Apple iPad Pro (2025) Review: The M5 Chip and the Dawn of the AI-Powered Tablet
For years, the iPad Pro has occupied a unique space, expertly blurring the lines between a tablet and a traditional computer. Following the radical redesign and display overhaul of 2024, the 2025 iPad Pro forgoes a dramatic new look. Instead, it delivers one of the most significant internal upgrades in the product's history. Powered by the formidable new M5 chip and deeply integrated with the artificial intelligence features of iPadOS 19, this isn't just a faster tablet—it's a smarter one, marking the true beginning of the AI-powered creative device.
This review examines if the new M5-powered iPad Pro is a worthy successor and who should consider making the leap to this new era of tablet computing.
Design and Display: Polishing Perfection
Visually, the 2025 iPad Pro is nearly identical to its incredibly thin and light predecessor. It retains the same sleek aluminum chassis, impossibly thin bezels, and premium build quality that users have come to expect. The focus this year is clearly on internal refinement rather than external revolution.
The stunning Tandem OLED display, which brought perfect blacks and pixel-level precision to the iPad in 2024, makes a return. The key enhancement for 2025 is a boost in brightness, now reaching a spectacular 1800 nits of peak HDR brightness, making HDR content even more impactful. Combined with Apple’s ProMotion technology for an adaptive 120Hz refresh rate, the display remains the best screen on any mobile device, period. It is a flawless canvas for both content consumption and professional creation.
The M5 Chip: A New Realm of Performance
The star of the show is, without question, the new Apple M5 chip. Built on a next-generation architecture, the M5 delivers another significant leap in performance. The CPU and GPU cores are faster, enabling quicker 4K video rendering in Final Cut Pro, more complex layer management in creative apps like Procreate, and console-level gaming with hardware-accelerated ray tracing that produces stunningly realistic lighting and reflections.
However, the most crucial upgrade is the next-generation Neural Engine, which is reportedly up to 50% faster than the M4's. This monstrous increase in AI processing power is the key that unlocks the true potential of the new iPad Pro.
iPadOS 19 and Apple Intelligence: The Smartest iPad Ever
While the M5 chip provides the muscle, iPadOS 19 provides the brains. This year, the operating system is supercharged with Apple Intelligence, a suite of AI features that transform the user experience. Crucially, the power of the M5 chip allows nearly all of these tasks to be processed securely on-device.
On the iPad Pro, this translates to tangible benefits:
Smarter Creativity: In apps like Procreate, users can use generative AI tools to instantly create background elements or intelligently expand a canvas. In Final Cut Pro, AI can automate color grading or suggest edits based on scene analysis.
Enhanced Productivity: Taking notes with the Apple Pencil in class is now more powerful than ever. iPadOS 19 can provide live transcriptions and, once the lecture is over, generate an instant summary of the key points.
Intuitive Multitasking: Stage Manager now uses AI to intelligently suggest app groupings and window layouts based on your workflow, making multitasking more seamless and efficient.
A Truly Helpful Siri: Siri is now context-aware and can take actions across apps, understanding more complex commands and executing them with precision.
The Pro Ecosystem: Pencil, Keyboard, and Connectivity
The professional ecosystem surrounding the iPad Pro remains best-in-class. The Apple Pencil Pro, with its haptic feedback and barrel roll gestures, is more integrated than ever, with new iPadOS 19 features providing contextual feedback as you work with AI tools. The Magic Keyboard continues to offer a superb typing experience, effectively turning the iPad Pro into a powerful and versatile laptop alternative.
For connectivity, the device retains its high-speed Thunderbolt 4 port for connecting to external displays and storage, and it's one of the first Apple devices to adopt the new Wi-Fi 7 standard, offering lower latency and significantly faster wireless speeds on compatible networks.
Price and Verdict
The iPad Pro remains a premium product for a professional audience, with pricing expected to start around $999 USD for the 11-inch model and $1,299 USD for the 13-inch model.
Verdict: The 2025 iPad Pro is not a revolutionary redesign, but it is a revolutionary shift in capability. While the performance jump from the M4 is impressive, the true reason to upgrade is the deep integration of on-device AI through the M5 chip and iPadOS 19.
This device is aimed squarely at professionals, students in creative fields, and tech enthusiasts who need the absolute pinnacle of tablet performance. While M4 iPad Pro owners may not feel an immediate need to upgrade unless their workflow is heavily AI-dependent, anyone coming from an older iPad will find the 2025 Pro to be a monumental leap forward. It solidifies the iPad Pro’s status not just as a content consumption device, but as a formidable tool for creation, cognition, and intelligent computing.
