With the M5 iPad Pro, Apple has finally made a tablet that can replace your laptop

When Apple first released a Pro model of iPad 10 years ago, the main aim was to provide a laptop-like experience in a tablet form. It wasn't necessarily a success on that front, but it proved popular regardless, at gave the world's most popular tablet a premium tier.

The latest model, the M5 iPad Pro, is so good and intuitive that it could feasibly be a laptop replacement (depending on your job, of course). It features a new chip, an improved interface, and long battery life – something Apple seems to have mastered of late. It's for creators, it's for tablet-lovers, and yes, it is also for business uses.

Apple M5 iPad Pro review: Design

The design, like with all the MacBooks, hasn't seen much change. So, outwardly, the M5 iPad Pro is no different from the M4 (and older) models. The question is, would you want it any other way? The look of an Apple device is part of the appeal, and they're always easily distinguishable from Android tablets. In short, it's an iconic design, and it still, after all these years, looks great.

Image 1 of 9

It only comes in either Silver or Space Black, which gives it a more professional (and slightly bland) look. And you can choose either a 13in or an 11in model. ITPro has the latter, which weighs just 444g. The tablet is very thin at just 5.3mm thick, though not as thin as the Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra (5.1mm). And despite that, it does still feel sturdy in the hand with its robust aluminum chassis.

Around the device, it has the usual curved edges, a minimal bezel encasing the display, buttons for power, volume up and down, and a Thunderbolt 3/USB 4 port at the bottom (if you hold it in portrait mode). You also have a 12MP webcam at the top of the screen (in landscape mode), which gives it that laptop feel. But that is mainly for iPad's Measure app and scanning capabilities.

Apple M5 iPad Pro review: Display

The iPad is all about the screen, and that is certainly the case with the iPad Pro. It features an 11-inch Ultra Retina Tandem OLED panel with impressive specs: 2420 x 1668 resolution, 264 ppi, and up to 120Hz of buttery smooth screen refresh. The whole thing is bright, vivid, and silky. What's more, you can pay a little more for the Nano Texture glass and do away with unsightly glare.

With our colorimeter, the Pro produced some impressive results, perhaps not as high as the Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra, but still of a high standard. For sRGB color gamut coverage, the Pro scored 97.3% and 100.2% for volume (99.7% for the Ultra).

The Pro is quite nice to use in low-light settings with its automatic controls for dark mode and nighttime settings. Writing up documents with the yellow-tinted 'night shift' setting certainly helps the eyes. But this, unmistakably a tablet for the more fun things in life; drawing, streaming, scrolling social media – all of which it excels at.

Apple M5 iPad Pro review: Keyboard and pen

One of the best additions to the iPad in recent years is the magnetic keyboard with its sturdy stand. We can't tell you how many tablets fall in this area – Huawei and OnePlus, we're looking at you – but Apple gets it spot on. The magnetic connection is easy to adjust and strong; you get two tilt angles, and it looks very neat and tidy. Add the all white Apple Pencil Pro on top, and it's very pretty.

The keys are also very good. Not MacBook Pro good, but also not far off. They have pretty backlighting, plenty of travel, and a nice muffled clack. Likewise, the trackpad is also very good. It's big enough and highly responsive.

The Pencil Pro is probably the overall star accessory and part of the reason the iPad has become such a stalwart in the art and illustration world. It is smooth and glides across the screen. The thickness of the pen itself is comfortable in the hand, similar to the OnePlus and Lenovo styluses. It doesn't replicate the feel of pen on paper, but instead makes digital drawing a worthy alternative.

Apple M5 iPad Pro review: Specs and Performance

Apple released a new iPad Pro alongside a new MacBook Pro and Vision Pro, but really, it was the launch of the M5 chip. For the iPad, it is either a 9-core or 10-core configuration of M5 and a 10-core GPU, and a 16-core Neural Engine. You can have up to 16GB RAM and as much as 2TB of storage (our review unit had 256GB).

Unsurprisingly, having the most powerful flagship processor in the iPad Pro results in the year's top tablet benchmark. In GeekBench 6, the M5 Pro hit 4193 for single-core and 16777 for multi-core workloads. Samsung's S11 Ultra managed 2,699 and 8,434 with its Mediatek 9400+ chip, while the OnePlus Pad 3 hit 3130 and 9083 with a Snapdragon 8 Elite processor.

There's also a big upgrade for AI capabilities on the iPad Pro; the GPU now has neural accelerators built into each of its ten cores. This is about boosting on-device AI processing speeds for features like the handwriting recognition or AI voice translations in Audio Logic Pro.

However, the most impressive upgrade, particularly for business use, is the battery. Our 11in M5 iPad Pro lasted an impressive 18hrs and 12mins in our looped video test. That was slightly longer than the S11 Ultra and about 2hours more than the OnePlus Pad 3.

The M5 iPad Pro supports iPadOS26, which brings a wealth of new tools and features. And that also includes the visual refresh of Liquid Glass, Apple's 'translucent' interface design.

Users will enjoy the new menu bar, which drops with a downward flick from the top of the screen. It works in the same way as it does in the macOS app – so potentially it can replace your laptop in this regard. The bar will soon be customizable so that it will become more important for work-related tasks, like it is for a MacBook. Apple Intelligence is also getting more useful with an integration into the Shortcuts app.

Apple M5 iPad Pro review: Is it worth it?

With the new M5 chip, Apple has finally turned its flagship tablet into a bona fide laptop replacement. The keyboard also does some of the work here, but the power, the speed, and the software tweaks all make for a brilliant device to use for work.

Could it be cheaper? Prices start at $999 (£999) for the 11in model, and that is less than the S11 Ultra, but significantly more than the OnePlus Pad 3. So it could be a little more budget-friendly, but it's better, in our opinion, than both those alternatives. This is, hands down, the most powerful tablet around.

Apple M5 iPad Pro specifications