- 1 week ago
Apple hasn’t changed much with the iPad Pro M5, but it didn’t really need to. The update to the M5 chip makes Apple’s top-of-the-line iPad faster and more capable than ever, and able to handle multitasking, creative apps, and even AAA games with ease.
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00:00Apple hasn't changed much with the latest iPad Pro, and with good reason. It has the same sleek,
00:09ultra-thin aluminium body available in either 11-inch or 13-inch sizes as per its predecessor,
00:14but what is new here is the M5 chip, which makes Apple's most powerful iPad faster and more
00:20capable than ever. When the iPad Pro is docked, it feels even closer to a laptop than ever,
00:25letting you type, multitask, and navigate iPadOS 26 seamlessly. It's expensive and the color options
00:30remain limited, but for power users who want the ultimate iPad experience, the 11-inch iPad Pro M5
00:36is hard to beat. Here's how it performed in our testing. Apple's M5 11-inch and 13-inch iPad Pro
00:45is available in space black or silver. The 11-inch iPad Pro M5 starts at $999 or £999, while the 13-inch
00:53iPad Pro with M5 starts at $1,299 or the same amount in pounds, which is the same as previous
00:59generations at launch. Prices do go up from there if you want to add cellular or get more storage,
01:03but the iPad Pro starts at 256GB and also comes in 512GB, 1TB, or 2TB configurations. The 256 and 512
01:14GB models come with 12GB of RAM, while the 1 and 2TB models come with 16GB.
01:19Given that Apple already rolled out a radically thinner and overall much sneaker design with its
01:27last-generation iPad Pro in 2024, it's no surprise that the company is sticking with that same build
01:32for this generation's model. The biggest change here is under the hood. Both sizes iPad Pro still
01:37look elegant, sleek, and sharp, with identical design language to older models. The 11-inch iPad Pro M5
01:43weighs 444 grams with just Wi-Fi or 446 grams with cellular connectivity, while the 13-inch model is
01:50579 grams or 582 grams with cellular. These measure 5.3mm and 5.1mm in thickness, respectively.
01:58That means that both of these beat out the equivalent M3 iPad Airs in both thickness and weight,
02:04and they're thinner than the iPhone Air. That's a noticeable difference in hand too. I've been using the
02:082021 iPad Pro for a few years, and I genuinely gasped at the difference four short years can make.
02:14This is also the best orientation to get the most out of the great stereo speakers,
02:18as these live on the left and right sides. The sound produced is pretty robust and surprisingly loud
02:24given how thin the device is, but the biggest disappointment for me is that despite the new chip,
02:28colour options remain limited to space black and silver. Both look good, and Pros probably do prefer
02:34more subtle tones, though they missed the memo on the iPhone 17 Pro in Cosmic Orange, but the iPad Airs
02:40purple or that Cosmic Orange would have been a really fun addition to the Pros. There are three
02:46silver smart connector dots on the bottom edge of the iPad, which is how the magic keyboard connects
02:51without any setup, and the main camera bump is, as per usual, at the top left when the slate is held
02:55vertically. The main camera array is unchanged from the previous generation, with the slightly raised bump
03:00housing a 12 megapixel wide camera, LiDAR sensor, and adaptive True Tone flash. When held vertically,
03:06the power button is on the top right, with the volume controls nearby. The Apple Pencil Pro
03:11magnetically attaches to the right side and charges wirelessly, while the USB-C Pencil attaches but
03:17requires a charging cable. The USB-C port sits on the bottom in vertical orientation, as per previous
03:22generations. It's a practical design overall, and this remains Apple's most premium and luxurious iPad.
