The best iPad for students is $150 off this Black Friday - here's where to get it

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This discount will have you walking on Air

iPad Air 11-inch on a blue background. Text reads: TechRadar Black Friday Deals
(Image credit: Jamie Richards / Future)

Black Friday season is well and truly underway, and the TechRadar mobile desk is keeping a lookout for the best phone deals and best tablet deals around. As a recent graduate myself, I have to highlight this great discount on the best iPad for students – you can now get the iPad Air 11-inch (M3) for $449 (was $599) at Amazon.

• Shop Amazon's full Black Friday sale

That’s one of the best Black Friday deals I’ve seen so far, as considerable cash savings are hard to come by for Apple products. Furthermore, the iPad Air is one of the most powerful tablets on the market, and can easily hold its own against Android tablets that cost twice as much.

(Not in the US? See today's best deals in your region below)

Today's best iPad Air 11-inch (M3) Black Friday deal

Apple iPad Air 11-inch (M3)
Apple iPad Air 11-inch (M3): was $599 now $449 at Amazon

The iPad Air is the best iPad for students, because it offers power and flexibility at a more reasonable price than the iPad Pro. As well as a great 11-inch display, the iPad Air offers the pro-grade performance of the M3 chipset, and access to the best mobile and tablet apps on the market through the App Store. It's also got 10 hours of battery life, to keep you going through a full day's use.

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Apple iPad Air 11-inch (M3)
Apple iPad Air 11-inch (M3): was £599 now £499 at Amazon

In the UK, you can grab the iPad Air 11-inch (M3) for a £100 discount, which is still very welcome considering how much value for money this mid-range tablet offers. With an 11-inch screen, the M3 chipset, 8GB of RAM, and all-day battery life, the iPad Air is a worthy companion for school, uni, or just everyday life.

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The iPad Air is our pick for the best iPad for students for a few key reasons. With 11 inches of screen (measured diagonally), it’s portable enough to go anywhere with you, but it still offers enough screen space to make the most of iPadOS 26 (I know first hand as an 11-inch iPad Pro user).

What’s more, the iPad Air has the M3 chipset, a desktop-class piece of silicon that enables complex multitasking, scaled output to external displays, and heavy workloads. Students who need to edit videos, audio, photos, and other documents will have no trouble doing so on the iPad Air.

Then there’s the great accessories the iPad Air can use, including the Magic Keyboard for iPad Air and Apple Pencil Pro. While both are sold separately, this $150 discount gives you some headroom to pick up Apple’s first-party keyboard case or famously feature-rich stylus, should either take your fancy.

If you’re an iPhone user already, there’s no question that the iPad Air is a great buy for high school, college, postgraduate study, or indeed just as a personal device. Its looped in to the Apple ecosystem, and supports all the best apps (and games, for when you need some downtime). At $449, it’s still a considerable investment, but it's the best tablet you can buy at this price. Be sure to check out our full iPad Air 11-inch (M3) review for more details.

Shop more of today's best Black Friday sales

Jamie Richards
Jamie Richards
Freelance contributor

Jamie is freelance journalist who has written for TechRadar and MusicRadar as well as various specialist news outlets and music blogs. A lifelong tech-obsessive, Jamie began his writing career as a music blogger before studying journalism at Goldsmiths College, and worked at TechRadar between 2024 and 2026. He thinks the iPhone 5S is the greatest phone of all time, but is currently an Android user.

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