iPad (10th gen)

The new iPad finally takes Apple's base model tablet into the future. Or at least the present. The large bezels, ancient Home button and Lightning port are gone, replaced with larger 10.9-inch display that nearly goes edge-to-edge, a power button with Touch ID built in and USB-C charging.

Measuring 9.79 x 7.07 x 0.28 inches and weighing 1.05 pounds (1.05 pounds for cellular), the iPad (10th gen) is thinner and lighter than the iPad (9th gen), with a pretty funcky color palette to choose from.

Standart storage on the entry price model is just 64GB, as with the previous iPad, which is a bit low these days. For $599 (Wi-Fi model) you can upgrade to 256GB - pricey.

The 10.9-inch display on the new iPad won't blow you away, but it's good for the price. Its 500-nit brightness level is decent enough, but you may have a little difficulty in direct sunlight. By comparision, the new iPad Pro hits a much higher 1,600 nits, but it's much more expensive. In terms of colors, the iPad's display covered 101.2% of the sRGB color gamut and 71.7% of the more demanding DCI-P3 color space. The iPad Air's hit a higher 111.8% and 79.2%, respectively.

It's a kind of magic

The Magic Keyboard Folio for the iPad is an excellente additional accessory to buy if you want your iPad to double as a pd\seudo MacBook. While expensive at $249, the keys offer a good 1mm of travel and snappy feedback. However, some of the keys are shrunken on this layout given the overall small size of the tablet, including the Return and Delete keys. Another plus is that there's a 14-key function row at the top of the keyboard, so you can easily see all your open apps at once as well as adjust the brightness and volume.

The Magic Keyboard Folio comes with a kickstand that's easy to adjust, and typing is fairly stable even with the iPad in your lap, though it does bounce about a bit. The protective back panel attaches magnetically to the iPad. You can also remove the keyboard if you simply want to use the back panel as a stand for, say, watching a movie.

Pencil Problem

For a company that prides itself on smart design, the Apple Pencil support (or lack thereof) is a real head scratcher. OK, so if you buy the iPad (10th gen), the Apple Pencil (2nd gen) won't work. If you want to able to draw, takes notes and more on this iPad you'll have to get the $99 Apple Pencil (1st gen). Odd? You betcha. And the weirdness doesn't end there. First, there's nowhere to house the Apple Pencil when it's not in use. The iPad Air and iPad Pro let you magnetically attach the Apple Pencil (2nd gen) to the top flat edge of their chassis for easy storage, and they both charge the Apple Pencil while connected. In addition, the removable cap on the Apple Pencil (1st gen) is easy to lose.

It gets worse. in order to pair and charge the Apple Pencil (1st gen), you need to use a separate USB-C to Apple Pencil adapter. And that's because the old Apple Pencil still uses the outdatedLightning connector instead of USB-C. The good news is taht Applewill include this mini dongle if you buy the Apple Pencil (1st gen). The bad news is that this awkward solution is needed at all. It would have been much easier if Apple simply would have added Apple Pencil (2nd gen) support to the iPad (10th gen).

Entry-Level Upgrade

No surprise here. The A14 Bionic chip that powers the iPad (10th gen) is planty fast - and it should be given that this is the same proccesor inside iPhone 12. When playing a game like Genshin Impact, the animations were fluid and the iPad held up well even in demending scenes.

On Geekbench 5, which measures overall performance, the iPad scored 1,580 on single-core and 4,400 on multu-core, which is a marked improvement over the 1,384 and 3,387 turned in by the iPad (9th gen). However, the iPad Air with its M1 chip scored a much higher 1,707/7,151.

Turning to graphics, the iPad (10th gen) scored 8,579 and 51.4 frames per second on the 3DMark Wild Life test. Compare that to 8,000 and 47.9 fps for the iPad (9th gen). So you're getting a slight graphics bump here. The iPad Air, not surprisingly, earned a higher 17,966 and 107 fps.

Our review unit came with a 5G cellular connection for Verizon, so we tried it out on the Ookla Speedtest app. Near central New Jersey, we saw only 38 Mbps downloads and 4.09 Mbps uploads, but downloads exceeded 100 Mbps in midtown Manhattan. 5G performance really depends on your location and signal strength.

Sharper Snapper

The iPad (10th gen) packs an upgraded rear camera, going from 8MP on the previous model to 12MP on the new version. And the 12MP front camera gets a welcome shift from the top edge to the long edge, which makes for more natural video calls in landscape mode, especially when your iPad is docked in the Magic Keyboard Folio.

The rear main 12MP camera is a mixed bag. Outdoors, it captures images that look bright an colorful. Inddors, it fares well when there's a decent amount of ambient light, but there's some graininess in lower light photos. You can forget about Night mode, because there isn't one. And there's no flash either.

Up front the iPad features a 12MP camera with a new landscape location above the long edge of the display. This makes the iPad better for video calling. Even in a dimly lit room the iPad delivered a fairly sharp image, albeit with some noise. The iPad is smart enough to light up the display. too, which doubles as a pseudo flash.

The iPad (10th gen) should last you most of the day on a charge, so you can probably leave the included 20W charger behind. In testing we easily saw 10 hours from the battery with a combination of web surfing and watching video, which is what Apple claims. The iPad (9th gen) also boasts the same amount of battery life. We're glad that the new iPad offers USB-C charging, as it did result in faster recharge times in our testing versus the previous model. The new iPad got to 26% in 30 minutes, compared to 19% for the Lightning-equipped iPad (9th gen).

Let's rip off the Band-Aid here and remind shoppers that the new iPad (10th gen) does not support the flagship feature of iPadOS 16: Stage Manager, which makes it easier to multitask by putting your recently used app on the left of the display. It does, however, work on the latest iPad Air or iPad Pro.

The iPad (10th gen) is a tablet that looks and feels new, and that's a welcome change over the last few iterations. However, $449 is a lot of money to spend on what is effectively the "entry-level" model. Yes, Apple is keeping the $329 iPad (9th gen) around, but it still stings to see a $120 jump from one generation to the next. The bigger issue is with the Apple Pencil situation: the difficulty in charging is a bit of dealbreaker, and there's nowhere to store it when not in use. If that matters to you, then nay we suggest you spring for the pricier $599 iPad Air. It supports the newer Apple Pencil (2nd gen) that attaches to the tablet for staorage and charging. You also get the faster M1 chip, and it supports the new Stage Manager multitasking feature.

Price: From $449

Almost everything you want in an entry-level iPad, but with a couple of downsides.