Apple iPad Pro 11" 11-inch (M5) Space Black

The M5 iPad Pro packs a standout 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage, but its CPU and GPU scores are surprisingly low, landing in the 37th and 39th percentiles. It's a creative workhorse for art and design, but the disappointing battery life and screen quality are hard to ignore. This is a niche pro tool, not a performance champion.

The M5 chip is a weird beast in our testing. It's not topping our charts for raw compute, sitting well below average for CPU grunt and even further behind for graphics. But that doesn't mean it feels slow. For the workflows this thing is built for, like art and design where it scored a 51.8 out of 100, it absolutely flies. The 16GB of RAM is a standout, putting it in the 88th percentile and letting you juggle massive Photoshop layers or 4K video timelines without a hiccup. The real star is the Neural Engine. Apple's on-device AI tasks run with a snappiness that synthetic benchmarks don't capture, making features in iPadOS 26 feel instant. Just don't expect it to out-muscle a dedicated gaming laptop in raw frame rates.

Stacked against the Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra, the iPad Pro gives up a lot of ground in raw screen quality and battery life, two areas where Samsung's giant excels. The Microsoft Surface Pro 11th Edition is the direct rival for a laptop replacement, and it will outpace the M5 in traditional CPU and GPU tasks, making it a better pick for pure number-crunching. The Xiaomi Pad 7 Pro is the value dark horse, likely offering a much better screen and battery experience for a lot less cash, though it can't touch the iPad's app ecosystem. The iPad Pro wins on RAM and storage capacity, but it's a trade-off against core performance and endurance.

At $1099, the value proposition is tough to nail down without a direct price-to-performance ratio against its own category. You're not paying for chart-topping CPU or GPU benchmarks. You're paying for the seamless integration of that 16GB of RAM, the fast storage, and the iPadOS ecosystem. If your workflow lives inside Apple's pro apps and you need the Apple Pencil Pro, the price makes sense. If you're just looking for the fastest silicon for the dollar, you can get more raw power elsewhere for less.

The new iPad Pro with the M5 chip is a bit of a puzzle. On paper, it's a spec monster with 16GB of RAM and a 512GB storage floor that lands it in the 90th percentile for capacity. That's a ton of headroom for pro apps and massive creative files. But when we look at our benchmark database, the raw CPU and GPU scores tell a different story, landing in the 37th and 39th percentiles respectively. It's fast, sure, but it's not the absolute performance king its price tag might suggest. The real magic here is the software and accessory ecosystem, which is where this slab of glass and aluminum comes alive.

If your work involves long stretches away from a power outlet, you should absolutely skip this. The battery life is a real weak spot, ranking in the 31st percentile. Anyone who needs top-tier CPU or GPU performance for tasks like 3D rendering or gaming will also be disappointed by the below-average scores. And if you're mainly reading or consuming content, the poor reading score and low screen ranking make this a very expensive and subpar choice for that.

This iPad Pro is a specialized tool that excels in a narrow band of creative work. The 16GB of RAM and fast storage make it a multitasking beast for art and design, but the below-average CPU, GPU, and battery life mean it's not the all-around powerhouse the 'Pro' name implies. Buy it for the Apple Pencil and iPadOS, not for benchmark bragging rights.