If you're in the market for a new iPad Air, now is a good time to buy – Apple last month refreshed the line with an M4 chip upgrade. But if you can hold out another year, it'll be worth the wait. Here's why.
Apple is reportedly going to transition more of its iPad models to OLED displays, and the iPad Air is in those plans. The first model to get the display upgrade is rumored to be the iPad mini this year, followed by the iPad Air in early 2027.
Samsung will reportedly make the displays for Apple, and they should provide a much better viewing experience than the LCD displays that both of the aforementioned iPad models use. Apple calls the existing displays Liquid Retina, but despite the fancy name, they don't hold a candle to the OLED panels featured in Apple's iPad Pro models. The latter also support 120Hz ProMotion technology, which makes scrolling buttery smooth.
OLED panels individually control each pixel, resulting in more precise color reproduction and deeper blacks compared to LCD. They also provide superior contrast, faster response times, better viewing angles, and greater design flexibility.
Apple's iPad Pro models use something called two-stack low-temperature polycrystalline oxide (LTPO) OLED panels, but the iPad Air is expected to use single-stack low-temperature polycrystalline silicon (LTPS) panels, meaning that they may be dimmer. They're also unlikely to feature ProMotion, but that doesn't mean they won't be a significant step up from the current models.
