How fast is the iPad Air 4 compared to earlier iPad Air models? How fast is it compared to the iPad mini and iPad Pro?

In the company press release for the iPad Air 4, Apple makes it clear that the tablet offers impressive performance.

Specifically, Apple boasts:

iPad Air delivers a massive boost in performance with Apple's most advanced chip ever made, A14 Bionic. Handling even the most demanding apps, A14 Bionic makes iPad Air even better for editing 4K video, creating gorgeous works of art, playing immersive games, and more. Using breakthrough 5-nanometer process technology, A14 Bionic is packed with 11.8 billion transistors for increased performance and power efficiency in nearly every part of the chip. This latest-generation A-series chip features a new 6-core design for a 40 percent boost in CPU performance, and a new 4-core graphics architecture for a 30 percent improvement in graphics.

A 40% increase in CPU performance and a 30% increase in graphics performance over the iPad Air 3 -- introduced only 18 months earlier -- is quite impressive indeed.

Photo Credit: Apple, Inc. (iPad Air 4 with Magic Keyboard & Apple Pencil 2)

Apple's official performance claim is a good starting point, but the company does not compare the iPad Air 4 to iPad mini and iPad Pro models or to even earlier iPad Air models, and additional performance details can be quite helpful accordingly.

Benchmark Performance Overview

For a helpful general overview of the performance differences between the iPad Air 4 and all other iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch devices, Everyi.com's own Ultimate iComparison makes it quick to compare side-by-side Geekbench benchmark averages for hundreds of possible performance comparisons.

Compared to other recent iPad models, when running the Geekbench 5 benchmark, the iPad Air 4 performs accordingly:

iPad Air 4 Compared To:	Percent Faster (Single Core)	Percent Faster (Multicore)
iPad Air (Original)	470%	684%
iPad Air 2	319%	293%
iPad Air 3	43%	48%
iPad (6th Gen)	109%	194%
iPad (7th Gen)	109%	195%
iPad (8th Gen)	43%	95%
iPad Pro 10.5"	91%	82%
iPad Pro 11" (Original)	42%	-10%
iPad Pro 11" (2nd Gen)	42%	-11%
iPad mini 4	344%	517%
iPad mini 5	43%	48%

With a review of the above, you can see clearly that the Geekbench 5 shows a massive performance increase for the iPad Air 4 compared to the iPad Air 3 replaced. It's even a larger increase than Apple's official numbers report.

In fact, the iPad Air 4 is faster than all of its contemporaries and predecessors with the exception of more expensive iPad Pro models in multicore tasks.

Performance Summary

Ultimately, the iPad Air 4 is a powerful tablet that represents a big jump up in performance compared to its predecessor. It can hold its own in many tasks compared to its more expensive iPad Pro contemporaries, as well.

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Also see: What are all the differences between the iPad Air 4 and the iPad Air 3 it replaced?