Apple iPad Pro 13" M5 Chip Space Black 2025 Review

The 13-inch Apple iPad Pro M5 is the most powerful tablet available, with a best-in-class OLED screen and top-tier performance. It's ideal for professional artists and business users, but its high price and average battery life make it a niche choice.

If you're looking for the absolute pinnacle of tablet performance, the 13-inch iPad Pro with the M5 chip is what you're searching for. It's a premium device, priced between $1949 and $2099 depending on where you shop, and it's designed for people who need serious power in a portable form. With a 1TB SSD and 16GB of RAM, it's built for heavy workloads, whether you're a business professional, a digital artist, or someone who just wants the fastest tablet money can buy. The standout feature is its new 13-inch OLED screen, which is simply the best display we've ever seen on a tablet.

The M5 chip is a beast. In our benchmarks, it scored in the 97th percentile for CPU performance and 96th for GPU, making it one of the fastest tablets on the market. That means apps launch instantly, complex 3D models render smoothly, and you can edit multiple layers in Photoshop without a hiccup. The 16GB of RAM keeps everything running smoothly even when you're juggling a dozen tabs and a video editing project. The only area that's just average is battery life, which sits around the 49th percentile. It's fine for a day of work, but you won't get marathon sessions away from the charger.

This is a luxury product. At over $2,000, it's competing with high-end laptops, not other tablets. The price fluctuates by about $150 across vendors, so it's worth checking a few stores before you buy. If your budget is tight, the 11-inch iPad Pro with the M5 offers most of the same power for less money, or you could look at a Samsung Galaxy Tab S10+ for a more Android-focused experience.

The main competitor is its smaller sibling, the 11-inch iPad Pro M5. You get the same incredible chip and similar features, but on a smaller screen and usually for a lower price. If you need a bigger canvas for art or more screen real estate for multitasking, the 13-inch is the choice. Against the Samsung Galaxy Tab S10+, the iPad Pro wins in raw CPU/GPU power and display quality, but the Tab S10+ offers more flexibility with Android and often better multitasking features. The new Microsoft Surface Pro Copilot+ PC is a different beast: it's a full Windows laptop in tablet form. If you need specific Windows apps or x86 software, the Surface is the way to go. The iPad Pro is for those who live in the Apple ecosystem and want the ultimate tablet experience.

Skip this if you're a casual user, a student on a budget, or someone who primarily needs a device for reading and media consumption. Its reading score is its weakest area at 75.9/100, and it's too expensive and heavy for those tasks. Also, if you need to run full desktop applications or prefer a traditional laptop OS, look at a MacBook Air or a Windows laptop like the Surface Pro instead. For reading and light use, a standard iPad or even an iPad Air is a much better value.

Should you buy this? If you're a professional artist, designer, or business user who needs the best portable screen and processor Apple makes, and you're okay with iPadOS's boundaries, then yes. This is the tablet to get. But if you're just a casual user, a student, or someone who needs longer battery life, it's overkill. The price is steep, and for many tasks, a cheaper iPad or even a laptop would serve you better. It's a specialist's tool, not a general consumer device.