Discounts have been tough to find on the 11-inch iPad Air with the M3 chip (the 2025 model), but there’s a good one happening on every color available at Amazon and Best Buy. Normally $599, the 128GB tablet is available for $499 — a price that it has sold for just once before in late April. Whether you’re partial to the porcelain-esque starlight color, or the soft blue, you’ll get the same price. The 13-inch 128GB model is $100 off, too, selling for $699 to start at Amazon and Best Buy.
Anyone would struggle to tell the M3 model apart from the M2, though there are some notable differences internally. Aside from the chip boost, which brings along hardware-accelerated ray tracing in games, this model can encode and decode ProRes footage, and decode AV1-encoded video. Additionally, it supports hardware-accelerated 8K HEVC and ProRes RAW, two formats that are left out if you’re using the previous generation iPad Air. In short, it seems great for video creators.
Notably, like the M2 model, the latest iPad Air features a front-facing camera that’s oriented in the middle of the display when it’s in landscape mode, where most people are accustomed to looking during video calls. This is a feature you won’t find on the iPad Pro; it’s only available on the Air and the base model. Read our review of the 2025 model.
Other deals to check out today
- Assassin’s Creed Shadows is discounted for the first time at Best Buy, in case you’ve been waiting on a deal. Both the PS5 and Xbox Series X versions are $20 off, costing $49.99 on your platform of choice. This open-world game takes players to the series’ most sought-after location: feudal Japan. The dual protagonist story is gripping, and the gameplay revives the feeling that made the first Assassin’s Creed games so fun. That said, I hope you like skill trees because there are a lot of them in this title. Read our review.
- Also at Best Buy is a small discount on Splatoon 3 for the Nintendo Switch. Normally $59.99, it’s $53.99 for the physical cartridge. Switch 2 owners were recently treated to a free update that brought more content as well as improved performance for the PvP online game (it also includes a single-player campaign). I’ve only played it with the update for a couple minutes, but the difference was clear.
- The Meta Quest 3S virtual reality headset is $30 off at multiple retailers, costing $269.99. Best Buy and B&H Photo still sell the 128GB configuration that includes Batman: Arkham Shadow. Amazon honors the price, but its offering doesn’t include the free game. The Quest 3S is the successor to the Quest 2, the most popular VR headset. Its optics tech is similar, as are its screens and image resolution, but it’s significantly faster and more capable thanks to its chipset — the same one that’s used in the pricier Quest 3. Read our review.
