Today’s best deals: Apple iPad Air, 400GB MicroSD cards, and more
Enlarge (credit: Ars Technica)
Welcome back to another Dealmaster. Our latest roundup of the best tech deals from around the web includes a notable discount on Apple's iPad Air, which is currently down to $500 at Best Buy. We've also seen this price at Amazon, but stock there appears to be going in and out as of this writing. Either way, this is only $10 more than the lowest price we've tracked for Apple's 10.9-inch tablet, about $65 off the average street price we've seen online in recent months and $100 off Apple's MSRP. The deal applies to the 64GB model; if you need more storage, note that the 256GB variant is on sale for $650, which is also $10 off the best price we've seen.
We gave the iPad Air high marks back when the tablet launched in late 2020. We praised the device for its high-quality design, crisp and accurate display, and speedy performance, all of which have become typical of the iPad lineup. iPadOS isn't robust enough to make an iPad a full laptop replacement for most people, but its app support remains extensive, and it's still excellent for casual media consumption and lighter work tasks like word processing. This model also supports the latest Pencil stylus and the great-if-wildly-expensive Magic Keyboard, plus it has a USB-C port for further accessory support and faster charging.
The Air still sits in the middle of Apple's tablet offerings, providing more premium hardware and performance than the lower-cost iPad but fewer high-end features than the pricier iPad Pro. As we've noted before, the latter gets you Apple's more powerful M1 chip (though that doesn't make the Air slow for most tasks), a brighter display with a noticeably smoother 120 Hz refresh rate, more base storage at 128GB, Thunderbolt connectivity with its USB-C port, and slightly better mics, cameras, and speakers. But all of those upgrades come at a premium: the 11-inch iPad Pro is typically available for between $750 and $799 online. For those who want something better than the base iPad but can't pay that much, the Air is likely a better value.
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