iPad Pro M5 vs iPad Pro M4: What’s new with the top-end tablet?

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The iPad Pro M4 was already the most powerful tablet around, but the iPad Pro M5 is here to best it. The question is, what’s new with this year’s top-end tablet?

While the iPad Pro M5 looks very similar to 2024’s iPad Pro M4 in terms of overall design and features, there are key upgrades in the performance department this year to squeeze the very best performance possible out of Apple’s high-end slate collection.

While we’re yet to go hands-on with the new tablet, here’s how the iPad Pro M5 compares to the still-excellent iPad Pro M4 on paper.

Pricing and availability

Despite a massive uptick in performance from the new M5 chipset, fans of Apple’s big-screen tablets will be relieved to hear that Apple hasn’t increased the price of this year’s tablet.

That means that the iPad Pro M5 starts at the same £999/$999 for the 11-inch variant and £1299/$1299 for the 13-inch variant as the iPad Pro M4.

That said, now that the iPad Pro M4 has essentially been replaced in Apple’s tablet lineup, expect to see the price begin to drop.

The iPad Pro M5 boasts better performance

The key difference between this year’s iPad Pro M5 and the iPad Pro M4 is in the name – the inclusion of the brand-new M5 chipset. The chipset actually made its debut on the iPad Pro, alongside the new MacBook Pro and Apple Vision Pro, and represents Apple’s most powerful SoC yet.

It’s not exactly a modest update either. Apple claims that the desktop-level M5 chipset found in this year’s Pro-level iPad offers a 1.5x boost in 3D rendering with ray-tracing compared to its M4 counterpart, and a massive 6.7x boost compared to the older iPad Pro M1.

That’s thanks to a new 10-core GPU that, like Apple’s new A19 mobile chipset, sports a dedicated Neural Accelerator in each core for boosted performance across the board.

The chipset also sports a new 10-core CPU – four performance cores and six efficiency cores – including what Apple is calling the “world’s fastest CPU core”, though we’ll have to put that claim to the test once we benchmark the new tablet.

Regardless, a boost in CPU power translates to better all-round performance from the tablet, be it graphic designers working with vector graphics or power users who constantly hop between various apps.

M5 smarts also boost Apple Intelligence

The M5’s upgraded GPU core design also lends itself very well to AI performance, with Apple claiming that its new silicon sets the iPad Pro’s AI capabilities apart from the competition – in terms of raw performance, anyway.

The Neural Accelerator found in each GPU core can deliver a serious 3.5x boost to AI processing speeds compared to the iPad Pro M4, or a whopping 5.6x faster than the older M1 variant.

Paired with a faster 12-core Neural Engine, on-device generative AI tasks should be both quicker and more power-efficient, which should also translate to boosted battery life compared to the older model. We’ll have to wait until we go hands-on to confirm, though.

The new iPad Pro offers faster storage and more RAM

Along with M5-level power, Apple has also upgraded the memory and storage for this year’s iPad Pro range.

Apple claims that there’s now over 150GB/s of unified memory bandwidth, around 30% more than the M4, which should bring speed improvements across the board, whether multitasking, using AI or simply swiping around the operating system.

That’s paired with up to 2x faster read and write speeds in the storage department, while the 256GB and 512GB models also now feature a boosted 12GB of RAM, up from 8GB on the M4 variant, though the top-end 16GB is still exclusive to the 1TB and 2TB options.

You’ll get better cellular connectivity with the iPad Pro M5

Those who opt for the cellular variant of the iPad Pro M5 should see an uptick in performance, thanks to the inclusion of Apple’s new C1X modem.

The modem first made its appearance on the iPhone Air, with Apple claiming that its in-house modem boosts cellular data performance by a whopping 50%, while being 30% more efficient than the iPad Pro M4 alternative.

It’s not just faster performance though; the C1X includes dedicated support for GPS and location capabilities for the first time, and also provides support for 5G connectivity, up from the 4G LTE connectivity on the older iPad Pro.

The 2025 model offers upgraded external display support

If you’re the kind of person who uses the iPad Pro as a laptop replacement with an external display, you’ll appreciate the upgrades to external display tech with the latest iPad Pro.

The M5 variant of the tablet brings support for 120Hz external screens, allowing for a buttery-smooth screen experience that matches the 120Hz of the iPad Pro’s built-in screen – as long as your external display supports 120Hz, that is.

If it does support 120Hz, it’ll also support Apple’s new Adaptive Sync tech, which helps reduce latency in external display performance. The company claims this should deliver smoother motion and fewer glitches, making it particularly ideal for gaming on the big screen.

Early thoughts

The iPad Pro M5 takes the seriously powerful blueprint of the iPad Pro M4 and takes it to the next level. There are performance boosts across the board, from boosts to CPU and GPU performance to faster storage and more RAM, all tailored to offer the best performance of any tablet on the market.

That said, the core iPad Pro experience remains very similar to the iPad Pro M4; both are available in 11- and 13-inch variants with OLED screen tech, 120Hz refresh rates, ultra-slim designs and access to iPadOS 26.

If you’re happy with the level of performance from the M4 variant, it seems like there’s no big need to upgrade here – though we’ll wait until we go hands-on with the model before we say for sure.

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