If you're a huge fan of the iPad Air, but you wish it was a little bit more powerful, Apple's new announcement may be just what you're looking for. The Cupertino giant has just announced an M3 version of its more affordable range of tablets, which the company claims is nearly twice as powerful as the M1 model and over three times faster than the A14 Bionic version. Plus, this new M3 version arrives alongside the brand new Magic Keyboard for better productivity on the go.

Apple reveals the iPad Air M3 version

In a press release on the Apple Newsroom, the company shows off what the iPad Air M3 can do. The main focus is how much more powerful the M3 chip is compared to its predecessors:

The powerful M3 chip offers a number of improvements over M1 and previous-generation models. Featuring a more powerful 8-core CPU, M3 is up to 35 percent faster for multithreaded CPU workflows than iPad Air with M1. M3 features a 9-core GPU with up to 40 percent faster graphics performance over M1.

Things look even rosier when you compare that M3 chip's ability to render 3D graphics to the M1. Apple states that the M3 chip brings in its "advanced graphics architecture" into the fray, which gives it "support for dynamic caching, along with hardware-accelerated mesh shading and ray tracing." These tweaks alone make the M3 four times faster than the M1 when rendering 3D graphics, which is an amazing boost if you want to play games on this device.

This new iPad Air M3 is also compatible with the new Magic Keyboard. This handy accessory connects to your tablet magnetically and can transfer both data and power without needing to use Bluetooth, which is a huge bonus if you hate fiddling with pairing settings like I do. The new Magic Keyboard features an upper row of 14 system keys that gives you quick access to common tweaks such as volume and media controls.

You can preorder the iPad Air M3 starting today. It comes in both 11-inch and 13-inch versions, with color options for blue, purple, starlight, and space gray. You can also pick from 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB configurations. The 11-inch iPad Air starts at $599 if you want just the Wi-Fi model and $749 for cellular data. Meanwhile, the 13-inch version comes in at $799 for Wi-Fi only and $949 for cellular data.

If you're interested in the Magic Keyboard, you can grab the 11-inch version for $269 and the 13-inch model for $319.