The latest iPad Pro, now with an M1, became available to order on Friday. The 11-inch model starts at US$799 and the 12.9-inch model starts at US$1,099.
Order iPad Pro with M1 Chip and Liquid Retina XDR Display
As well as the Apple silicon M1 chip, the new tablet has a Liquid Retina XDR display, an 8-core CPU and 8-core GPU, and a 16-core Apple Neural Engine, and storage options going up to 2TB. It is 5G enabled and available in Space Grey and Silver. There are monthly payment options available, and the new devices are expected to start shipping in the second half of May.
[There are Three Different Versions of the 2021 5G iPad Pro]
Charlotte:
Having thought long and hard about this, I have decided to go with the 12.9” iPad Pro for the first time in my purchasing history.
For me, the iPad Pro has redefined portable computing, so while I enjoy the portability of the 11” model, which for my use case has been the perfect size, I keep hearing from other iPad Pro users that the multitasking experience is superior on the 12.9”; so in the spirit of empirical analysis, I am going to test that for myself. Oh, and I’ll also be playing with, I mean analysing, that new Liquid Retina XDR – for purely scientific research purposes, of course.
And in the spirit of future proofing, I’ll max out all the other specs, including the storage; meaning that, not unlike my current 2018 11” iPad Pro, I will not be purchasing another for awhile.
In the meantime, I think we can expect some really big things for small devices coming out of this year’s WWDC, notably for the iPad.
BTW: for any who still think that there is no real competition between the iPad Pro and Apple’s laptops running macOS, check out that price differential between the higher end iPads Pro and the M1 MBA or even the recently released M1 MBP. Just in case you did not realise that ‘pro’ laptop users have begun switching to the iPad for their portable computing needs, Apple have; and they’ve priced those devices accordingly. The price line alone tells you which product line just blinked.
This is but one more indicator as to why we should anticipate some seismic shifts from this years WWDC, because it is Game On.