5 Powerful Tablets Cheaper Than The iPad Air After Apple’s Price Hike

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The iPad Air has been the sweet spot in Apple’s tablet lineup ever since its release, offering many features often reserved for pro-level tablets while maintaining a respectable price point. The newest iteration includes Apple’s M4 processor, 12 GB of memory, and Wi-Fi 7, among other hardware upgrades. Really, the iPad Air M4 looks more like the Pro than ever. Unfortunately, because of the global RAM crisis, it now looks closer to the Pro in regard to pricing as well.

In response to RAM shortages and the general hardware demands of artificial intelligence, Apple recently raised the prices of most of its products. The iPad Air wasn’t immune to these increases, with the starting price of the 11-inch model jumping from $599 to $749 and the 13-inch model going from $749 to $949. That’s significant enough for a lot of potential iPad Air users to abandon ship, and it may even have some current users wondering if they’ll need to look into more affordable models in the future.

Fortunately, there are a lot of tablets on the market that offer similar balance in performance and pricing to the iPad Air before Apple hiked its price. We have hands-on experience with several such tablets, including both Android tablets and other models within the iPad lineup. With that experience and our knowledge of the tablet market as our starting point, we’ve handpicked some powerful tablets that are more affordable than the iPad Air.

If you have an interest in the iPad Air and it’s merely the price hike that gives you pause, one powerful tablet that comes with a lower price tag is the previous generation of the tablet. The Apple iPad Air M3 is still available to purchase at several retailers, and the 11-inch Wi-Fi + Cellular variant with 128 GB of storage is priced at $699. For comparison, a similarly-specced iPad Air M4 costs $899. The previous generation iPad Air was a powerful tablet when it was released in 2025, and that future-proofing pays off now. The tablet comes with 8 GB of RAM and the M3 processor that also brings Apple’s advanced graphics architecture to the iPad Air.

One thing to note here, however, is that the iPad Air M4 comes with 12 GB of RAM, as opposed to the 8 GB included with this older model. That, in addition to the advancements from the M3 to the M4 chip, make the newest version a more powerful option. But the iPad Air M3 still holds up almost as well as the day it hit the market, and in our Apple iPad Air M3 review we called it a predictably great iPad option. While it’s getting more and more difficult to find it in stock at various retailers and prices keep fluctuating, it’s often discounted, with outlets like B&H Photo discounting the Apple iPad Air M3 to as little as $599.

While other iPad models are a more affordable way to stay within the Apple software ecosystem, there are a lot more budget options among Android tablets. Samsung’s Galaxy Tab lineup is a direct competitor to the iPad, and the Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 is one of the most powerful models to choose from. It matches the iPad Air’s 12 GB of RAM that makes this tablet great for multitasking across apps, and a MediaTek Dimensity 9400+ processor that’s designed for performance and efficiency when it comes to battery life. The base 11-inch variant comes with 128 GB of storage space.

The Galaxy Tab S11 is one of Samsung’s flagship tablets, and it’s priced as such. In fact, with a starting price of $900, the Galaxy Tab S11 is actually more expensive than the iPad Air. But it’s a tablet that can also offer more value than the iPad Air, as it frequently sees discounts on Amazon, with the platform currently selling it for $750. The Galaxy Tab S11 has even dropped to as low as $629 at Amazon. And not only does it present a great value play when purchased at the right time, but the Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 is among the best Android tablets according to Consumer Reports.

There are a number of Chinese tablets that can compete with iPads, and among them is the flagship Xiaomi Pad 8 Pro. Not only does this tablet stack well against the iPad Air, but it’s also meant to take on Apple’s more professionally-minded iPad Pro lineup. The base model Pad 8 Pro is priced at just under $600 and comes with 8 GB of RAM and 256 GB of storage space. If you’re willing to jump up to a $685 price point, you’ll get 12 GB of RAM and 512 GB of storage space. The Pad 8 Pro comes with a powerful Snapdragon 8 Elite processor, and it even includes quad speakers that produce an immersive listening experience.

The Pad 8 Pro may take some getting used to, however, as Xiaomi uses its own custom skin that runs on Android 16. But Xiaomi’s products can easily be confused for Apple products aesthetically, which may make the Pad 8 Pro enticing to users who like the look of the iPad Air or iPad Pro lineups. The tablet offers a lot of performance for its price, and just like Apple, Xiaomi makes some quality accessories for it. We even call this tablet the Android iPad in our Xiaomi Pad 8 Pro review.

Many home theater enthusiasts are familiar with some of the best TVs that TCL makes, but the company also offers a wide range of tablets. One of the most powerful among them is the TCL Nxtpaper 14. It is a mid-range tablet made to accompany artists, photographers, note-takers, and the productivity-minded. It utilizes a MediaTek Helio G99 processor, and while the base model has less memory than the iPad Air’s 12 GB, the Nxtpaper 14 allows you to use up to 8 GB of internal storage as virtual memory. That said, even that might not match the iPad Air’s larger built-in memory.

While the Nxtpaper 14 is among TCL’s most powerful tablet options, its processor clocks at 2.2 GHz and it isn’t likely to compete with the iPad Air’s M4 chip when taking on intensive tasks. This tablet is more about the multimedia experience, as it has a 14.3-inch display with 2.4K resolution. The display has a 60Hz refresh rate and a 120Hz touch sampling rate, and its sheer size makes it a good alternative to the iPad Air for consuming content across the internet or from your movie library. The TCL Nxtpaper 14 is priced at $470, though this is another tablet that sees massive discounts at Amazon, with prices regularly dropping to around $350. Even at the time of writing, the tablet is available for $350 to Amazon Prime members.

The Nxtpaper 14 is a great budget alternative to the iPad Air in the Android space, but an affordable yet still relatively powerful budget option within the Apple software ecosystem is the entry-level Apple iPad 11th gen. It’s among the products Apple recently raised pricing for, but it took a smaller hit than the iPad Air, seeing a $100 increase and a new price of $449. It runs on Apple’s A16 chip, which is paired with 6 GB of RAM and 128 GB of storage space. While it’s Apple’s base model iPad, it still has Touch ID, a USB-C port, and of course access to all of the software and features Apple users love.

Where the base model iPad suffers next to the iPad Air is when it comes to Apple Intelligence. The A16 chip doesn’t support it, and the tablet may feel a little dated in that regard. Additionally, the price increase of the iPad may make more powerful Android options more enticing. But this iPad is very capable for an entry-level option, and we feel it’s the best iPad for most people. Because it’s compatible with accessories like the Apple Pencil and Magic Keyboard Folio, the base model iPad can do a lot, even if its spec sheet doesn’t quite match some of the more powerful tablets on the market.

While there are a lot of tablets that can, in one way or another, be compared to the iPad Air, here we sought out legitimate replacements in terms of performance. We did so based on different user needs, with tablets like the Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 being an option for users seeking the high end of the iPad Air’s feature set and the base model iPad or the TCL Nxtpaper 14 available for users interested in the iPad Air’s more basic capabilities. We explored across a number of different retailers in search of tablets that can be found at a better price than the iPad Air’s new $749 starting point, applying our experience with tablets and general knowledge of these devices to make our final selections.