can you tell the difference between these two iPads probably not like most people in fact I filmed a video where I made the mistake of using the M2 instead of the M3 let's talk about the M3 iPad versus the M2 iPad what are the differences which one should you buy with your hard-earned money all right so right here I have both the M3 and the M2 iPad Air they are wonderful iPads the the thing is though man they are pretty much the exact same iPad one has an M3 chip on it and here is the main difference that I found out the uh iPad M3 does not have the uh logo and stuff right here so that's pretty much the only external difference so if you're buying this aftermarket make sure that it is an M3 iPad without the writing and it's not the uh M2 which does have the writing uh but this is the blue color that it comes in now it's a gorgeous color I really like this you know this blue color granted it doesn't it's not like Stark blue like the um a16 iPad you could really tell that it was blue sorry I got notifications on uh and this like subtle baby blue sky blue kind of thing you can't really tell and most people are probably going to put a case on this anyways so your color variations don't matter all that much now these iPads come in third I have the 13-inch version right here they also come in an 11-in version I prefer with an iPad Air the larger screen because I like to use it with the apple pencil and what's cool with the 13-inch is when you're using it it actually is like the size of a full piece of paper and so for me as somebody who takes a whole lot of notes like all the time I'm taking notes uh having the fullsize iPad is really helpful for me now as you can see on these iPads I don't know if you can see in the screens these are the 60 HZ screens and so they're not 120 HZ which a lot of people think is a big issue I understand if you're spending this much money 120 HZ should be the base model and 240 should be the pro model but for Apple they're not right now these are 60 HZ which is not the promotion display they are still however really beautiful like when you're using these iPads there's not an issue where you're like oh man I feel like I I got jipped no these things they look great uh you know the feel of it you get used to it after about a day or so and so you know having the 60 HZ is not that big of a deal it is different if you're an artist and you're drawing a ton and you're going really fast you're making a lot of lines you will notice a little bit more lag on the non-promotion display as you would on the promotion display but overall like the color accuracy of these displays they're absolutely gorgeous I don't think you need to worry like listen if you're doing emails you're watching Youtube you're watching Netflix you're surfing the web having the 120 HZ doesn't help you at all in fact it hinders you because the battery life is going to drain faster than if it were 120 HZ yeah 120 HZ drains faster than a 60 HZ so I don't mind not having 120 HZ like when you're looking at this display does that that doesn't feel bad at all like and if you don't have a a promotion display to work with like on the side then you're not going to notice it really at all all right this is the magnetic flip case from ESR I have been super impressed with this case uh ESR has been great to work with but this case is sitting on my my iPad Air and I want to show you some of the cool features with this thing the biggest thing that I have found is that with this iPad because the iPad Air specifically for me the iPad Air 13 is so big uh sometimes cases get a little unwieldy but what's been awesome about this ESR case is the fact that it is so sturdy like when you push on this thing it's not going anywhere so the cool thing about it it has three different modes the first mode is viewing mode the second mode is for drawing and then the third mode is a portrait mode which is really helpful when you want to stand your iPad up say you're looking at Instagram reels or something like that on your iPad it's really cool to have it in that vertical orientation now like I said this thing is an absolute beast when it comes to the pressure you can put on it while you're using it as you can see it does have the apple pencil as part of the case so you're never going to lose your apple pencil when you are using the magnetic flip case and what's really great is once you're done with it it really doesn't add much bulk to the iPad at all it remains thin and light cuz I mean you you're paying for an iPad you want to make sure that it's not some bulky huge thing the magnetic flip case makes it so that this thing stays light and small now ESR also has these really great screen protectors the cool thing about it is they're so easy to apply if you've ever used screen protectors from other companies sometimes it's hard to get them to sit on right and have you know not have bubbles in it and stuff ESR they use the case of it to make it super easy to apply so you just flip the thing over pull the little strip out make sure your hand is on it and you're done so my ESR magnetic flip case has been on my iPad Air for about 2 weeks now and I'm not going to take it off because it just makes this iPad so much more useful for me in everyday life if you want to pick up yours go ahead and hit the link in the description below thank you again ESR for sponsoring today's video Let's jump back into it so let's look at the profile of like the side profile of these things they are the exact same device they are both like externally they are the exact same other than that writing the camera is the same on these guys so the question is like what's actually different on these and it's the chip it's the M3 chip that's been placed inside the the new iPads here's the difference the M3 is slightly faster than the M2 same cores same gpus you can do a little bit of configuring on it but overall same exact thing and one other difference is you get on the M3 you actually get prores you get av1 encoding again most people don't even care about that at all so like if you're going to pick between these two the M2 or the M3 I would personally probably just go with the M2 save a little bit of the extra money I mean that's kind of the big thing with where Apple's at today and it's actually it's a huge blessing for most people like you don't don't have to go with the bleeding edge of Technology anymore you can go with a generation or two back and like it's going to be amazing the M1 iPad Air still feels absolutely incredible like if you if you are using it for everyday tasks and you're watching YouTube all that kind of stuff it's just going to feel awesome like a brand new iPad and so I don't know with this this iPad Air the M3 chip it's hard to recommend it to anybody I mean like I have it because I am a tech reviewer but if I were going to buy one today I would probably go back with the M3 or the M2 air just to save a little bit of extra money and get 90% of the same experience like listen your apple pencil is going to feel the same on it you got to make sure with the apple pencil that you're careful because there are certain I have a comparison video I'll linked at the end of this that that tells you which pencil goes with what but you got to be you got to be careful with the apple pencil because when Apple introduces something they typically like to have accessories that go only with that so that you have to spend extra money these guys both have 8 gigs of RAM they both you know eight C CPU 9 core GPU so it's just not going to be all that different now here's the cool thing like if you do end up going with the M3 iPad Pro over here it's going to last a really long time I mean you know you're spending about 800 bucks on these things that's going to last you about eight years and so you're essentially paying $100 a year to use an iPad that's not that bad at all now the cool thing is with these iPads like they really are kind of Goldilocks placement for you like the uh iPad Mini the the mini 7 is my favorite iPad but I know most people aren't going to want a screen that small that size uh the a16 is a fantastic one but it doesn't have a laminated screen so if you want the best screen for the best price the iPad Air is probably going to be it and then when you get into the range of the iPad Pro I mean you are seriously seriously in the range of a MacBook Air and you might as well go with a full-blown computer at that point one thing for some people if this is going to be your only device you're going to have to figure out a couple weird workarounds because iPad OS just isn't completely where I think it needs to be in 2025 um and so like you're just going to have some strange workarounds that you have to do specifically with like file management and stuff like that in the end people do do this all the time they figure out how to make it work for their everyday life and it's a great single you know single use case if that's the case you definitely want to get the keyboard and you probably want to get the apple pencil just because you want to Kit yourself out for whatever might come your way so do I recommend the M3 iPad Air that's a tricky question uh I do if you you're probably coming from the 2018 iPad Pro which is like before the M series chips uh if you're coming from that far back then yeah man this iPad Air is going to feel Lightning Fast brand new battery life is going to be absolutely Wild on this thing uh but anything newer it's not going to be that big of a jump up especially for most people because you're just not saturating the M3 chip inside this thing I mean I don't know about you but I don't do major major work on an iPad and so yeah it's a good iPad like it the experience of it is fantastic but you can save money by going with the M2 so that's up to you so let me know in the comments below what you think of the new M3 iPad Air do you think it's worth it who do you think should upgrade it let me know your thoughts like this video if you found it helpful sub to the channel I'll see you guys in the next one