iPad Pro M4 Review in Progress: It’s So Pretty, I Wish It Were a MacBook. The latest iPad Pro with the M4 chip and OLED display is Apple’s most exciting release this year. While it boasts significant improvements over its predecessors, it still falls short of replacing a laptop due to software limitations. Here’s an in-depth look at the new iPad Pro M4, highlighting its pros and cons, and why it still leaves us longing for more.
Apple – Magic Keyboard for iPad Pro 13‑inch (M4) – Black
Magic Keyboard for iPad Pro delivers an amazing typing and trackpad experience in a sleek, portable new design with an aluminum palm rest. The keyboard includes a 14-key function row for quick access to screen brightness, volume controls, and other features, and a USB-C connector for pass-through charging. The floating cantilever design smoothly adjusts to multiple viewing angles. A new larger trackpad with haptic feedback is perfect for precision tasks like editing a spreadsheet and selecting text, or simply navigating your iPad with intuitive and familiar Multi-Touch gestures. And a durable outer cover provides front and back protection, perfect for taking iPad Pro anywhere.
Pros
- A beautiful OLED screen
- Ultra-thin and light
- Plenty of power for most tasks on iPad
Cons
- iPadOS still doesn’t offer the “everything” experience
- Cameras aren’t anything to write home about
Design and Display
The iPad Pro M4 is striking with its new OLED screen, which is sharper, brighter, and more colorful than the previous Liquid Retina XDR mini-LED screen. Apple’s use of a “tandem OLED” with two layers of panels increases overall brightness, making it more vibrant and better defined. It offers 1000 nits of SDR brightness and up to 1,600 nits of peak HDR brightness.
The iPad Pro is also incredibly slim and light. Weighing 312g, it’s comfortable to use, thanks to its memory foam padding wrapped in vegan leather. However, the iPad’s wide bezels and single USB-C port are a bit of a drawback.
Apple – 13-inch iPad Pro (Latest Model) M4 chip Wi-Fi 512GB with OLED – Space Black
The iPad Pro with M4 chip is beautiful and powerful, and now it just needs a base software that can support those capabilities.
The M4 iPad Pro seems built to be an alternative everything device that won’t slip into your pocket. Thanks to a new, bright OLED screen and chip, it’s as close as possible to that goal hardware-wise. It’s still lacking software that feels as versatile as what you can already find on an Apple-brand laptop. The score is liable to change while we finish testing the iPad Pro’s brightness and battery. Starting at $999 (Reviewed at $2,099, plus $129 Apple Pencil and $349 Magic Keyboard)
Performance
The M4 chip is a powerhouse, providing a significant upgrade over the M2. It’s designed specifically for the iPad, featuring a new display engine and a neural engine capable of 38 trillion operations per second. Benchmarks show the M4 outperforming the M2 in both single-core and multi-core tests. In graphics tests, the M4’s 10-core GPU shows a 23% improvement over the previous model.
However, despite the impressive hardware, the iPad Pro’s software still holds it back. Apps like Chrome and Google Docs lack basic functionality, and multitasking remains cumbersome compared to a MacBook or PC.
Usability
With the new Magic Keyboard, the iPad Pro starts to feel like a potential laptop replacement, but it falls short in many ways. The keyboard and trackpad are excellent, but the overall experience is still limited by iPadOS. Basic tasks like right-clicking or using multiple windows are not as intuitive or efficient as on a laptop.
Battery Life and Camera
The battery life of the iPad Pro M4 is solid, with Apple claiming up to 10 hours. In practice, expect slightly less, but it should comfortably last a full workday under normal usage.
The cameras, while functional, are nothing special. Both front and rear cameras are 12 MP, with the rear capable of shooting 4K video at 60 FPS. The addition of a LiDAR scanner is useful for certain apps but doesn’t significantly enhance the overall camera experience.
Verdict
The iPad Pro M4 is the best tablet Apple has ever made. Its beautiful OLED display, powerful M4 chip, and sleek design make it a joy to use. However, it’s still not ready to replace a laptop. The limitations of iPadOS and the high price point, especially when adding accessories like the Magic Keyboard and Apple Pencil Pro, make it a tough sell as a primary device.
For creatives and those heavily invested in the Apple ecosystem, the iPad Pro M4 offers significant benefits. But for everyday tasks, most users will still find themselves reaching for a traditional laptop. As Apple continues to improve its hardware, we can only hope that future updates to iPadOS will unlock the full potential of the iPad Pro. Until then, the iPad Pro remains a powerful yet imperfect device.
