The best tablet for most people
The entry-level iPad has long been a staple for Apple, offering respectable performance at an affordable price. Apple revamped the base iPad in 2022 with a new design, upgraded specs, and several surprise changes. Though Apple priced the 2022 iPad at $449 at launch, it has since lowered the price to $349, making it an even stronger value. The base iPad remains an incredibly capable slate and a better choice than most other models in the same price range, which means it holds onto our Editors’ Choice award for affordable tablets.Design: An Appealing Exterior
The 10th-gen Apple iPad looks like the iPad mini ($499), iPad Air ($599), and the iPad Pro ($999). It drops the circular Touch ID button from below the screen, as well as the chunky top and bottom bezels in favor of a uniform edge-to-edge look. A large glass panel covers the display and sits within the aluminum chassis, which has flat side edges and a flat back panel. It’s a solid piece of hardware that looks modern and feels well-made.
Size-wise, the iPad family dimensions are nearly identical. The 10th-gen iPad measures 9.79 by 7.07 by 0.28 inches (HWD) and weighs 1.05 pounds (Wi-Fi model). Compare that with the 2024 iPad Air (9.74 by 7.02 by 0.24 inches, 1.02 pounds) and you can see that Apple likes to keep things fairly consistent across its slates. The 10th-gen iPad is small and light enough that it fits easily in backpacks, messenger bags, and even some over-the-shoulder slings, but it’s not compact enough for smaller bags or purses that might otherwise accommodate an eight-inch tablet. It’s far easier to tote about than the laptop-sized 13-inch iPad Pro.
The display has a new size, shape, and resolution, but the same overall pixel density year over year. The screen measures 10.9 inches across the diagonal and packs 2,360 by 1,640 pixels, for a density of 264ppi. You get an LED-backlit panel at 500 nits (maximum) brightness with a fingerprint-resistant oleophobic coating, sRGB color, and True Tone white balance correction. It’s not laminated like the iPad Air or iPad Pro displays, nor does it have an antireflective coating—something that became obvious when attempting to photograph the tablet outdoors. The display appears to be sunken below the protective glass by a millimeter or two, rather than sit flush as it does on the iPad Pro line. This mostly impacts Apple Pencil performance.
In terms of everyday use, the new iPad’s display is great. It has no trouble with HD content from the likes of AppleTV+ or YouTube TV and is more than bright enough for indoor use most of the time. It does struggle outdoors, however, and even in bright rooms illuminated by the sun. (This is where that antireflective coating would really have helped.) It’s as good as any other display at this price, though, and much better than what you’ll get on a $100 to $300 tablet.
One of the biggest changes to the entry-level iPad line is also one of the least noticeable. Apple swapped out its proprietary Lightning port in favor of USB-C. (The iPad Pro and iPad Air made this change some time ago.) USB-C has become the standardized port for many electronic devices around the world and replaced Lightning on the iPhone 15 in 2023. Apple includes a USB-C-to-USB-C cable in the box. If you’ve invested heavily in Lightning-based accessories, the time has come to pay the piper and update your gear.
Apple has moved the iPad’s speakers, which is a bigger deal than you might think. The outgoing model featured two speakers, but they were next to one another on the bottom edge of the tablet. This meant you’d get imbalanced sound when you tipped the iPad on its side to watch movies or TV shows. Now, the speakers are on opposite edges and this allows for true stereo sound when you hold the tablet in landscape orientation for viewing video. The speakers sound great, by the way.
The control keys and other physical aspects are about the same as on the iPad Air. A large key on one edge serves to turn off the screen or cycle the power; this key also contains the Touch ID sensor. Training the sensor takes a few moments and it’s fast, but not instantaneous, for unlocking the tablet. The separate volume buttons are just around the bend from the Touch ID and work well. A physical SIM card tray is on one edge of the tablet (though the iPad also supports eSIM) and three pogo connectors on the bottom edge help snap magnetic accessories into place, such as the Magic Keyboard.
In all, the basic design and appearance across the iPad family are now mostly the same.Performance: Enough Power for Everyday Use
Apple has upgraded almost everything within the confines of this slim slate, and that’s good news.
To start, the 10th-gen iPad jumps one processor generation from the A13 Bionic to the A14 Bionic. It’s still behind the M2 chip in the iPad Air and the M4 chip in the iPad Pro, but even one generational jump is good enough. The A14 is a six-core chip with two performance cores and four efficiency cores, as well as a four-core GPU. The A14 stands above the A13 thanks to double the number of Neural Engine cores, leaping from eight to 16. The iPad has 4GB of RAM, which is half the 8GB available to the iPad Air, and the (up to) 16GB available to the iPad Pro. Still, a modest processor jump gets you modest performance gains. This plays out in benchmarks.
Starting with Geekbench 5, the iPad netted single- and multi-core scores of 1,573 and 4,097, respectively, while the 2021 iPad tallied 1,331 and 3,516 on the same test.
