Screen measurement: 11 inches or 13 inches | Display decision: 2420 x 1668 (11-inch), 2752 x 2064 (13-inch) | Storage: Up to 2TB | RAM: Up to 16GB | Weight: 0.98 kilos (11-inch), 1.28 kilos (13-inch) | Battery life: Up to 10 hours | Front digital camera: 12MP | Rear digital camera: 12MP
Read our full Apple iPad Pro (M4) review
The newest iPad Pro is extra tablet than most individuals want, full cease. But if you have money to burn, are decided to use an iPad as your principal cellular pc or simply need the most technically spectacular iPad potential, that is it.
We gave the new iPad Pro a score of 84 in our assessment. Like the iPad Air, it is available in 11- and 13-inch fashions: The former begins at $999, whereas the latter begins at $1,299. That’s prohibitively costly for most individuals, however for the cash you get a variety of premium, if inessential, upgrades over Apple’s different tablets.
The most important of those is the Pro’s “tandem OLED” panel. Compared to the LCD display screen on the iPad Air, this produces richer colours and deeper, extra uniform black tones. Gaming and scrolling internet pages look extra fluid thanks to its sooner 120Hz refresh price. It may get considerably brighter, reaching up to 1,000 nits in SDR and up to 1,600 nits with HDR highlights.
This is the place the “tandem” half is available in. Essentially, Apple is stacking two OLED panels on high of each other to enhance peak brightness, which is usually a (relative) weak point of conventional OLED shows. It’s a breakthrough, however all you actually need to know is that this display screen is an absolute delight — certainly one of the best we’ve seen on any client gadget, not to mention a tablet. For watching films or modifying media, you actually can’t do higher. This similar show tech is used on each the 11- and 13-inch iPad Pro, not like earlier fashions, so which one is best merely comes down to private choice.
The Pro’s design is broadly related to that of the iPad Air, however barely thinner and lighter. The distinction isn’t big on paper, however the Pro’s slimmed-down frames make them simply that little bit simpler to maintain. This is especially significant with the 13-inch mannequin.
The different headline improve is Apple’s new M4 SoC, which is barely accessible with the new Pros at the second. If the M2 is overkill for the overwhelming majority of informal and pro-level iPad duties, then the M4 is mega-kill; it simply chewed by means of absolutely anything we threw at it. But it must be much more futureproof, and it might save a number of seconds right here and there in case your work entails high-res media modifying, heavy use of machine studying and the like.
Beyond that, the base iPad Pro has 256GB of storage, which is twice as a lot as the iPad Air. It additionally helps extra superior options like hardware-accelerated ray tracing on its GPU, which might support lighting in future video games, and a sooner neural engine, which ought to assist with the AI options Apple has deliberate for the months and years forward.
If you actually need to max issues out, observe that the 1TB and 2TB configurations have twice as a lot RAM (16GB) and use a technically extra highly effective model of the M4 with an additional efficiency core unlocked. Jumping to a kind of SKUs prices a minimal of $1,599, although — and that’s earlier than you add any equipment. Those wanting to use the iPad Pro as a (very costly) media consumption gadget don’t want this; if you work with memory-hungry apps or want the absolute best, simply observe it’ll value you.
The iPad Pro is the solely iPad with Face ID, which stays a bit extra handy than reaching for a fingerprint scanner. It’s the just one with a Thunderbolt USB-C port, which is technically sooner for transferring massive recordsdata. It sounds extra strong than the Air, with 4 built-in audio system as an alternative of two. Its digital camera system is not that completely different, nevertheless it features a flash for extra simply scanning paperwork, and it will possibly file video in Apple’s ProRes format. Its entrance digital camera is on the lengthy edge, too. As for equipment, the Pro alone can use Apple’s newest Magic Keyboard, which itself is wildly costly however has a extra premium aluminum end, a extra spacious trackpad and a row of operate keys. It additionally helps the Pencil Pro stylus (however not the second-gen Pencil).
If most of those options sound area of interest to you, effectively, yeah, that’s the thought. Unless you’re prepared to pay for that terrific OLED display screen, the iPad Air will get shut sufficient for a way more palatable worth. And although the iPad Pro is a class-leading tablet, it’s finally nonetheless an iPad. Certain inventive professionals can use it simply advantageous as a laptop computer alternative, however for most, iPadOS nonetheless makes multitasking and different computer-y duties extra convoluted than they’d be on a MacBook. Judging by the options Apple added in iPadOS 18, that’s not altering anytime quickly. (The buzziest, non-AI addition there? A brand new calculator app.) That mentioned, the Pro is a superb iPad — quick, slim and splendid. And costly.
