Once again, the rumors were true (if not entirely specific), and over at Apple’s media event the company announced a refreshed iPad Pro lineup, complete with OLED displays, an M4 chip, and a thinner case. Other new features
The updated iPad Pro tablets are available in 11-inch and 13-inch sizes and are slightly thinner and lighter than previous generations. The devices measure in 5.3mm and 5.1mm thin, which is thinner than Apple’s iPod nano. Apple says it is the thinnest device the company has ever shipped. Apple has also switched over from OLED, which is now available in two layers, the tandem OLED displays offering improved brightness.
OLED is a self-illuminating display technology that doesn’t require backlighting, helping reduce the thickness of the tablets. It also offers higher levels of contrast, brighter pictures, and more accurate colors compared to traditional TFT LED screens. The new iPad Pro now offers 1,000 nits of brightness for SDR and HDR content. It has 1,600 nit peak brightness for HDR content. A nano texture option is also available.
Perhaps the most surprising move, the company has included its new M4 chip, which features four performance a six efficiency cores. The M4 has a 10-core GPU with hardware-accelerated ray tracing and mesh mapping. It enables more powerful pro apps and high-end game rendering. The new neural engine can perform 38 trillion operations per second, 60x faster than the first A11 chip.
Other new changes include a Wide Camera, which offers a 12-megapixel resolution. Apple once again included a LiDAR sensor in the camera bump.
The TrueDepth camera at the front uses a 12MP Ultra Wide camera with a 122-degree field of view and depth mapping capabilities. It has been moved to the landscape side of the iPad, though this doesn’t interfere with Apple Pencil charging.
Both the 11-inch and 13-inch configurations are available in 256GB, 512GB, 1TB, and 2TB configurations. Nano texture glass is also available and adds $100 to the total.
The 11-inch iPad Pro starts at $999, and the 13-inch iPad Pro starts at $1,299, with another $200 per unit for the cellular modem option.
Pre-orders started May 7 and initial shipments will arrive on May 15.
Stay tuned for additional details as they become available.
Via AppleInsider and Apple