- RATING
Apple has done it again. It has managed to put even more power and performance in your hands while still maintaining amazingly thin design. If there’s a tablet you want to have by your side for work and play – then the iPad Pro with M5 leads the pack by a country mile.
With the addition of the new M5 chip, Apple has made the iPad Pro more pro than ever before to give it an equal footing with laptop power and performance.
The new Apple silicon includes a 10-core GPU and powerful new Neural Accelerator in each core to do things like speed up AI tasks from large language models and generative imagery.
What it also delivers is a faster CPU and wider unified memory bandwidth to offer faster speeds for the most complex tasks.
The new iPad Pro with M5 is available in 11-inch and 13-inch and goes on sale today.
For Tech Guide’s review, we received the 11-inch iPad Pro with M5 in Space Black along with the Magic Keyboard cover.
We already use the iPad Pro quite often in our workflow and the biggest stretch we’d put on the system would be the occasional video edit and a graphics-rich first person shooter game.
But we know there are many users who push it to the limits – a lot further than we can imagine.
And the good news for that customer is that the new M5 chip can now push those limits even further.
Design-wise, the iPad Pro with M5 is identical to the model with M4.
The iPad pro 11 inches still a remarkably thin 5.3mm while the 13 inch model is thinner still at 5.1mm.
This thin and light design may give some the impression that it doesn’t have the power to get through the toughest work but that couldn’t be farther from the truth.
The new iPad Pro with M5 is a powerhouse.
It has an Ultra Retina XDR tandem OLED display which is sharp and bright and responsive.
Models with 1TB and 2TB storage also have the added option of adding nano texture display glass which does a great job in reducing reflections and feels a little more paper-like when writing and drawing with Apple Pencil Pro.
With M5 under the hood, the new iPad Pro has a 3.5x faster AI performance than the M4 and up to 5.6x faster than iPad Pro with M1.
And the GPU has also taken a leap with 1.5x faster pro rendering performance with ray tracing than the M4 and 6.7x faster than iPad Pro with M1.
Now that’s a significant improvement.
The faster 16-core Neural Engine also speeds up some important AI features like summarising.
The iPad Pro with M5 can summarise pages of lecture notes in a matter of seconds.
And it is also that fast when isolating a subject from its background in a 4K video with a single tap in Final Cut Pro.
It’s 6x faster turn the M1 when it comes to video transcoding and 4.8x faster than the iPad Pro M4.
With AI video upscaling the iPad Pro with M5 is 3.7x faster than the M1 and 1.6x faster than last year’s M4.
These are the improvements in the workflow that will make customers rush out to purchase the iPad Pro with M5.
We’ve also seen demonstrations of video editing, intense graphic design and 3D rendering which on their own would have been impressive.
But what really demonstrated the speed and performance of the iPad Pro with M5 was that all these applications were running at the same time.
The iPad Pro with M5 has a high performance USB-C connector that supports Thunderbolt 3 and USB 4 and offers fast wired connectivity of up to 40Gb/s.
Thunderbolt supports 10 Gigabit Ethernet connections to iPad Pro.
It’s also possible to connect an external display at up to 6K at 60Hz and 4K at 120Hz and for all displays that support 120Hz.
It even has Adaptive Sync to reduce latency in external displays.
The new iPad Pro with M5 also supports the latest storage technologies which adds up to 2x faster read write speeds then the iPad Pro with M4.
The iPad Pro with M5 is ideal for work and play with the elevated performance to support high-end applications and the very latest games.
On the audio side, the iPad Pro has a four speaker audio system along with four studio quality microphones which will be a huge asset when enjoying content and creating your own.
Also on board is a12MP CenterStage camera which, when used for FaceTime and video calls, keeps you centred in the frame even if you’re moving around.
It automatically pans to keep you in the shot.
And if other people as seen in the frame, it will zoom out to fit everyone in.
Another big improvement to the iPad Pro with M5 is iPadOS 26 which offers even more laptop like features including windowing – a redesigned windowing system that allows you to control and arrange and switch between your windows just like you would on a computer.
iPad Pro with M5 also includes the N1 chip which supports Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 connectivity and improves the performance of other features like personal hotspot and AirDrop.
Also under the hood is the C1X cellular modem which offers up to 50 per cent faster cellular data performance than the previous iPad Pro.
Users can connect to the cellular network using an eSIM which means you can sign up for cellular data plans in more than 190 countries and regions around the world in an instant.
The Magic Keyboard is an essential accessory to get the most out of iPad Pro with M5.
It has a floating design with an adjustable screen viewing angle and a six row keyboard which includes a 14 key row of function keys which offer instant access to controls like media playback, screen brightness and volume.
It also has a haptic trackpad so you can feel the response while navigating the system.
There’s also a USB-C pass through on the hinge for charging which means you can keep the other port free to connect accessories or transfer data.
And even though the iPad is so thin and light, there’s still room for a battery that lasts all day with a full 10 hours of video playback.
And when it is time to charge, the iPad Pro with M5 now supports fast charging which means you can get up to 50 per cent charge in around 30 minutes.
PRICING
iPad Pro with M5 is available now in 11-inch and 13-inch sizes and comes in Silver and Space Black finishes.
The 11-inch iPad Pro with M5 is priced at $1,699 (256GB Wi-Fi), $2,049 (256GB Wi-Fi + Cellular), $2,049 (512GB Wi-Fi), $2,399 (512GB WiFI + Cellular), $2,749 (1TB Wi-Fi), $3,099 (1TB WiFI + Cellular), $3,449 (2TB Wi-Fi), $3,799 (2TB Wi-Fi + Cellular).
The 13-inch iPad Pro with M5 is priced at $2,199 (256GB Wi-Fi), $2,549 (256GB Wi-Fi + Cellular), $2,549 (512GB Wi-Fi), $2,899 (512GB Wi-Fi + Cellular), $3,249 (1TB Wi-Fi), $3,599 (1TB Wi-Fi + Cellular), $3,949 (2TB Wi-Fi), $4,299 (2TB Wi-Fi + Cellular).
VERDICT
The iPad Pro with M5 continues to push the envelope and defy the rest of the tablet market with its remarkable capabilities. If you are serious about getting hands on and smashing through your tasks on a touchscreen display then the iPad Pro with M5 is the device you must own.
