KUALA LUMPUR: Apple will officially make available the new iPad Pro powered by the M1 chip today, and here's what you can expect from this top-of-the-line tablet.
The new iPad Pro comes in two models, the 12.9-inch and the 11-inch versions. While both are powered by the M1 chip, the 12.9-inch vision has an upper hand with the bigger Liquid Retina XDR Display, which gives extreme dynamic range and a stunning visual experience with more true-to-life details to the most demanding HDR workflows.
We've got our hands on the shiny silver version (the other colour available is space gray).
Power tool
While iPads are generally used for lower-powered work and web surfing, the M1-powered iPad Pro is a different beast.
The 8-core CPU design features the world's fastest CPU cores in low-power silicon, which can deliver up to 50 per cent faster CPU performance than A12Z Bionic. Meanwhile, the 8-core GPU can deliver up to 40 per cent faster GPU performance. This combination of CPU and graphics performance on iPad Pro widens its lead as the fastest device of its kind.
So technically, the iPad Pro is the iPad you can use for power and compute-demanding work like editing 2D artwork, and now with the M1 chip onboard, users can even do 3D artwork modelling on professional apps like Procreate, and also Adobe Lightroom for iPad and Photoshop.
With much power the iPad Pro M1 has, one could also do work with power-intensive processing like running a music notation app, with apps such as StaffPad.
Besides that, the new iPad Pro also offers next-generation 16-core Apple Neural Engine, advanced image signal processor (ISP), a unified, high-bandwidth memory architecture with up to 16GB of memory and 2x faster storage for a better and faster performance.
Display
One of the best features of this 12.9-inch is its new Liquid Retina XDR display, which is the best display on an iPad to date.
It is made with a cutting-edge mini-LED design that uses over 10,000 LEDs across the entire back of the display, the Liquid Retina XDR display features up to 1000 nits of full-screen brightness, 1600 nits of peak brightness, and a one million-to-one contrast ratio to enhance creative workflows.
The difference in image and video quality can be seen in this display.
A display like this would benefit creative professionals, including photographers, videographers, and filmmakers, who can view and edit true-to-life HDR content on a large display they can take anywhere.
The new Liquid Retina XDR display includes other advanced technologies that can also be found in the 11-inch iPad Pro, including ProMotion, True Tone, and P3 wide colour support, delivering an unmatched mobile cinematic viewing experience for HDR and Dolby Vision content.
Better video call
One of the new features that users will appreciate in the new iPad Pro is the Centre Stage camera feature, which is designed to make video calls more engaging. This new front camera feature will follow the user's movement in front of the camera during a video conference. In this case, the Centre Stage automatically pans to keep them in the shot. When others join in, the camera detects them too, and smoothly zooms out to fit everyone into the view and make sure they are part of the conversation.
The Centre Stage uses the much larger field of view of 120-degree on the new front camera and the machine learning capabilities of M1 to recognise and keep users centred in the frame.
Support for Smart HDR 3
Another feature that is worth mentioning is the support for Smart HDR 3 in the iPad Pro. In low-light conditions, the ISP and LiDAR Scanner quickly and accurately focus images and videos to capture incredible details from almost no light at all.
The iPadPro is also designed to work with the Magic Keyboard, which offers a comfortable typing experience with backlit keys, an integrated trackpad, and its floating design, now comes in a gorgeous new white colour.
Meanwhile, the iPadOS 14.5, which will be available to iPad customers starting next week, comes with new additions, including expanded language support for Apple Pencil features like Scribble and Smart Selection, new emoji, support for the latest gaming controllers, and the ability to share lyrics and see top songs in cities around the world with Apple Music.
Besides that, the support for Thunderbolt and USB 4 makes the USB-C port on iPad Pro the fastest, most versatile port ever on an iPad, with 4x more bandwidth for wired connections than the previous iPad Pro with up to 40Gbps. Thunderbolt supports 10Gbps Ethernet and opens up a massive ecosystem of high-performance accessories, like faster external storage and even higher resolution external displays
5G on board
With 5G available on this iPad Pro, users can achieve better performance and access to next-generation download and upload speeds, which is great for higher-quality video streaming, real-time collaboration, or FaceTime in high definition.
Besides that, they can stay creative and productive using a secure, fast connection, reducing the need to connect to public Wi-Fi hotspots. Featuring the most 5G bands on any device of its kind, iPad Pro offers the broadest 5G coverage worldwide. iPad Pro models in the US support millimetre wave, the higher frequency version of 5G, allowing iPad Pro to reach speeds up to 4Gbps. iPad Pro also features support for eSIM, making it easy to find a network and sign up for a 5G data plan on the spot2
Price and availability
The iPad Pro M1 is available starting today from RM4,799 (12.9-inch model) and from RM3,499 (11-inch model) at apple.com.my and Apple authorised dealers.
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