Seems like this not as big story as it used to be a few years ago. The new iPad Air seems to be fast, but uses old lightning connector instead of usb-c and has a home button.

The new iPad Air is essentially the new A12 SoC inside the now discontinued 2017 10.5" iPad Pro.

They also cut some features like the bright high refresh rate screen, the high resolution camera and the four speakers. As such there's no support for the new Pencil, USB-C and FaceID (for better or for worse).