Apple’s Cheapest iPad Is Its Most Reliably Good One

Apple ’s crummy iPad is theiPhone SEof lozenge . On the surface , there are no bell or whistles . It has chunky bezels , a physical home button with Touch ID , and a design that call to bear in mind mid-2010s iPhones . It is , dependable to say , boring . And mass still love it .

Every year the flash iPad gets a little bit better , and every year it stays $ 329 . What you get for that price may not be the coolheaded iPad , a laptop substitute with a blazing fast chip that lets you upload and delete 4 green footage , or whatever professional are buying Pros for . But you do get a capable iPad that ’s salutary for reading book , watching TV , falling down Reddit rabbit holes , sending off emails , and whatever else you take a handy little tablet for .

Apple iPad ( 9th - gen )

Photo: Caitlin McGarry/Gizmodo

What is it ?

Apple ’s newest cheap iPad

cost

A physical home button with Touch ID is the security blanket of Apple features.Photo: Caitlin McGarry/Gizmodo

$ 329

Solid performance and assault and battery spirit , True Tone show , hugely upgraded front - face photographic camera , iPadOS 15 advance , the cost

A physical home button with Touch ID is the security blanket of Apple features.

A physical home button with Touch ID is the security blanket of Apple features.Photo: Caitlin McGarry/Gizmodo

Do n’t Like

innovation is getting a little long in the tooth

What’s New

The unexampled cheap iPad has several unexampled upgrade overlast year ’s cheap iPad . It has a slenderly newer central processing unit , the A13 Bionic ( which is two generations behind the A15 Bionic regain in the 2021 iPad Mini ) . Its 10.2 - in display now supports True Tone , so it adapts to ambient light for a more comfortable meter reading experience . It has a new 12 - megapixel ultra - broad - angle front - front television camera that supports Center Stage , a refined feature article for telecasting call that allow you to move around while the 122 - degree field of view - of - thought television camera refocuses to keep you in frame . The new iPad Pro has the exact same lens of the eye with the exact same feature , and it work just as well on the cheap iPad .

The 9th - gen iPad do with double the base storage as its precursor , so now you get 64 GB rather of a paltry 32 GB for the starting price of $ 329 . And while all those features are great , the cherry on top is thetweaks that come in iPadOS 15 , which make multitasking and note - taking a little more unseamed across all the late iPads , regardless of price .

What has n’t change : fundamentally everything else . The inexpensive iPad still has a Smart Connector for connecting accessories like my nemesis , Apple ’s Smart Keyboard , which I used while reviewing this iPad . ( The Smart Keyboard does a okay job at propping up the iPad , but does nothing to protect its back and sucks to typewrite on . There are plenty of third - party keyboard option to select from , though . ) The cheap iPad also forge with Apple ’s first - gen Apple Pencil , which charge via the iPad ’s Lightning port — no USB - C here , folks — and is still prostrate to being mislay because there ’s no one-armed bandit or attracter to brawl the stylus . The screen is mostly the same ( minus the addition of True Tone ) , Touch ID remains the same , and , for those who still prioritise a earpiece jack over everything else , yes , the iPad has retained that , too .

Photo: Caitlin McGarry/Gizmodo

Photo: Caitlin McGarry/Gizmodo (In-House Art)

Pro-Level Video Calls

One of the biggest upgrades on the ninth - gen iPad over last year ’s model is the front - face camera , which has been jacked up from a 1.2 - MP lens to a 12 - MP one . The difference of opinion is huge . Brobdingnagian ! I no longer look like a grainy , 2004 - epoch me when I make video recording calls on the unexampled iPad , and the Neural railway locomotive - powered Center Stage feature of speech makes it so I can move around while chatting ( perfect for calls while cookery ) . The cheap iPad ’s 8 - kernel Neural Engine is , of line , not quite at the level of the Pro ’s 16 - core one , and the the A13 Bionic is no M1 . Anecdotally it seemed like Center Stage was not quite as fast at following me as I move around a FaceTime call on the cheap iPad compared to the Pro , but it was still quite good .

However , I ’ve said it before and I ’ll say it again : Apple ’s insistence on sticking the front - face lens to the left side of the screenland when you ’re using the iPad in landscape painting mode is distressing , and a wider airfield - of - prospect that can refocus to keep you in frame does nothing to fix how eldritch it is . If you do n’t utilise a keyboard or stick out to keep the iPad placed horizontally and you hold your iPad like a phone to make telecasting call option , then this wo n’t be an issue . I ’m trusted there are those of you out there . I do n’t realize it , but I abide by it .

Fine Performance, Great Battery Life

I expected the iPad ’s battery life story to remain faithfully solid — last year ’s iPad clocked in at 9 hr and 30 minutes , which is plenty respectable . But between iPadOS 15 and the A13 Bionic , the new cheap iPad really lasted an time of day and modify longer than the old one in Gizmodo ’s video - rain buckets bombardment rundown test , clock in at 10 minute and 42 minutes . It also last a shred longer than the quaternary - geniPad Air(10:30 ) and a lot longer than this year ’s 12.9 - inchiPad Pro(9:02 ) . If battery liveliness is your top priority in a tablet , the loud iPad is a suitable competition .

The A13 Bionic turns in capable carrying out , too , easily switch between apps and handling multitasking with ease . On synthetic benchmarks , the new iPad considerably outperformed Samsung ’s belated mid - range lozenge , theGalaxy Tab S7 FE , which is well more expensive at $ 529 . The iPad notched a 3373 multi - gist and 1334 single - core account on Geekbench 5 , a measurement of overall scheme functioning , compared to the Tab S7 FE ’s 1801 multi - core and 651 unmarried - magnetic core scores . Of naturally , the A14 Bionic iPad Air 4 and M1 iPad Pro blow the cheap iPad out of the water , but you absolutely get what you pay off for , and it ’s totally all right .

Is the Cheap iPad Worth Buying?

If you ’re using an onetime fifth- or 6th - gen iPad , the latest interpretation is a solid acclivity , despite the fact that it expect almost exactly the same as those models . A better processor offers self-colored performance , an upgraded television camera makes you look better on video calls ( despite the awing lens placement ) and reliably good battery life and True Tone make it so you may drop hour comfortably scrolling out in bed .

And the price just ca n’t be beat . This is the tablet I would purchase ( and have buy , in the past ) for my nieces and nephew or my mom — anyone who require a decent - sized silver screen and bread and butter for all the good apps but does n’t require the power of an iPad Pro , or even an iPad Air for that matter . Apple has complicated the iPad rise decisiveness this class with the sixth - gen iPad Mini , which is basically a pint - sized atmosphere with a speedier chip , and while it ’s an awe-inspiring gadget , it ’s also much smaller than the cheap iPad — and at $ 499 , is not quite as affordable .

Not everybody want the tardy and greatest engineering science . The new cheap iPad is a dated software package , to be indisputable , but you get much of the same iPad experience you get on much more expensive Apple production for far less . It ’s boring , but it works , and it ’s good .