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M5 iPad Pro First Impressions
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I updated from a 256 M4 wifi only to a 256 M5, reason is I had a bad accident with my M4 I have, I have Apple care so I will flip it once exchanged. Since my mum died this year its been hard as I have no siblings so I treated myself, I don’t use cellular that much but I have my iPhone 16 Pro (Really don’t like the iPhone 17's this year) and a Samsung A15 5G bottom of the range running Android 16 as a emergency phone, but that battery is 5000 Mah and just lasts and lasts so that is my hotspot and works just fine and stops yet another cellular plan being needed. Being housebound to its not like I go out much so once again no need for cellular and another £200 for the privilege.
I bought a Zugu case for the M5 as I want more protection than the Apple folio provides but a stand that gives great angles for my art and Apple pro pencil. When you see your iPad tumble out of the folio as your cat lands in your wheelchair it is terrifying, I ended up with a dent on the corner and a chip in the glass. My A12X 3rd Gen Pro with 1TB is getting old and cant handle iOS 26 well and the battery is worn out so thats being flipped too, but I never dropped that one in 7 years, typical! Looking forward to the extra ram the M5 has and the faster SSD speeds as I store my art on a external SSD. I don’t need a powerhouse 10 core as I have a M4 Max studio with the non binned 16 core CPU and 40 core GPU which does me just fine.
I bought a Zugu case for the M5 as I want more protection than the Apple folio provides but a stand that gives great angles for my art and Apple pro pencil. When you see your iPad tumble out of the folio as your cat lands in your wheelchair it is terrifying, I ended up with a dent on the corner and a chip in the glass. My A12X 3rd Gen Pro with 1TB is getting old and cant handle iOS 26 well and the battery is worn out so thats being flipped too, but I never dropped that one in 7 years, typical! Looking forward to the extra ram the M5 has and the faster SSD speeds as I store my art on a external SSD. I don’t need a powerhouse 10 core as I have a M4 Max studio with the non binned 16 core CPU and 40 core GPU which does me just fine.
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Everyone knows what I mean. No matter which iPad anyone had before the M4, the screen on the M4 iPP is worth every cent.
You're not wrong there. They are exceptionally overpriced.
Yeah, and it’s an unfortunate thing for me that they did that because it makes my M2 feel older than what it is for no reason.
Just out of a mild curiosity, did they really take the iPad Pro logo off of the back of the M5? I thought that was kind of neat that they had that on there.
I would love an engineering iPP M3 13” sample. Would be super rare and sell for a lot. You know they likely made engineering samples.
Agree with you though. Screen is insane.
Price is also insane.
At 5:35 you say "the brand new Apple Pencil Pro" ... there's a new pencil? This iPad does not work with the pencil released last year?
"Modest performance boost" you say?
I'm upgrading my M4 Pros without regret. These updates are transformative to the iPad Pro experience.
The M5's AI performance outpaces the M4 by a factor of 3.5, showcasing a substantial leap in processing efficiency, particularly for on-device, diffusion-based image synthesis. Furthermore, the enhanced Neural Engine is optimized for superior energy efficiency compared to its predecessor, the M4.
Apple has placed a strong emphasis on the M5's capabilities in gaming and high-performance graphics. The M5 demonstrates a 1.5x improvement in 3D rendering with real-time ray tracing, a 6x acceleration in video transcoding, a 4x boost in AI-driven image generation, and up to a 3.7x increase in AI-assisted video upscaling. These performance gains highlight Apple’s continued leadership in AI and graphical computing workloads.
I'm upgrading my M4 Pros without regret. These updates are transformative to the iPad Pro experience.
I guess if you work with AI? But does anyone really, with an iPad? I suppose, what I'm saying is: Whatever you need to tell yourself to justify the cost.
Damn, I sold my old device to purchase the M5 through my carrier, only to find out it typically takes three months for them to sell it.
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Good video. Overall a very small upgrade. But those with older iPad with A series chip can definitely upgrade. No reason for M4 owners to upgrade and the main benefit for those upgrading from iPads with other M series chips will be the OLED display. Wish Apple makes the iPad Pro in other colors too.
There will be two kinds of people upgrading from recent iPads (especially the M4) to this new M5 model:
Those who genuinely benefit from the added performance and new features. The people who truly need them. There are very, very, very few of those people.
And then everyone else, who just wants a new toy or is upgrading because of FOMO.
If you’re in that second category, could you at least stop trying to justify the purchase as a necessity? It’s painful to listen to people desperately invent reasons why the M4 supposedly needs to be upgraded to the M5, when you never actually needed an M4 iPad in the first place. You want it? Fine.
In my opinion MacRumors is giving the right advice. If you don’t genuinely need it, then why drop two grand on it? Surely that money could be put to better use.
Of course, things keep getting faster and faster, while the M4 is already more than fast enough for mobile apps.
When the iPad Pro is attached to a keyboard, it should be able to run full-fledged apps, especially considering its high price.
When the iPad Pro is attached to a keyboard, it should be able to run full-fledged apps, especially considering its high price.
Just the fact that the OS and most software can’t tap on the powerful chip. You probably can’t tell a difference when you use a M5 vs M4, or even M3