The Air is back! Apple unexpectedly revived its old iPad Air branding (formally discontinued in March 2017) in a surprise announcement in March 2019, unveiling a powerful, mid-priced, mid-sized tablet with an A12 processor and support for the Apple Pencil.

But will the Air float your boat? In this review we put it through our rigorous speed, graphics and battery tests, and evaluate design, features, specs and pricing, to find out if Apple has hit the sweet spot.

If you'd like more general advice, take a look at our iPad buying guide and How to use an iPad.

The iPad 9.7in (2018) is still on sale, starting at £319/$329 - and that remains the benchmark for a budget iPad. The new iPad Air is pitched a little higher, while remaining markedly more affordable than the iPad Pro models further up the scale.

The iPad Air is available to buy now, direct from Apple and from the usual resellers (such as Amazon and Best Buy). For the lowest prices out there, see our roundup of the best iPad deals.

Wondering when this device will become obsolete? Not for a good while yet. Our strong expectation is that the iPad Air 4 will come out in March 2020, and even then the 2019 model will continue to receive free iOS updates and do sterling service for entertainment and light work on the go.

Continuing the inbetweener theme, the Air features an improved design compared to the iPad 9.7in, with among other improvements a larger screen and thinner body, but stops short of the radical changes in the Pro models.

So the bezels around the edge have shrunk slightly, enabling a higher screen-to-body ratio and allowing Apple to squeeze in a noticeably larger display without bulking out the chassis too much. But the Home button remains - whereas the 2018 Pro models ditched the Home button (and Touch ID, replaced by Face ID), which made possible an almost all-screen design. In other words, this is a compromise between the triple ideals of low price, familiarity, and optimum design.

A bezel tweak can only achieve so much, and to accommodate the bigger screen the Air has been made taller and a little wider than the 2018 iPad, although the far slimmer profile (6.1mm, down from 7.5mm) means it's actually 13-14g lighter. Note that the 11in iPad Pro is 5.9mm, so this isn't the slimmest mid-size tablet on Apple's books - although it is the lightest.

A less immediately obvious change from the 9.7in iPad - but one we're very happy to report - is the restoration of the laminated screen. For cost reasons the 2017 and 2018 iPad 9.7in models both have unlaminated screens, which bend inwards very slightly when pressed and feel a bit cheap. That isn't an issue here.

The antenna unit on the cellular model now matches the colour of the rest of the back, rather than being a cheap-looking matt black as on the 2018 iPad. And Apple has included a Pro-style Smart Connector for the Smart Keyboard.

We find the Smart Keyboard quite hard to type on at this size (the 12.9in version is much more comfortable) but it's still a quantum leap forward from onscreen typing and a big benefit for business types on the go - especially considering how much cheaper this device is than the Pro models you previously had to buy to get a Smart Connector.

But other than the changes outlined above, and a couple of seemingly inconsequential tweaks to the position of ports and buttons, the Air follows the same design as the iPad 9.7in. To be clear, that's not a bad thing! It's a beautiful and practical design that looks brilliant and feels great in the hand (and, because you get the curved under-edges rather than the newer squared-off design, it's actually easier to pick up than the Pro).

And you get a headphone port, which is something Pro owners have to manage without.

As is standard for iPads currently, the Air comes in silver, gold and Space Grey. We tested a Space Grey unit, but would always vote for gold given the choice.

So much for the iPad Air's aesthetics. Let's take a look at how well it performs.

Apple has equipped the Air with an A12 Bionic chip - the latest generation of its mobile processor line. As before this is a compromise, since the souped-up A12X version in the Pro iPads is even faster, but it's still an impressive inclusion at this price and a big step up from the A10 Fusion in the iPad 9.7in.

The A12 is complemented by 3GB of RAM, an increase from 2GB in 2018. (The Pros are available with either 4GB or 6GB.)

The Air, which scored 11,369 in the multi-core section of the Geekbench 4 CPU test, wasn't far off doubling the performance of last year's 9.7in model (6,056). It was in turn fairly easily beaten by the iPad Pro 11in (18,381), but was noticeably faster than the Pro from one generation previously (9,300).

To evaluate graphical processing power we use the GFXBench Metal app, and here again we saw a huge step up in performance from the iPad 9.7in and playable frame rates right up to the hardest benchmarks. Performance was admittedly not comparable to the iPad Pro 11in, which was streets ahead throughout, but in most of the tests the Air was able to beat the 2017 Pro convincingly.

If you're a creative professional looking to use the most demanding video and image processing apps, or a gamer with an eye on the most graphically advanced titles, then you might be advised to plump for an A12X device (or even wait for the next round of iPad Pros, which will presumably get A13X chips). But for almost all of us the iPad Air's excellent performance will be more than enough, and offers plenty of future-proofing.