The best new tech heading your way

• From £749, apple.com/uk

1  iPAD PRO M1

How Pro can you go? Turns out the answer is ‘pretty pro’, particularly if you’re Apple on a new product rampage. More on the rest in the next few Horizon entries, because basically everything in Apple’s spring launch event was pretty cool (even the new purple-hued iPhone variety) but it’s the iPad Pro that really shines. Apple has now brought the best version of its lauded M1 chip – the same eight-core CPU, eight-core GPU processor at the heart of the 2020 spin of the MacBook Pro – to something other than a Mac, and completely overhauled our expectations for what a high-end iPad should be in the process.

The company claims the M1 in the new iPad Pro bumps its processing performance up 50% from the previous edition, gives graphics a 40% kick, and works in tandem with upgrades to storage speed, capacity (up to 2TB) and RAM, with 8GB on lower models and 16GB on higher ones for a frictionless experience. Pick the 11-inch model and you can pay as little as £749, but the 12.9-inch version bags itself a Liquid Retina XDR display (essentially super-dense HDR-capable mini-LED) with up to 1,600nits peak brightness. That’s huge: this is a screen that’ll easily rival top TVs, and one which absolutely flattens the majority in terms of contrast with its 2,596 dimming zones.

A serious iPad, then – and one which takes the fight to Apple’s own MacBook Pro in terms of work viability, as well as being a brilliant companion for home entertainment.

 T3 TECH-O-METER   

T3 SAYS…  

“A glimpse at the future of Apple’s portable devices”

Josh Russell, Editor

CONNECT & GO

Need more screen real estate? The USB-C port from the previous generation has been given a Thunderbolt upgrade, meaning the iPad Pro can now connect to external displays up to 6K in resolution.