Apple's thinner new iPad Pros feature an M4 chip and "tandem" OLED displays

Apple's new iPad Pro models are its most laptop-like tablets yet. They're the first devices powered by the company's M4 chip, which will deliver faster performance and more AI capabilities. And, for the first time outside of the iPhone and Apple Watch, both the new 11-inch and (slightly larger) 13-inch iPad Pros will sport OLED screens. That's a step up from the LCD and Mini-LED displays on the previous models, and it should lead to bolder colors, inky dark black levels and far better contrast. 

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These aren't your typical OLEDs, either: Apple says the new iPad Pros feature "tandem" OLED displays (branded as Ultra Display XDR) for 1,000 nits of HDR brightness and 1,500 nits of peak brightness. That solves the brightness issues facing earlier OLED screens, and it means you likely won't miss the extreme brightness of Mini-LED.

Thanks to the OLED displays, Apple was also able to make the new iPad Pros far thinner and lighter than before. The 11-inch model is 5.3mm thick and "weighs less than a pound," according to the company, while the 13-inch is 5.1mm thick and is "nearly a quarter pound lighter than its predecessor." Notably, Apple says the bigger iPad Pro is the thinnest device it's ever made. 

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It's interesting to see Apple skip the M3 chip entirely and debut the M4 on the iPad Pro — that's a sign of just how important the company considers these new tablets. The M4 chip sports a 10-core CPU and 10-core GPU. Apple claims the M4's CPU is up to 50 percent faster than the M2, and its GPU is four times as fast. It also features a Neural Engine that can reach 38 TOPS (tera operations per second) of AI performance. That's faster than any processor shipping today, and it's slightly below the upcoming Snapdragon X Elite chips, which feature a 45 TOPS NPU.

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In addition to vastly better performance and premium OLED displays, Apple's new Magic Keyboard ($299 for the 11-inch and $349 for the 13-inch) goes a long way towards making the iPad Pro seem like a laptop. It features a metal wrist rest, function keys and a much larger trackpad. The company claims it will make using the iPad Pro feel more like a MacBook (let's just hope we see some iOS 18 multitasking updates to truly cement that). For the artists out there, Apple also unveiled a new $129 Pencil Pro with squeeze and rolling capabilities, as well as haptic feedback.

The new iPad Pro starts at $999 for the 11-inch model ($1,199 with cellular) and $1,299 for the 13-inch ($1,499 with cellular). Those prices are both $200 more than the previous models, yet another sign of Apple positioning these things more like notebooks.

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