03:31Apple is sticking with its impressive Tandem OLED Ultra Retina XDR display, and it's truly a best-in-class
03:37screen. Colors look especially vibrant and accurate, with rich detail and subtle gradations, but it
03:42really excels at delivering incredibly strong contrast. Multitasking in iPadOS 26 is a breeze,
03:49whether you have multiple windows set up side by side, or you're jumping between Mail, Gmail, Slack,
03:54and whatever else you need. Whether you're watching content, drawing in Procreate, editing photos in Pixelmator,
04:00gaming, or using apps like Final Cut Pro or DaVinci Resolve, the display can easily scale to the task
04:05depending on your workflow and delivers stunning visuals. Just as with the previous generation Pro,
04:11the Tandem OLED is essentially two OLED displays stacked together to produce higher brightness levels
04:16for stunning visuals, and it really delivers. The Ultra Retina XDR display offers 1000 nits of brightness
04:22across the full screen, and can spike up to 1600 nits of peak brightness for HDR content. It delivers a
04:29fantastic 2 million to 1 contrast ratio on top of it all. The display resolution comes in at 2420 by 1668
04:38at 264 ppi. Another key advantage of going Pro is ProMotion, which enables an adaptive refresh rate
04:44between 10 and 120Hz, and ensures that games and other content look buttery smooth. That's only
04:49furthered thanks to hardware-accelerated ray tracing support too. That refresh rate is also really helpful
04:55when it comes to writing with the Apple Pencil, further reducing latency and making scrolling through
05:00iPadOS 26 feel noticeably more fluid. Apple ships the 11-inch iPad Pro with an oleophobic coating
05:06that helps reduce reflections and resist fingerprints, and it does an admirable job. If the screen is off
05:11you'll notice smudges, but when it lights up the brightness makes them all but fade away, though I
05:15would still prefer not to have grubby finger marks on my screens. It does still catch reflections too,
05:20especially outdoors or on a sunny day or under harsh indoor lighting, but the optional fix here is the
05:26nanotexture glass display, which works wonders but comes at a cost.
05:33Tucked into the top bezel and centred above the screen when the iPad is held or docked horizontally
05:37is a 12-megapixel centre stage camera. This makes it ideal not only for recording videos,
05:42but also calls through FaceTime, Webex and Zoom, as well as other apps like that. The main appeal of this
05:48camera is actually in centre stage, which uses software magic to keep you in the frame when you're on
05:52calls, automatically panning and zooming to keep you centred. This is especially helpful if you
05:57like to walk and talk on calls, but more practically if you're doing something like cooking and want to
06:01hop onto a FaceTime call. It's an excellent feature and really freeing for hands-on use. There's also
06:06the same camera as last year on the back. If you're someone who likes to take photos with a tablet,
06:11you can certainly do that here, and the 12-megapixel lens is pretty good.
06:14The 11-inch and 13-inch models are the first iPads to launch with iPadOS 26 out of the box,
06:24and it certainly feels at home here, making the most of the M5 chip inside. It's easy to resize,
06:29move and drag and drop elements between apps, giving productivity a powerful boost for pro users,
06:34and making full use of that speedy and buttery smooth chipset. While the vastly improved AI-infused
06:40series still isn't here yet, the rest of the Apple Intelligence package works quite well,
06:44as to other third-party AI tools. Cleanup for photos ran swiftly, live translation was quick,
06:50and Logic Pro 2 for iPad's stem splitter worked very well.
06:56So as I've mentioned, the biggest change with the iPad Pro is the M5 chip, which powers the entire
07:01experience. Apple is spreading its latest 3 nanometer silicon across more and more devices,
07:07including the new Vision Pro M5 as well as a new range of MacBooks, but I think it shines the most
07:12on the iPad by making an already fast device even faster. This results in incredible performance
07:18day in and out. Many of the improvements in the M5 chip helped it perform even better for AI-focused
07:23workflows. Pixelmator Pro handled super resolution faster, and cleaning up handwriting in GoodNotes
07:29was lightning quick. The same goes for using stem splitter in Logic Pro, as I've already mentioned,
07:33or exporting 4K footage in Final Cut Pro. Games, whether those are smaller titles or AAA releases,
07:39were a blast to play, with the performance and graphics combining to make wonderfully immersive
07:44worlds. Between the chip and iPadOS 26, everything feels fast, smooth, and completely dependable.
