When the best tablet in the Apple fleet makes a $250 price move, that’s a newsworthy event. Even if the 17% discount on the 13-inch M5 iPad Pro that’s currently running at Amazon doesn’t look as impressive as the big 30% and 40% deals on competing tablets, the bottom line is it’s $250 off the price of what might be the best tablet of them all.
Apple loaded its newest flagship tablet with all of the essentials — Wi-Fi 7, dedicated Neural Accelerators to run AI on-device instead of in the cloud, and the M5 processor and N1 networking chip working side-by-side to deliver truly elite performance. It’s all shown on the industry-best Ultra Retina XDR display, with a stellar camera set for work and play. The new Amazon price of $1,249 suddenly looks a lot smaller once you read through the full list of features.
Best Networking Setup Ever
Wi-Fi 7 support alone would be an appealing feature. Apple’s addition of the N1 networking chip alongside Wi-Fi 7 is less routine. The N1 is a dedicated co-processor handling wireless performance independently from the M5, which means network efficiency doesn’t compete with application performance for chip overhead. Apple’s creation results in faster, more consistent wireless speeds for large file transfers — think photos, ProRes video, graphics-heavy documents — without taxing the main processor. For a device increasingly positioned as a laptop replacement, the underlying network architecture matters more than the spec sheet suggests.
The visuals are, of course, peerless. Apple’s Liquid Glass design backed by iPadOS 26 features a new windowing system that lets apps run in resizable, overlapping windows rather than the fixed split-view layout iPadOS has used for years. That’s a huge change for workflow management on a 13-inch screen with this much processing power behind it. The Ultra Retina XDR display supports ProMotion adaptive refresh, P3 wide color, and True Tone, which is the same panel technology Apple uses in the MacBook Pro.
Say Cheese
The 12MP front camera is positioned in landscape orientation, which finally makes video calls feel natural when the iPad is on a stand or keyboard folio rather than held vertically. The 12MP wide back camera includes a LiDAR scanner for augmented reality and improved autofocus in low light. Four studio-quality microphones and a four-speaker audio system are on board. Face ID handles authentication.
To truly enjoy the full power of the M5 iPad Pro, adding the Apple Pencil Pro and Magic Keyboard for iPad Pro are recommended, even at the cost of an additional $250 to $350. Even if you go all-in with the accessories on top of this Amazon deal offering the iPad Pro for $1,249, the overall value is nearly impossible to beat.