For the longest time, I had believed that purchasing a new iPad at full price never made any sort of sense. Ultimately, you’re paying more than an equivalently spec’d MacBook, for less capability. It always felt like iPadOS was the key limiting factor for the iPad, not the hardware.
However, I’ve now owned an M4 iPad Pro for nearly a year, and I can confidently say it’s changed how I feel towards iPads. And that’s before factoring in all of the great new features in iPadOS 26.
What makes M4 iPad Pro special
Ultimately, the screen is a big difference maker. You simply cannot get an OLED screen on a MacBook. Sure, the M4 MacBook Pro gets closer with its 1000 nit miniLED display, but it still isn’t as good as the Tandem OLED display on the M4 iPad Pro.
Despite iPadOS still remaining mostly unchanged over the past few years, something about the display makes the iPad far more fun to actually use day to day. The fact that it’s thinner and lighter also makes the M4 iPad Pro a lot easier to just pick up and use.
Those upgrades sound insubstantial when you’re just reading a spec sheet. After all, the M4 11-inch iPad Pro is just 0.6mm thinner and 20 grams (0.05 pounds) lighter than its predecessor. Day to day though, the difference adds up. It’s even more substantial with the M4 13-inch iPad Pro, which is 1.3mm thinner and over 100 grams (0.22 pounds) lighter than its predecessor.
When you’re holding a large tablet in your hands for potentially hours on end, the way it feels matters a lot.
Personal thoughts
I’ve done my fair bit of experimenting with Stage Manager, and ultimately, I’m not convinced that I love it. I think a lot of the beauty of the iPad is the simplicity, and at least to me, split screen makes a lot more sense for a screen of that size. It feels easier to focus when theres less things on your screen.
Also, for whatever reason, the M4 iPad Pro has had some of the best battery life I’ve ever experienced on an iPad. Apple has always quoted iPads as having 10 hours of web browsing battery life, but the M4 iPad Pro, at least for me, has better standby time. I can easily leave my iPad sitting for days and it’ll still have battery life left over.
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