Apple iPad Pro 11-inch (M2, 2022) review

Apple updated its iPad Pro line in October 2022 and while the design remained identical to the predecessors, both the 11-inch and 12.9-inch models got a big performance boost under their hoods, making them exceptionally powerful tablets.

The iPad Pro 11-inch has a little more competition than the larger 12.9-inch model however – much of which comes from Apple itself. The iPad Air (2022) drops slightly in power but is still a very capable tablet at a fraction of the cost of the iPad Pro 11-inch, and then you also have the regular iPad (10th generation) to consider too. Still, there are plenty of things to love about the iPad Pro 11-inch and if you’re looking for power and portability, this tablet has them in abundance.

Premium design

The Apple iPad Pro 11-inch is identical to the 2021 iPad Pro 11-inch, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. There is very little to complain about when it comes to the iPad Pro’s design and it’s difficult to see where Apple could really take it now, short of a complete redesign.

The edges of the iPad Pro 11-inch are flat, much like the rest of the iPad line-up. The Pros were the first models in the iPad portfolio to adopt the flat-edge design, but all the other models have now followed suit, so there is little to differentiate between the iPad (10th generation) and the iPad Pro 11-inch in terms of design. On first look anyway.

Look a little closer and you’ll notice that the iPad Pro 11-inch has a square camera housing on the rear that encompasses a dual camera system, along with a LiDAR sensor, while the front sees the front camera and Face ID sensors packed into the uniformed bezels surrounding the screen. These two features mark two of the biggest differentiators compared to the iPad Air and cheaper iPad (10th generation). In use, it’s Face ID that brings the most value in my opinion, from unlocking to authenticating Apple Pay payments.

The power button sits on the top of the iPad Pro 11-inch when it’s in vertical format, and the volume buttons sit on the right edge. Unlike the iPad (10th generation) that launched at the same time however, the iPad Pro 11-inch didn’t move the front camera into a landscape position. It doesn’t affect things too much – Face ID still works fine, as do video calls – but a landscape position does make more sense, especially when you’re using the Magic Keyboard.

Speaking of the Magic Keyboard, this snaps on to the Smart Connector that is positioned at the bottom of the iPad on the rear and it delivers a lovely typing experience. Elsewhere, there are speakers either side when held horizontally and a USB-C port at the bottom for charging.

The iPad Pro 11-inch comes in Space Grey and Silver colour options so it’s a little more serious than the iPad Air and the iPad (10th generation) but this is a tablet that’s more serious in terms of its capabilities too. Its slim and slender build makes it lovely and light to hold – even one-handed – and it oozes quality from every angle. Many other tablets on the market opt for aluminium as their material of choice now, but none are quite as refined as the iPad.

Lovely display, though not mini-LED

The Apple iPad Pro 11-inch has a lovely display – something all iPads offer to be honest. There’s a Liquid Retina screen here, and as the name of this model suggests, it’s an 11-inch display, which is around the same size as the iPad Air and the iPad (10th generation), both of which have a 10.9-inch screen.

Eagle-eyed readers will notice that the iPad Pro 12.9-inch has an XDR display – or a mini-LED display as it may be more commonly known. The iPad Pro 11-inch doesn’t offer this, and while its display is still excellent, it’s not as bright or glorious as the iPad Pro 12.9-inch so if you want the best display Apple offers, it’s the larger Pro model you’ll want.

Still, as I said, the iPad Pro 11-inch has a great display. There’s a 2388 x 1688 pixel resolution on board, which delivers a pixel density of 264ppi – the same as the iPad Air. You also get a lot of the same technology, with a P3 wide colour gamut, True Tone and an anti-reflective coating. I find True Tone makes everything a little yellow so it’s not my favourite, but the anti-reflective coating makes a big difference in use – especially when using the iPad Pro 11-inch outside, or if you have a window behind you. It’s a feature I really noticed missing when I reviewed the iPad (10th generation). There’s also a fingerprint coating, which also helps compared to the iPad (10th generation), though you’re still going to get prints on the screen seeing as you’re talking about a large touchscreen device here.

In addition to the display features offered on the cheaper iPad Air however, the iPad Pro 11-inch also has ProMotion technology. This allows it to deliver an adaptable refresh rate between 1Hz and 120Hz, depending on what you are doing. It’s possible you wouldn’t notice this unless you had a regular iPad model without ProMotion side-by-side, but the technology does make for very smooth scrolling and an overall excellent experience.

Superb performance

The iPad Pro 11-inch runs the M2 chip and it offers an abundance of power – probably more than what most people will need. It’s the same chip that you’ll find in the latest Apple MacBook Air with an 8-core CPU with four performance cores and four efficiency cores, and a 10-core GPU and there’s 100GB/s of memory bandwidth too.

Everything I threw at the iPad Pro 11-inch was handled without breaking a sweat. It’s an exceptionally powerful tablet, running day-to-day tasks as well as more intensive ones with ease. Opening apps and switching between them is lightning fast but the iPad Pro 11-inch is more than capable when it comes to editing multiple RAW files at once, dealing with 4K video and drawing with the Apple Pencil too.

I had a smooth and consistent experience no matter what I was doing on the iPad Pro 11-inch, from photo editing and designing in Photoshop to drawing in Procreate. You’ll be able to load, edit, import, and save large files with no issue. Photoshop is a power hungry app but the iPad Pro 11-inch allowed me to do what I needed without any hint of a struggle. I was able to work as fluidly as I do on my MacBook Air, and in fact, you get an even better experience if you have the Apple Pencil as there are a few useful tricks you can do to perform multiple functions with the Apple Pencil and your finger quickly rather than having to switch tools. There’s also the Apple Pencil Hover feature that’s great in use, offering a preview of various things such as your brush stroke or the app you’re about to select.

