My apologies, I have a 2020 model now. My idea was to shift how it will be used with more dedication to some photo work. Is there enough of an advantage to consider the newer m chip iPad Pro models given using Affinity for iPad and then also using the iPad as a touch screen for the mac via sidecar or 3rd part connection.
I don't know about Affinity, but last year when I was looking at iPads I bought the pre-M1 A14 iPad Air and M1 11" iPad Pro, both with a 256GB SSD. What I noticed was that in Lightroom the M1 would update its previews slightly faster, both a screen full of thumbnails, and when making a change to a photo and toppling between the before and after; it also completed batch processes, like pasting edits to multiple photo, quicker. Some of these differences were borderline fractional. Now the M1 has double the RAM and a faster GPU so that's to be expected.
None of these are deal breakers, and I could have happily lived with the Air if I wanted to save money. My opinion is that you should just use your 2020 and once your workflow settles then decide if you need to upgrade at which point there will be an even newer, faster iPad Air or Pro.
