What's the Best iPad for You?

Here in mid-2024, Apple’s entry-level iPad still provides the most bang for your buck, especially when you factor in the price cut from $450 to $350 and the number of high-quality apps and services available for the iPad operating system. 

The model in our ratings has a 10.9-inch display and 64GB of storage (you can pay for more), and it records HD video (though the cameras don’t score quite as well as those on other iPads). In our web-browsing test, the device delivers 9 hours of battery life; in our video test, it delivers 13.4 hours of battery life.

Price drop aside, though, the iPad is still pricey compared with many other tablets. If you’re simply looking for a tablet that lets you roam the web and watch the occasional Netflix show, it might make sense to consider an option from Amazon’s Kindle Fire line, where around $120 will get you the 10-inch, 32 GB Amazon Fire HD 10. An 8-inch model costs $100.

The iPad Pro is a machine for power users, and it delivers the level of performance you’d expect from a high-end laptop.

It will probably be a few weeks before we fully test the new model, so technically, we can’t recommend it yet. But we can talk about what makes the outgoing model (released in 2022) so appealing, especially if you find it listed at a sale price.

Powered by the M2, the 2022 12.9-inch Pro uses a display technology called Mini LED that produces more vibrant images and better contrast than what’s possible with traditional LCD tech. (Read more about Mini LED.) It also has a lightning-fast refresh rate, which makes the animations in everything from video games to simply scrolling around iPadOS look smoother. 

Add an exceptional camera and very good battery life of almost 9 hours for web browsing (14 hours for video viewing), and you’re looking at the tablet to beat.

The Pro also supports Apple’s Smart Keyboard cover (allowing you to use a physical keyboard without needing to charge or pair it via Bluetooth) and the Magic Keyboard, which features a cantilevered design that lets you raise and lower the screen to get a better viewing angle.

The iPad Air is somewhat like the midlevel trim of a car: better equipped than the entry-level model but not quite high-end. For that reason, the iPad Air is a good choice for someone who wants a nicer experience than what they would get with a plain old iPad but without paying iPad Pro prices for the best of the best.

Again, it’ll be a few weeks before we have test results on the new iPad Air, but the previous model certainly impressed our testers and it’s likely to go on sale in the days ahead. 

Powered by the M1, the earlier model has very good performance for even the most demanding tasks (like, say, editing video in apps like iMovie), though it’s perhaps overkill if you’re merely watching “Ted Lasso.” It has a fully laminated LCD display, producing clearer images than the entry-level iPad but not as whiz-bang-wow as the Mini LED display of the 12.9-inch iPad Pro (nor does it have the ProMotion high refresh rate). Battery life of around 7 hours while browsing the web is less than what you’d find on both the entry-level and Pro models.

We suspect that the 2024 iPad Air will be more of the same, albeit with the option for a 13-inch display this time around.

Although it’s a few years old, Apple’s 2021 iPad Mini is still our top pick for those who wish to travel light. (The Kindle Fire is another good choice if you don’t mind stepping outside the Apple ecosystem.)

The 8.3-inch iPad Mini has a bright, sharp display with a large viewing angle, meaning you don’t need to hold it directly in front of your face to see it clearly. Doing things like browsing the web and watching movies is smooth and stutter-free. The battery life is impressive, too. Our testers clocked it at 10.7 hours for web browsing and 12.4 hours for movie playback. Other attractive features include a USB-C port, solid cameras, and optional 5G compatibility.

The smaller size and lighter weight (just 0.6 pound vs. 1 pound for the iPad Air and the 11-inch iPad Pro, and 1.1 pounds for the regular iPad) make the tablet easier to hold for extended periods of time.

Every year Consumer Reports tests tablets from top brands like Amazon, Apple, and Samsung. The goal is to help you pick the right tablet for your needs and budget.

We rate tablets across a range of criteria including performance, display quality, and predicted reliability. They’re scored on an ascending scale of 1 to 5, making them easy to compare and contrast with other models. A display with a score of 5, for example, is one that’s sharp, gets bright enough to view in direct sunlight, and can accurately display colors. And a tablet with a performance score of 5 can easily handle demanding tasks like editing video or playing high-end video games.

We also subject tablets to rigorous battery testing, spread across three separate trials. One measures how long the tablet stays powered while cycling through a series of web pages, which is meant to simulate what casual usage of the tablet is like, while a second measures how long the battery lasts while screening a video running on a loop. Finally, we see how long a tablet runs after being charged for just 30 minutes.