Apple has announced a new iPad Pro equipped with in-house-designed M1 chip and a 12.9-inch Liquid Retina XDR display, and has also unveiled an 11-inch model.

The new iPad Pros support 5G wireless connectivity and features Thunderbolt, plus a new ultrawide front camera that enables Center Stage, a new feature that automatically keeps users framed for video calls.

The 8-core CPU design of the M1 chip is able to deliver up to 50% faster performance than the A12Z Bionic, according to Apple. The 8-core GPU is also able to deliver up to 40% faster GPU performance. The device also comes with a next-generation 16-core Apple Neural Engine, an advanced image signal processor (ISP), a unified, high-bandwidth memory architecture with up to 16GB of memory, 2x faster storage, and up to 2TB capacity.

The power efficiency of M1 enables all-day battery life in the thin and light design of the iPad Pros. Because M1 shares the same fundamental architecture of A-series chips, iPadOS is already optimized to take full advantage of the powerful technologies in M1 to easily handle tasks from simple navigation to the most demanding workflows, said Apple.

Engineered with a new cutting-edge miniLED design that uses over 10,000 LEDs across the entire back of the display, the Liquid Retina XDR display features up to 1,000 nits of full-screen brightness, 1,600 nits of peak brightness, and a one million-to-one contrast ratio.

The new Liquid Retina XDR display includes other advanced technologies that can also be found in the 11-inch iPad Pro, including ProMotion, True Tone, and P3 wide color support, said the vendor.

The new iPad Pros are available to order beginning April 30 in 31 countries and regions, including the US. The new 11-inch and 12.9-inch iPad Pro will be available in silver and space gray finishes and in 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, 1TB, and 2TB configurations.

The 11-inch iPad Pro starts at US$799 for the Wi-Fi model and US$999 for the Wi-Fi + cellular model, and the 12.9-inch iPad Pro starts at US$1,099 for the Wi-Fi model and US$1,299 for the Wi-Fi + Cellular model.

By DIGITIMES