07:50And if you're after a desktop-like experience, you can plug the iPad Pro into an external display,
07:54and it can offer up to 120Hz refresh rate. In the 1TB iPad Pro we tested,
07:59and also in the 2TB model, the M5 chip offers a 10-core CPU with 4 performance cores and 6
08:05efficiency cores, as well as a 10-core GPU with hardware accelerated ray tracing and neural
08:11accelerators, plus a 16-core neural engine. It also comes with 16GB of RAM and 153GB
08:18per second of memory bandwidth. When docked, the 11-inch iPad Pro feels very laptop-like,
08:22slightly floating as it's locked in with magnets. You can tilt it up or down, and when you need to take
08:27notes, you can easily snap it off and make use of the Apple Pencil.
08:30It makes the iPad Pro feel like a true workhorse, especially with iPadOS 26.
08:35It is an added cost to get the Magic Keyboard or the other accessories. The Magic Keyboard,
08:39in particular, costs $299 or £299 for the 11-inch model, or $349 or pounds for the 13-inch model,
08:48but it certainly makes the iPad Pro more capable. The Apple Pencil Pro remains an excellent tool for
08:53note-taking, drawing, sketching, and navigating iPadOS. Taking notes with an Apple Pencil feels
08:58almost the same as writing on paper, and I especially like scribbled text for responding
09:02to messages without interrupting my workflow. Math Notes is another great feature. You can write
09:07an equation and an equal sign, and the iPad does the heavy lifting, but that's not new either.
09:14As with previous iPads and iPhones, Apple is not sharing the exact battery size for the 11-inch or
09:1913-inch iPad Pro. Instead, the tech giant likes to share estimates for browsing and playback times.
09:24Apple promises that you can get up to 10 hours of surfing the web or watching video on Wi-Fi,
09:28and up to 9 hours of web surfing with a cellular collection. Those are the same numbers as for the
09:32M4 iPad Pro, so it's likely Apple didn't increase the battery size. However, the M5 efficiencies,
09:38along with the Apple-made modem, likely help to keep that pace. During our testing, even when using
09:43the iPad Pro for work, paired with the Magic Keyboard, we squeezed a full day's use out of it,
09:47with close to 6 hours of screen time. And with the arrival of fast charging,
09:51you can get back to work at lightning speed, if you'll pardon the Apple pun.
09:55Aside from the upgrade to M5 and more RAM for the 256GB and 512GB models, Apple's other big
10:02hardware change was moving to its N1 wireless chip with a C1X modem. The former here delivers
10:07Bluetooth 6, Wi-Fi 7, and support for the Thread smart home connectivity standard, while the latter
10:12represents a move to Apple's own in-house modem. These upgrades deliver two major perks.
10:17According to Apple, up to 30% lower power consumption than on the previous generation
10:22iPad Pro and 50% faster cellular data speeds. As cellular iPads have been for some time,
10:28it's an eSIM-only experience across the globe. It's a nice swap for an Apple-made modem,
10:32and the M5 Pro has been performing just as well as previous cellular iPads that we've tested.
10:37But the arrival of the M1 chip for modern Wi-Fi and Bluetooth standards is also welcome.
10:41While there's not much new to shout about here, these incremental changes represent a
10:49big jump over time when compared to all of the older iPad models.
10:52And that's kind of all Apple needs to do here. The iPad Pro is and always has been a powerhouse,
10:58and that's not a formula that necessarily needs messing with just yet.
11:01You can go read our full iPad Pro M5 review on TechRadar.com with all of our detailed testing,
11:06where you'll also find all of the latest and greatest tech news and reviews. Make sure to hit
11:10that subscribe button below, and we'll see you next time!
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