Screen Size: 11″ or 13″ | Display Resolution: 2420 x 1668 (11″), 2752 x 2064 (13″) | Storage: Up to 2TB | RAM: Up to 16GB | Weight: 0.98 lbs (11″), 1.28 lbs (13″) | Battery Life: Up to 10 hours | Front Camera: 12MP | Rear Camera: 12MP
Read the full Apple iPad Pro (M4) review
The latest iPad Pro is more of a tablet than most people will ever need, but if you’ve got the cash to spare and are determined to use the iPad as your main mobile computer, or just want the most technically advanced iPad possible, this could be the one for you.
We gave the new iPad Pro a score of 84 in our review. Like the iPad Air, it comes in 11-inch and 13-inch models, with the former starting at $999 and the latter at $1,299. That’s a steep price for most people, but your money gets you some premium, even if not essential, upgrades over Apple’s other tablets.
Most notable is the Pro’s “tandem OLED” panel, which delivers richer colors and deeper, more uniform black tones compared to the iPad Air’s LCD screen. With a faster 120Hz refresh rate, games and web page scrolling look smoother. It also delivers significantly better brightness, reaching up to 1,000 nits in SDR and 1,600 nits in HDR highlights.
That’s where the “tandem” part comes in. Essentially, Apple is stacking two OLED panels together to boost peak brightness, something that’s often a (relative) weakness of traditional OLED displays. This is groundbreaking, but what you really need to know is that this screen is absolutely stunning. It’s one of the best we’ve ever seen on a consumer device, let alone a tablet. For watching movies or editing media, it really can’t get any better. This same display technology is used in both the 11-inch and 13-inch iPad Pro models, unlike the previous generation, so which one is best for you is simply a matter of personal preference.
The Pro’s design is nearly identical to the iPad Air, but it’s slightly thinner and lighter. While there aren’t many differences on paper, the Pro’s slimmer frame makes it slightly easier to hold, especially in the 13-inch model.
Another headline upgrade is Apple’s new M4 SoC, which is only available on the new Pro for now. Where the M2 was overkill for most of the iPad’s general and pro-level tasks, the M4 is super powerful. It easily handled almost every task we threw at it. But the M4 is also future-proof, and could save you a few seconds here and there in tasks like high-res media editing or heavy machine learning.
Additionally, the base iPad Pro model comes with 256GB of storage, double the amount of the iPad Air, and it also supports more advanced features like GPU hardware-accelerated ray tracing, which could help with lighting in future games, and a faster Neural Engine that should help with any AI features Apple has planned over the coming months and years.
If you really want the most performance, keep in mind that the 1TB and 2TB configurations have double the RAM (16GB) and a more technically powerful version of the M4, unlocking additional performance cores. But upgrading to one of these SKUs will cost you a minimum of $1,599, and that’s before you add any accessories. This isn’t necessary for those who want to use the iPad Pro as a (very expensive) media consumption device. If you use memory-intensive apps or want the best of the best, be aware that it will cost you.
The iPad Pro is the only iPad with Face ID, which is a bit more convenient than using a fingerprint scanner. It’s also the only iPad with a Thunderbolt USB-C port, which is technically faster for transferring large files. It has four built-in speakers instead of two, so the sound quality is better than the Air. The camera system isn’t all that different, but it does have a flash to make document scanning easier, and you can record video in Apple’s ProRes format. The front camera is also on the long edge. In terms of accessories, only the Pro gets Apple’s latest Magic Keyboard, which is quite expensive on its own, but has a more premium aluminum finish, a wider trackpad, and a row of function keys. It also supports the Pencil Pro stylus (though the second-generation Pencil doesn’t).
If most of these features sound niche to you, well, that’s the aim. If you’re not willing to pay for that amazing OLED display, the iPad Air comes close, but at a much more affordable price. The iPad Pro is the best-in-class tablet, but it’s still an iPad after all. Some creative professionals will have no problem using it as a laptop replacement, but for most people, iPadOS makes multitasking and other computer-related tasks more complicated than a MacBook. That’s not going to change anytime soon, judging by the features Apple announced in its next big iPadOS update (the most talked-about addition? A new calculator app). That being said, the Pro is a great iPad. It’s fast, it’s slim, it feels premium. And it’s expensive.
