Apple iPad Pro M5 Review

Introduction

Apple’s iPad range has never been better balanced. The base model is great for students, the iPad Air M4 is an easy recommendation for just about anyone, and the iPad Pro is for those who require the very best.

The iPad Pro M5 – available in both 11-inch and 13-inch sizes – sits very much at the top of Apple’s tablet range. Starting at £999/$999 and topping out at £2399/$2399, this is a pricey piece of kit.

I have been testing the iPad Pro M5 out to find out whether this is the best iPad (or even the best tablet) and whether it really does justify that high price.

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Design

• Thin and light
• Two colours
• Fantastic build

Apple doesn’t drastically change designs between generations anymore, and since we got a slimmed-down iPad with a fresh look for the M4 refresh, it was always going to be the case that we’d get the same look again here.

Sticking with the same look is no bad thing. This isn’t just the best-looking iPad, but the best-looking tablet you can buy. I don’t think anything even comes close. It’s ridiculously thin (5.3mm for the 11-inch, 5.1mm for the 13-inch) and slips easily into a bag. It’s perfectly weighted and feels great to hold even for longer periods. Even though the mid-range iPad is called ‘Air’, the Pro is much thinner and lighter.

There’s not much by way of design flourishes here, and this iPad is all about showcasing the gorgeous screen on the front.

There are a couple of buttons dotted around the sides, including power and volume up/down, and on the back, you’ve got an Apple logo in the middle and the Smart Connector towards the bottom for connecting keyboard accessories. One side is magnetic to attach the Apple Pencil Pro, and there’s a USB-C/Thunderbolt port on the bottom for charging and data transfer.

The front-facing FaceTime camera continues to sit on the long side of the tablet, making it much better to use when the tablet is docked in a keyboard case.

Even though Apple has started to add some fun colours to the iPhone Pro line, including the standout Cosmic Orange, the two hues the iPad Pro comes in are distinctly unimaginative. It would be nice to freshen up the options a little, as the grey and darker greys do little to stand out.

While it’s the 11-inch model I have in for review, I used the 13-inch M4 edition extensively, and all the dimensions are the same here. Considering how big the screen is, it remains a very portable tablet.

Screen

• The OLED remains exceptional
• Choice between 11 and 13-inch sizes
• Still my favourite tablet display

I loved the screen on the previous-generation iPad Pro, and as this one is the same, I love this screen too. Even a year on, the tandem OLED Ultra Retina XDR display remains unmatched, even up against displays on the best tablets. 

The specs for this display include brightness levels up to 1600 nits for certain content, excellent HDR support, a 200,000:1 contrast ratio and a 264ppi for the 11-inch version. Both sizes have the same basic specs too, something that wasn’t always the case with the Pro iPads.

Specs are one thing, and the panel here certainly ticks all the boxes on paper. But in actual use, it’s even better than it sounds. Colours are wonderfully rich and immersive, without being overbearing or unrealistic. Contrast is wonderful too, a big benefit of this dual OLED panel. It’s also available with the nano-textured glass option that Apple has used on numerous laptops and Macs recently. This adds some extra texture to the panel to better handle reflections.

I’ve spent countless hours during the review period watching everything from HDR-toting Dolby Vision content from iTunes and Netflix, to scrolling through my iCloud photo library and I’m continually impressed. It’s calibrated to perfection, and even does a good job at ensuring it’s visible in sunnier environments.

This is the best screen on iPad, and really the single reason I would recommend certain people plumping for the Pro rather than the Air.

With the two 11-inch iPads next to each other, playing Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, the differences in quality are obvious. The OLED displays perfect blacks, so the bars at the top and bottom of the video blend seamlessly into the bezel, rather than looking like a dark shade of grey. The colours on the Pro are far punchier too, and the higher levels of brightness allow for much HDR playback. The whole experience is made even better by the fantastic stereo speakers, which are some of the best on any tablet I have reviewed.

It’s the smoothest iPad screen too, as it remains the only option with the same adaptive 120Hz ProMotion tech as the recent iPhones. 

