There are a lot of Android phones on Amazon right now that cost more than this iPad. That is not a sentence that has historically been possible to write, and yet here we are. The Apple iPad 11-inch with A16 chip just hit a record low, down to $299, off its $349 standard price and the lowest this tablet has ever been sold for anywhere, with an 11-inch Liquid Retina display, 128GB storage, Wi-Fi 6, 12MP front and back cameras, Touch ID, and all-day battery life. No Prime membership required, and Apple’s official store is at $349.
An A16 chip in a tablet that now costs less than some phones that can’t match it
The A16 chip in the iPad 11-inch is the same generation Apple put in the iPhone 14 Pro, which was the fastest mobile chip available when it launched. In a tablet at $299, it sits alongside no-name Android tablets and phones at similar price points that use processors from manufacturers most people haven’t heard of, running Android builds that receive irregular updates, with app libraries that don’t include the million-plus apps designed specifically for iPad. The comparison is not close on any metric that matters for actual daily use, and the price is now the same conversation.
The 11-inch Liquid Retina display at 2360-by-1640-pixel resolution with True Tone delivers a viewing experience that phones at this price can’t match on screen size alone, before factoring in the color accuracy and brightness that the Liquid Retina panel produces. True Tone adjusts the display color temperature to match the ambient light in the room, which makes extended reading and video watching more comfortable than a fixed color temperature display that looks wrong under different lighting conditions.
The 12MP Center Stage front camera keeps the subject centered during video calls automatically, which is the feature that makes iPad video calls feel more natural than phone calls where the caller is constantly adjusting position to stay in frame. The 12MP rear camera handles document scanning and 4K video capture at quality that no-name tablets at this price don’t approach, and Touch ID in the top button handles authentication and Apple Pay without Face ID’s requirement for direct eye contact.
A record low that Apple’s own store hasn’t matched and probably won’t
Apple prices the iPad 11-inch at $349 and has not moved that number. The record low at $299 is the result of Apple’s authorized reseller pricing on Amazon during Prime Day, which Apple participates in as a seller without controlling the promotional pricing that emerges. For anyone who has been waiting for an iPad price that feels like a genuine deal rather than a minor markdown, $299 for an A16 iPad with an 11-inch Liquid Retina display and a million iPad-specific apps is the number that makes the wait worthwhile.
iPadOS runs multiple apps simultaneously, supports Apple Pencil for note-taking and drawing, and handles the full suite of productivity, creative, and entertainment apps that have made iPad the default tablet recommendation for people who actually use tablets rather than leaving them in a drawer. The Magic Keyboard Folio and Apple Pencil accessories transform the iPad 11-inch into a laptop alternative and a drawing canvas respectively, extending the use case well beyond what any no-name tablet at this price can support through its accessory ecosystem.