I bought this beefy iPad Air for $100 off this Black Friday – and you should too

I’d been looking for a tablet that could effectively double as a laptop for school but I didn’t want to cave into the craving until I could get a good deal. When I saw the 2024 iPad Air crash to its lowest price yet, I decided it was time. You too can get the Apple iPad Air (M2) for as little as $499 at Amazon (was $599).

And you’ve got options, too, as all iPad Air models, whether you get the 11 or 13-inch screen, are currently $100 off. The 2024 iPad Air comes in storage sizes between 128GB (the default) and 1TB in either Blue, Purple, Space Gray or Starlight. If your favorite color sells out at Amazon, you can try your luck at Target for the same price.

Today’s best Apple iPad Air deals

The iPad Air excels as a digital notebook, workstation, and drawing tablet. In our Apple iPad Air 13-inch (2024) review, our reviewer praised the performance, battery life, and bigger screen size option it has over the 2022 iPad Air. That said, you can save a couple hundred dollars with the 11-inch iPad Air and still get the same benefits as the 13-inch one.

The iPad Air’s crown jewel is the M2 processor, the same one that Apple used for the 2022 Macbook Air, Macbook Pro, and iPad Pro. While it might not match the power of the new M4 processor, it’s still a powerful chipset that can tackle a variety of heavy-duty tasks from music editing to console-level gaming. It can last up to 10 hours, but it might be less depending on what you use it for and on what settings.

The iPad Air gets an even bigger increase in utility when you complement it with additional accessories like its matching Apple Pencil and Magic Keyboard. Just make sure you buy the compatible model.

If you’re like me and want to use the iPad Air for work, I’d suggest the Magic Keyboard or a more affordable alternative like the Logitech Combo Touch. You can score a relatively good deal on the Magic Keyboard for $40 off at Amazon right now, but it isn’t the lowest price we’ve seen (and it might go even lower next week).

Apple just announced its Black Friday shopping event, so expect even more deals coming later this month. Be sure to bookmark the best Apple Black Friday deals to stay up to date with all the latest offers.