Alongside reviews of the new 10th-generation entry-level iPad, M2 iPad Pro reviews are also out – and here reviewers speak with one voice.
The bottom line is that it’s an incredible device, but more or less the same as last year’s M1 model, and very few people will benefit from the performance …
Mashable says that it’s powerful, and Pencil Hover is a neat trick, but it’s otherwise the same as last year’s M1 model – and if you want the extra power, you should probably buy a MacBook.
The sixth-gen 12.9-inch iPad Pro, which Apple sent me to review last week, is near identical to the fifth-gen iPad Pro in many key aspects. It has the same design, display, cameras, speakers, and battery. It’s exactly the same size and weight. It even has a Nano-SIM slot, just like last year’s iPad Pro, even though Apple has gone SIM-less on its new iPhone 14. It comes with the same storage options, ranging from 128GB all the way up to 2TB. It once again comes in the Space Gray and Silver colors. It supports the exact same accessories, and Apple hasn’t launched any new ones, for now.
This is not an upgrade for people who want to flaunt their brand new iPad Pro. The major changes are the M2 processor and – if you really stretch the term “major” – support for Apple Pencil hover, the tech that makes the tablet’s display sense the proximity of Pencil and perform a simple task before you even touch it.
Apple’s iPad Pro is for professionals, but only a small niche of professionals can truly use it as a daily driver. Changes boil down to the new M2 chip that’s inside, making the Pro even more powerful, but you’ll be better off with a laptop.
TechRadar stacks the latest iPad Pro up against the iPad Air, and concludes that most people don’t need the Pro.
You might think that the iPad Air 5 vs iPad Pro 2022 dilemma isn’t really much of a dilemma; after all, the new iPad Pro (2022) – launched alongside the new iPad 10.9 (2022) – brings top-grade laptop performance to the tablet format. But the iPad Air (2022) – Apple’s other big tablet launch from earlier in the year – is no slouch either […]
The iPad Pro 2022 is (unsurprisingly) the better, more capable of the two. Its new Apple M2 chip means a healthy bump in performance, and its display – whichever size you opt for – is brighter, more fluid, and (in the case of the 12.9-inch Pro, at least) more vibrant.
The Pro also gives you a more advanced camera system, Face ID authentication, improved connectivity, and enhanced Apple Pencil interactivity.
But is all that worth the $200/£200 premium that Apple is charging for the 11-inch Pro? For most people, we suspect that it won’t be, as they’re functionally very similar. Indeed our review of the latest Pro notes that the iPad Air 5 offers the vast majority of the Pro’s features for a lot less.
Tom’s Guide loves the display, M2 performance, Apple Pencil hover, and 5G support – but sees little advantage over the previous M1 version.
I have mixed feelings about the new iPad Pro 2022. Objectively, it’s a well-designed device that delivers everything you’d expect from the premium iPad line. Watching video content, playing games, conferencing with others, web browsing, writing, drawing and more work as well as ever. The M2 chip powering the tablet should also make it fairly future-proof. It’s hard to knock the iPad Pro for what it offers.
However, this tablet doesn’t exist in a vacuum. If you already own last year’s iPad Pro, you absolutely don’t need the new model unless you do heavy-duty design or video editing. The iPad Air 2022 is also a great option for most users due to its impressive performance and relative affordability compared to the iPad Pro. And for those who want one of the best Android tablets, the Samsung Galaxy Tab S8 is another alternative.
However, if you own an older iPad Air or iPad Pro, the iPad Pro 2022 could be just the upgrade you’ve been waiting for.
ZDNet‘s Jason Cipriani says he got to unexpectedly discover that there is zero real-life performance difference. He shares the view of many of us: that it’s the software that needs an update, not the hardware.
The iPad Pro’s hardware continues to outpower the software. Although, with the addition of Stage Manager in iPadOS 16.1 and true external monitor support due before the end of the year, iPad Pro users have more hope than ever that the iPad is about to turn the corner.
In my early hands-on preview for iPadOS 16, I wrote that the update fundamentally changed the way I use my iPad Pro. For the better; and I stand by that. I admittedly gave Apple the benefit of the doubt that any issues I’d experienced during early testing were bugs in a young beta and that by the time the official release arrived, those bugs would be ironed out. Unfortunately, that hasn’t been the case […]
At one point during the last couple of days, I mistakenly picked up my iPad Pro thinking it was the M2 iPad Pro (they’re identical in design) and used it for an hour or so, the entire time questioning whether the performance boost I suddenly perceived was a placebo effect or not. Turns out, it was.
Engadget echoes the point about the extra performance mattering to very few users.
That new chip is by far the most notable change here. Otherwise, the design, screen, cameras, storage options, accessories and price are all the same. That’s not a big problem, though, because the iPad Pro was already an outstanding device — and the Liquid Retina XDR display Apple introduced on last year’s 12.9-inch model is still a simply outstanding screen. There are a couple new tricks here, like the Apple Pencil “hover” feature and the ability to shoot video in Apple’s ProRes codec, but by and large this iPad Pro isn’t angled at people who bought that M1 model. Instead, it’s just a case of Apple flexing its muscles by making the most powerful, spare-no-expense tablet that it can […]
In a demo last week, Apple showed how the new iPad Pro can chew through apps like the forthcoming DaVinci Resolve and Octane X. The former is an intense video application that combines things like professional-level color correction, color grading, visual effects and much more, while Octane X is meant for 3D rendering. Both apps are pretty far outside things I’d use.
Slashgear says that, like the M1 model, it’s an incredibly impressive technical achievement, but most of us don’t need the performance they offer.
It was frankly astonishing when Apple added the M1 chipset to the iPad Pro in early 2021. For the first time, the Cupertino firm’s tablets had the same processing potential as its laptops, a narrowing-of-the-field that, though predicted by many, still felt borderline magical in a device that was fanless and still capable of lengthy battery life. As we’ve seen from the Apple M2 in laptops like the 2022 MacBook Air refresh, the delta between the generations of Apple Silicon hasn’t been quite as jaw-dropping as the leap from x86 to M1 was. Nonetheless, it’s tough to understate just what the offer is here: desktop-level grunt.
The qualifier — which also lingers from previous, potent iPad Pros — is that how well you can take advantage of the power on offer depends on the whims of developers. DaVinci Resolve, Octane X, and Affinity Publisher users will all be getting updates later in the year that unlock features and processing speed that legitimately would’ve forced them to turn to the Mac version before now. That’s huge.
There’s a sense nonetheless that there’s more here from the M2 than is really necessary for most iPadOS apps and iPad users. My typical workflow of email, messaging, browsing, writing, and watching the occasional video barely touches the sides, when you’re talking about a CPU that’s up to 15% faster than last year’s, and a GPU that’s up to 35% faster. Never has the fact that this is a pro machine, and not designed for everyone, been more stark.
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