The M5 iPad Pro just came out, but you can already get $50 off in surprise early Black Friday deal

On October 22nd, Apple launched the M5 iPad Pro. Now, just a few days later, you can already get $50 off. That's a pretty quick turnaround for the first discount on this excellent Apple tablet.

Right now you can get the 11-inch Pad Pro for $949 at Amazon. Let me take you through who should buy it, and why this is an absolutely worthwhile deal ahead of Black Friday.

Save $50

Apple 11" iPad Pro (WiFi/256GB): was $999 now $949 at Amazon

The 11-inch iPad Pro packs Apple's latest M5 processor paired with a stunning 11-inch Tandem OLED (2420 x 1668) display. The new M5 chip features 9 CPU cores and 10 GPU cores — each with their own AI accelerator that makes this a monster for tackling intensive tasks.

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Who should buy the M5 iPad Pro?

Here's who should and shouldn’t buy the iPad Pro.

Buy it if:

• You’re a creative enthusiast/pro: The M5 chip in here, huge range of creator apps and the color accuracy of that display makes this a stunner of a system for creators.
• You’re a screen snob: Apple calls it the Ultra Retina XDR display, and that means a Tandem OLED screen with a crispy resolution and a flood of colors. It’s uber bright and utterly mesmerizing. Anything looks incredible on this panel.
• You’re looking for a legitimate laptop replacement: iPadOS 26 is really starting to copy macOS’ homework in terms of window management and multitasking — to the point that you can properly do some laptop-style workflows here.

Don’t buy it if:

• You already have an M4 iPad Pro: The performance gains of the M5 chip are clear in our benchmarking tables, but that M4 chip you have is still capable of amazing things — it’s not worth spending an extra $950 on.
• You just want a content consumption tablet: Yes, that screen is tasty but the specs and the price are way over the top for your use case. I’d point you towards either the M3 iPad Air ($50 off) or the iPad Air with A16 (also $50 off).

Why this is the best tablet money can buy

As Tony put in his iPad Pro M5 review, Apple has raised the bar again in performance and power efficiency in an ultra thin tablet. Over the M4 iPad Pro, the updates are definitely more iterative — a generational jump in chipset, Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6, etc. But the magic of this device is when it all comes together.

For creators, the M5 iPad Pro is a gorgeous, ultraportable and ultra powerful canvas for your work. The Ultra Retina XDR OLED panel delivers stunning image quality with confidence-inspiring color accuracy. Plus, games look utterly incredible here and run so smoothly on that M5 GPU.

And the power efficiency gives you truly worry-free battery life. In testing the 13-inch M5 iPad Pro, we saw it last well over 13 hours.

Of course, we're talking about the 11-inch being on sale here, so let's do some math. The difference between the 13-inch and 11-inch M3 iPad Air is roughly 90 minutes, so it's fair to predict that the smaller M5 iPad Pro will run for around 11 hours.

Whether you’re loading it with content to watch/play for a long flight, or you’re connecting a keyboard to get stuff done, Apple is truly on another level when it comes to managing that battery life and keeping you going for a long time on one charge.

Then the software smarts of iPadOS 26 come into the fray. Instead of trying to keep its UI as far away from macOS as possible, Apple is starting to really take some of its desktop UI learnings and put them into its tablet environment. That means real window management, real multitasking, mouse optimization and more. It makes the iPad a device that could replace a laptop for plenty of people.

Unsurprisingly, the most powerful iPad is the best iPad you can buy, but the main sticking point is always the price-to-performance. With $50 off, this becomes that little bit more affordable for the prosumer crowd!

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More from Tom's Guide

• Does the M5 MacBook Pro prove Apple is ready for serious gaming? I put it to the test
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