or earlier, this is a meaningful upgrade: a faster chip, more memory, better connectivity and the iPadOS 26 multitasking overhaul all in one. It is also a strong long term way to enter the iPad ecosystem. I would skip the basic iPad at $349. The Air is far superior to that product and will last longer. It is easier to use, easier to hold and the accessory support (Apple Pencil Pro, Magic Keyboard) is better.

The Elephant in the Room

The MacBook Neo starts at $599 and includes a keyboard and trackpad. To match the Neo’s keyboard, trackpad, and storage capacity, the 11-inch M4 iPad Air setup will run you $970 total, according to Gizmodo’s math. That is a $371 gap.

The question is simple. Do you want to spend that much money on an iPad Air, or just get the Neo? The Air has a touchscreen, Apple Pencil support, and is more portable. It is also no longer an inexpensive productivity device. I am an iPad person and I like the security and simplicity of the platform. I have no problem giving one to my parents. But the price of the Neo is a serious argument against the iPad Air.

Sources: MacRumors, Tom’s Guide, Engadget, Gizmodo, Mashable. Reviewers tested the 11-inch Wi-Fi and cellular models. The device ships March 11, 2026. Starts at $599.

I didn’t really want to do a quick breezy review of something that has touched me at a deep emotional level. (John Gruber nails it in his review of Neo.)

Yes, I am talking about the new MacBook Neo. I can’t remember when I used the words “cute” and “want” about a computer in the same breath. The iBook, maybe? That machine was a little cuddly, colorful, weird thing that made you feel something. Then Apple went serious. Silver. Graphite. Pro. Aspirational. Expensive. And along the way we all forgot that computers could make you smile just by looking at them. Just as none of the cars make you smile and giggle. They are a boring interpretation of a truck or a Tesla.

Then came the Neo. $599. The fun is back. Citrus yellow. Indigo blue. Blush pink. Colors that say, be happy. It’s okay to be silly.

I have had a review unit for four days. Used it. Held it. Caressed it. It looks like a MacBook. It works like a MacBook. It feels like a MacBook.

Everything about it is a MacBook. Except it isn’t.

Four days in, the question stopped being “is this enough?” It became something simpler. What is this, exactly? What is a machine, really? What does it need to be?

First, it’s the name. It is stuck in the crevices of my mind. Neo comes from the Greek neos. It does not simply mean new. Neo means renewed. It means the return to the generating principle after drift.

As it happens, I have been spending time in philosophical texts, ancient and modern. One concept I came across in my reading adventures was Neo-Platonism. Developed by Plotinus in the third century, it was not merely a new version of Plato. It was a return to first principles, a deliberate stripping away of accumulation to recover what was essential. The Neo-Platonists believed all of reality emanates from a single perfect source, The One, and that understanding flows from returning to that source rather than moving further from it.

In language, neo- signals deliberate revival. Neo-classical, neo-noir, neo-pragmatism. Each usage implies that someone looked at how far a tradition had drifted from its originating idea, identified what that idea actually was, and rebuilt from there. It is an act of editorial courage disguised as naming. When Apple called this machine the Neo, consciously or not, the argument is right there in the name.

Neo does not mean more. It means the return to what is essential.

Apple, at least when Steve Jobs roamed its corridors, knew what was essential. It has since lost some of that clarity. It has lost some of what Aristotle calls telos.

Telos is the purpose toward which a thing is directed, the end that defines what it fundamentally is. Not what it can do in a benchmark, not what features it has, but what it is for. The telos of a hammer is to drive nails. The telos of a chair is to support a seated person. Strip away the ornament, the extras, the margin-justifying additions, and you get to the thing itself.

The history of Apple’s greatest products is a history of correctly identifying the telos and ruthlessly removing everything that is not it.

The original iPod. Music in your pocket. Not a camera, not a phone, not an app platform. A thousand songs, a white brick of plastic and steel and joy. When Jobs pulled it out, nobody asked whether it was enough. The question answered itself.

The original MacBook Air. Portable computing, untethered. No optical drive, few ports, impossibly thin. Jobs pulled it out of an envelope and the argument was over. The Air was not a lesser computer. It was the laptop reduced to its essence. Jony Ive once said the best designs are the ones where you cannot imagine adding anything and cannot imagine removing anything. The Air was that.

The MacBook Neo is in that tradition. It runs on the A18 Pro, the same chip family that powers the iPhone. That detail sounds like a compromise until you think about it properly. The iPhone is the most refined personal computing device ever made. Its chip is optimized over a decade for exactly the kind of work most humans actually do. Writing, communicating, reading, browsing, thinking. Early benchmarks show the Neo outperforming the MacBook Air M1 in single-core performance. That is not a consolation prize. That is the telos.

If we had more of a philosophical tradition in Silicon Valley, we would be aware of what Heidegger called the danger of Gestell, his concept for how technology frames everything and everyone as a resource to be optimized, extracted, maximized. These days that means pushing AI into our laptops and ads into every corner of our internet experience.

Customers and reviewers alike look at a laptop and ask all sorts of wrong questions. How much RAM? What GPU? Can it run Final Cut in real time? Nobody stops to ask what they actually need it for.

The spec sheet becomes the thing. The benchmark becomes the measure. The webpage becomes a place to extract every cent. Every human relationship on Instagram an opportunity to transact. And somewhere in all that maximization, the person using the machine disappears.

Ask yourself what you need a laptop for. I asked myself the question. To write. To read. To talk to people I love and people I work with. To think. For all that, the Neo is enough.

And that’s me, someone who already has a MacBook Pro. With the exception of my multilayered editing workflow in Photoshop, after four days, I find the Neo to be enough. The only reason I keep going back to my MacBook Pro is because of Claude CoWork. I wish I could run that on this new machine.

What if everyone asked that question and found the same answer? Why worry about more cores or something hard to contemplate? What’s easy to contemplate? Four colors with color-matched keyboards. Color is not cosmetic. Color is a statement about the relationship between a person and their tool. It says this belongs to you, not to your job title or your budget category. It says computing can be personal and colorful again. (By the way Gruber is talking about color in his review footnotes. “The Neo’s citrus is a beguiling colorway. Everyone I’ve shown it to likes it,” he write. “But is it a green-ish yellow, or a yellow-ish green? In daylight, it looks more like a green-ish yellow.” His comment is about to become a meme. )

In Zen Buddhism, there is the concept of ichi-go ichi-e, meaning this moment, this meeting, only once. A tea bowl needs to be only a tea bowl. A laptop does not need to be a phone, a gaming console, a media center. The completeness of the simple thing is what gives it meaning. You do not add to it.

The MacBook Neo is a laptop. A complete, beautiful, sufficient laptop. It costs $599, but the real disruption is not the price. It is the reminder that “enough” is not a failure of ambition. It is often the highest form of design.

The name says it all. Neo means a return to the generating principle. A machine rebuilt from what a machine needs to be, with full awareness of what came before. Not less. Not a budget compromise. A renewal.

Jobs understood this. The iPod. The Air. The original iPhone’s single button. The radical move was always the same. Identify the telos, trust it, and cut everything else. Sometimes the most courageous thing you can build is exactly what is needed, and nothing more.

I really hope Apple sells a lot of it. Not that I have anything to gain from it. Except the idea that in this era of soulless hyper-capitalism, for a brief second, we can smile and experience the essence of a machine.

March 10, 2026. San Francisco

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