Next year, Apple will be introducing an even more affordable MacBook model to better compete with Chromebooks. It’s expected to come in around $699, offer an A18 Pro chip, and a 13-inch LCD display. While that’s likely going to be an excellent offering, there’s the simple fact that a lot of people buying Chromebooks are targeting even cheaper price points than that.
Luckily, Apple already has an excellent solution for some of these potential: the iPad, in pairing with a keyboard setup of your choosing.
This holiday season, I’m sure many parents and relatives around the world will buy their kids new laptops for school, and many of said laptops will probably be sub-$500 Chromebooks. While yes, Chromebooks certainly have their place in the market – a lot of kids already love iPads, and many people don’t realize the capabilities iPads can offer – especially in recent years.
The setup
Apple’s cheapest iPad is the iPad (A16). Priced at $349, it offers an A16 chip, an 11-inch high resolution display, 128GB of storage, 6GB of RAM, an aluminum enclosure, and solid stereo speakers. It’s paired with the Logitech Combo Touch, an affordable keyboard and trackpad accessory for the iPad that utilizes Apple’s smart connector, meaning there’ll be no need to worry about charging the keyboard – unlike most options on the market.
Currently, iPad (A16) can be bought for $279 on Amazon with Black Friday week deals, and the Logitech Combo Touch for iPad (A16) can be bought for $128. All together, that’s slightly over $400 for what’s already a great budget laptop combo. That said, you can also throw in an Apple Pencil for $69, and you’ll still be below $500 for a fully decked iPad setup.
Multi-tasking
iPadOS 26 brings a key feature to Apple’s cheapest iPad for the first time: Windowed apps.
Apple had always offered windowing to some capacity, particularly in the form of Stage Manager. However, that was limited to only select iPads, including the A12X/Z iPad Pros, as well as any iPad with an M1 chip or later. This meant that it was never available on Apple’s cheapest iPad, until now…
So, if you want to easily open up multiple windows of Safari, or have a Google Docs window next to Mail, for instance, you can now. Finally, iPadOS’ limited multi-tasking abilities are starting to be unlocked in recent years.
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