Playing Mario Kart Tour was a great experience with no lag, while watching movies is genuinely fantastic. The speakers on the iPad Pro 11-inch offer an excellent rounded performance, but if you have AirPods Pro or AirPods (3rd generation) and you’re watching compatible content, you also get the benefit of Spatial Audio and Personalised Spatial Audio, which is a lot better than you might expect.

Like the larger model, the iPad Pro 11-inch comes in multiple storage options. It starts at 128GB and goes up to 2TB. At the lower storage models up to 512GB, you’ll get 8GB of RAM, while the 1TB and 2TB models have 16GB of RAM. I have the 2TB model in for review so the RAM is double that of the lower storage models, and that will of course help with loading apps and the general experience overall. I suspect it’s unlikely you would experience lag in the lower storage models however as they are still running on the same chipset and more than capable at handling the majority of things you would throw at a tablet.

In addition to the chip upgrade that the iPad Pro 11-inch (2022) has compared to its predecessor, support for Wi-Fi 6E has been introduced. You will need a Wi-Fi 6E compatible router to be able to take advantage of this so that’s worth keeping in mind. The iPad Pro 11-inch can also be selected in Wi-Fi & Cellular models and these models support 5G. The price of this already expensive tablet goes up considerably once you start talking about higher storage and LTE options however so keep that in mind.

In terms of camera capabilities, the iPad Pro 11-inch has the same setup as the previous model and image results are good from both the front and rear cameras. I would have liked to have seen the front camera move into the landscape position like the iPad (10th generation) as I mentioned, and I’d recommend using an iPhone 15 Pro to take photos if you want the best results rather than an iPad. That said, if you need to snap a shot of a document and send it, an image to annotate, or take part in a FaceTime call or video meeting, then the iPad Pro 11-inch’s offering in the camera department is more than qualified for the job.

Battery life

The iPad Pro 11-inch promises the same battery life as the other models in the company’s line-up. They all claim to offer up to 10 hours of continuous video streaming, though I wouldn’t say the iPad Pro 11-inch has the best battery life of the portfolio. The iPad (10th generation) and iPad Air (2022) both offer better performance than this model. Editing photos and drawing will deplete the battery more than streaming too, as will writing with the Magic Keyboard attached.

In terms of video streaming, I was on track for around 8 hours. I streamed Bohemian Rhapsody through the Apple TV app with the display on full brightness and it used around 30 per cent battery for the 2 hour 15 minute film. If you watch downloaded content, you would use less battery, and the same applies if you drop the screen brightness down, which you might do when travelling for example, though this does reduce the experience slightly.

I wrote this entire review on the iPad Pro 11-inch with the Magic Keyboard attached and the battery dropped by around 20 per cent every hour, like the larger iPad Pro 12.9-inch model. It means I got between 5 and 6 hours of writing time before I needed to top it up. This isn’t awful, but it doesn’t come close to the 13-inch MacBook Air (M2, 2022) that continuously sees me through 11 hour flights typing the entire time and only using 50 per cent battery.

Overall, the battery on the iPad Pro 11-inch is decent enough for a tablet, but depending on the type of user you are – and that’s probably a heavy one given you’re looking at this model, it’s probably unlikely to get you through an entire working day and commute without needing a top-up.

iPadOS 17 software

The iPad Pro 11-inch launched on iPadOS 16, though it was upgraded to iPadOS 17 in September, bringing a few new features with it. The new software is about refinement rather than a complete overhaul, but there are some good enhancements that make a difference to how you can use iPad to get more out of it, and some good ones also came with iPadOS 16.

For example, iPadOS 17 enables you to annotate and fill out a PDF using the Notes app and you can link related Notes together too, both of which cater towards productivity. Stage Manager – a feature that launched with iPadOS 16 – also gets some much-needed improvements, with a lot more flexibility than the feature initially launched with, so it’s now possible to resize windows and move them around to where you want them.

Elsewhere, there are interactive widgets now so you can tick off a reminder in the Reminders widget for example rather than having to open the app, and there are also enhancements to Messages, Siri and the Health app comes to iPad for the first time. There’s plenty to play with, and overall, the experience is lovely.

There remain limitations compared to macOS, and in my experience, things do take a little longer with an extra step required in many cases so I won’t be giving up my Mac just yet for an all iPad Pro working on the move setup. For the most part however, the iPadOS software offers a fluid and decent experience that especially comes to life if you have other Apple products. Being able to use an iPad as an additional screen to a Mac is super handy for example, and Continuity is excellent with iPad, Mac, iPhone and AirPods all talking to each other seamlessly.

Verdict

The Apple iPad Pro 11-inch is an excellent tablet, there’s no denying that. It offers a wonderfully premium design, a lovely display, more power than many will know what to do with and there is very little to complain about on the whole.

It is expensive however, and you don’t get very much storage for that base price either. It also has some serious competition from its own team, with the iPad Air an incredible tablet for its price, making the Pro upgrade tricky to justify, especially when you consider it doesn’t get the same mini-LED display tech as the larger 12.9-inch model.

For design, power and portability, the iPad Pro 11-inch is an exceptional tablet and if you want a Pro model at this size, you won’t be disappointed. Despite its brilliance however, the iPad Pro 11-inch is a very hard sell. The iPad Air is significantly cheaper whilst bringing a decent amount of power, and the 12.9-inch iPad Pro is bigger and better in a couple of areas, so you need to really want that extra power and Face ID over the Air to justify this model.

Apple / Pocket-lint

Apple iPad Pro 11-inch (2022)

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