Performance and Software

• The addition of the M5 is the only upgrade here
• Wi-Fi 7 is added with the N1 
• 12 or 16GB RAM, up from a base of 8GB

It’s inside the tablet where the upgrades are felt this time around. The switch to the M5 chip, and the N1 networking chip, are really all that’s new here. That N1 chip supports Wi-Fi 7, a welcome upgrade that’ll deliver noticeable speed boosts for anyone with a capable router.

The actual M5 chip that comes inside depends on the storage model. The 256GB and 512GB models have an M5 with a 9-core CPU (that includes three performance cores and six efficiency cores) and a 10-core GPU. This is then painted with 12GB RAM. Apple has upgraded the base RAM from 8- to 12GB with the M5 version, and that’s always a welcome bump.

The higher-spec 1 or 2TB models have an extra performance core in the CPU, taking it to 10 and 16GB RAM. All models have 153 GB/s of memory bandwidth, 16-core neural engines, and hardware-accelerated ray tracing.

A lot of the improvements this time around are for those with AI-focused workloads. Apple’s Creator Studio, a new subscription service bundling in a selection of Pro apps, is a showcase of the tablet’s power. In Pixelmator Pro, for example, the AI editing skills and image resolution bumps are performed more quickly than on the M4-equipped tablets.

The same goes for exporting 4K footage from Final Cut Pro. It’s not a day-and-night difference, but it does shave a few seconds off, which adds up over time.

I’ve been using the iPad Pro M5 for a few months now, and I can’t think of a single instance where it has slowed down. It can handle everything, and there’s so much more headroom for it to do more things in the future.

Apple has drastically improved iPadOS recently, with better multitasking support, a better file system and the aforementioned Pro-centric apps available in Creator Studio. For those who still want an iPad to run macOS, it doesn’t – but I can get serious work done on this machine now, and that’s great.

Alongside the iPad Pro M5, Apple sells two headline accessories. Both of which I would recommend for getting the most out of the tablet. The Magic Keyboard (from £299/$299) offers a fantastic typing experience, with keys that mirror the best MacBooks, a large, responsive trackpad, and protection for the iPad when it’s in a bag. 

Then there’s the Apple Pencil Pro ($129/£129), a stylus that needs little introduction. It’s a great, responsive tool for notes and drawing.

There’s a single camera on the back as the ultra-wide was ditched with the M4 redesign, leaving just a 12MP main camera. It is excellent for taking pictures of documents and for utilising AR content. It shoots 4K video too, even in the ProRes format.

Battery Life

• Quicker to charge with a 60W plug
• No upgrade in endurance
• USB-C charging

When Apple redesigned the iPad Pro, there were two routes it could have taken. Use the extra space for a bigger battery, or ensure the device is as thin as possible. While I probably would have plumped for option one, there’s no doubting that launching such a slim and light tablet made waves.

So, while there’s no huge advances in battery life here compared to previous models, there’s also been no dramatic sacrifices.

I can easily get the iPad Pro M5 11-inch to last me a full workday when I am using it as a laptop replacement, and all my testing points to the battery life being virtually the same as the M4 model.

On a 12-hour flight from London to Las Vegas, I watched films the entire way and had 15% left over at the end. That’s impressive going.

As has been the case with all M-series iPads I have tested, the battery life can drain quickly during intensive tasks. Zoom calls are a real drain – an hour call can eat through as much as 15%. It’s a similar situation with lots of importing and exporting of photos and videos into Lightroom and Final Cut. If you’re using the iPad for heavier tasks, keep a plug handy.

Buy the tablet in the UK, and there will be no charger in the box, just a USB-C to USB-C cable. This is now normal for all Apple tablets. In the US, you do get a charger in the box, but it remains a slow 20W plug that offers pretty slow speeds. Instead, you should go for a 60W plug, which can charge up to 50% in roughly 30 minutes and should come as standard on such an expensive device.

Should you buy it?