M5 iPad Pro is here — price, release date, specs and all the upgrades

iPad Pro M5 on a blue background — (Image credit: Apple)

The iPad Pro M5 is here, and considering the power of its next-gen chip, it’s already looking to top our list of best iPads and best tablets you can grab.

Apple announced its latest iPad Pro with an M5 chip, delivering faster performance, an upgraded 12GB of RAM, Wi-Fi 7 support and its signature (and gorgeous) OLED display. All of this aims to take advantage of the latest iPadOS 26 and Apple Intelligence features.

Don’t expect a major design overhaul, as it matches the look and feel of the iPad Pro M4, but do expect a jump in performance thanks to its M5 chip and more RAM, and even better connectivity with its Wi-Fi 7 connectivity.

Even better, it comes in at the same price as its predecessor. The M5 iPad Pro will be available from $999 for the 11-inch tablet and $1,299 for the 13-inch model, all boasting the power of M5.

Apple’s latest iPad Pro is available to pre-order today on Apple's website and is set to be on shelves on October 22. For now, here’s all you need to know about the M5-equipped iPad Pro.

M5 iPad Pro specs

Here's what you can expect from Apple's M5 iPad Pro, along with how it compares to its previous M4-equipped predecessor. As you'll find, not much has changed, but the M5 processor is the real star of the show.

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Header Cell - Column 0	iPad Pro (M5)	iPad Pro (M4)
Price	from $999	from $1,299
Display	11-inch Tandem OLED (2420 x 1668 pixels) / 13-inch Tandem OLED (2752 x 2064 pixels)	11-inch Tandem OLED (2420 x 1668 pixels) / 13-inch Tandem OLED (2752 x 2064 pixels)
Colors	Silver, Space Black	Silver, Space Black
Chip	M5 (9-10 CPU cores, 10 GPU cores)	M4 (9-10 CPU cores, 10 GPU cores)
RAM	From 12GB	From 8GB
Storage	256GB, 512GB, 1TB, 2TB	256GB, 512GB, 1TB, 2TB
Cameras	12MP front landscape, 12MP rear	12MP front landscape, 12MP rear
Wireless	Wi-Fi 7, 5G	Wi-Fi 6E, 5G
Size	9.83 x 6.99 x 0.21 inches (11-inch) / 11.09 x 8.48 x 0.2 inches (13-inch)	9.83 x 6.99 x 0.21 inches (11-inch) / 11.09 x 8.48 x 0.2 inches (13-inch)
Weight	0.98 pounds (11-inch) / 1.28 pounds (13-inch)	0.98 pounds (11-inch) / 1.28 pounds (13-inch)

iPad Pro M5: What's new?

It's been a long time coming, but the M5 iPad Pro has finally arrived. Similar to the iPad Air M3, this is a smaller update over its predecessor, but the changes made are more than welcome.

The star of the show is Apple's M5 chip, based on an advanced 3nm process for faster performance, better power efficiency and, most impressively, a boost in graphics processing for rendering tasks (and gaming).

It's expected to see an upgrade of around 15% to 25% in AI performance over M4, along with a major uplift in graphics with its 10-core GPU compared to the M4's GPU. As Apple states, it "introduces a new architecture with a Neural Accelerator in each core, resulting in a massive boost in GPU performance for AI workloads." We'll have to see how the M5 performs in our lab tests, but it's already looking promising.

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Interestingly, Apple also claims the iPad Pro M5 will see faster read and write speeds for storage, with over 150GB/s of unified memory bandwidth. This is a 30% increase over the previous M4 model, and is expected to have 2x faster storage read and write speeds. Even better, the 256GB and 512GB storage models now come with an increased 12GB of RAM!

Another major upgrade is Wi-Fi 7. With Apple's previous Pro tablet supporting Wi-Fi 6E, you can get 9 gigabits per second (Gbps) speeds. Moving to Wi-Fi 7 will give you a maximum of 46 Gbps, along with compatibility with the new 6 GHz band you’re seeing in a lot of the best Wi-Fi 7 routers being sold today.

The base model comes with 256GB for storage and features 12GB of RAM, an upgrade over the 8GB in the M4 version. As usual, you can also expect 256GB, 512GB, 1TB, and 2TB storage models, too.

Otherwise, both the 11-inch and 13-inch M5 iPad Pro models come with the same design, including the gorgeous OLED Ultra Retina XDR displays, which feature ProMotion for an adaptive 120Hz refresh rate.

We can't wait to test the new M5 iPad Pro, so keep watch for our review once we get our hands on it. That's not all Apple had up its sleeve, as the M5 MacBook Pro also made its big debut.

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Darragh is Tom’s Guide’s Computing Editor and is fascinated by all things bizarre in tech. His work can be seen in Laptop Mag, Mashable, Android Police, Shortlist Dubai, Proton, theBit.nz, ReviewsFire and more. When he's not checking out the latest devices and all things computing, he can be found going for dreaded long runs, watching terrible shark movies and trying to find time to game

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