3 Best Tablets of 2026
Top choice
The M5 iPad Pro has everything we want in a professional tablet, including a great display, laptop-level speed, and a great selection of apps.
The Apple iPad Pro (11-inch, M5) doesn’t represent a major upgrade over last year’s model in terms of terms, but a new processor, updated operating system, and improved fast charging make this latest model the best professional tablet you can buy. After setting up, handling, and using five other tablets for a week, we found that using the iPad Pro felt like a real Goldilocks moment, as it offers the best combination of size, performance, display quality, high-quality materials, and support from a wide ecosystem of apps.
The iPad Pro is best for people who want features that Apple doesn’t offer on less expensive iPads, including a screen with a high refresh rate for smooth motion and anti-reflective coating, a fast Thunderbolt USB-C connection, and Face ID. The M5 iPad Pro has more processing power than any other iPad we’ve tested, and it’s the clear choice for people who want to be more efficient when recording digitally, designing 3D models, creating animations, editing video, or performing other processor-hungry creative tasks.
It’s as powerful as a laptop. The M5 iPad Pro has no problem multitasking, and is able to juggle many intensive tasks without slowing down. We started a 4K video editing project in LumaFusion, worked on a digital sculpt with 6 million vertices in Nomad Sculpt, and ran the Geekbench 6 benchmark, and were able to switch between those tasks and a tabbed browser without lag or stutter. In all of our tests, the Apple M5 chip is 10% to 30% faster than its M4 chip, increasing significantly in GPU-hungry tests such as video streaming.
Using multiple apps on iPadOS 26 is easy. The M5’s power boost is timely, as Apple’s redesigned iPadOS makes it easier than ever to run multiple apps on the tablet. Swiping down from the top of any app brings up a small menu bar that includes Mac-style “traffic light” buttons to close, minimize, or window the current app. If an application is windowed, you can open, window, and resize applications around it. Some multitasking features are immediately useful, such as dragging a Safari window over your Mail app to quickly look at something or setting up two apps side-by-side on the screen. However, you’ll have to experiment to find out how you like multitasking on the iPad, as each app responds differently to window placement and resizing. (Note that you don’t need a new iPad Pro to use the latest iPadOS features; iPadOS 26 is supported by every iPad made since 2019, although you need at least an M1 processor or an iPad mini with an A17 Pro chip to use Apple Intelligence.)
Its OLED display is bright and offers amazing contrast. The M5 iPad Pro has the same tandem OLED display as the M4 model, which offers a better contrast compared to the LCDs used in other tablets. Instead of lighting the backlight with an image, the OLED screen can change the brightness of individual pixels. The resulting difference in picture quality is easily noticeable while watching a dark or dynamic movie, as OLED displays can individually dim or turn off pixels, giving the display a wide range of darks and shadows to be seen. The iPad Pro’s display is also incredibly bright, though only when the auto-brightness setting is turned on: The iPadOS screen brightness slider sets the display’s brightness to only about 500 nits, but when bright light hits the iPad Pro’s front-facing sensors, the auto-brightness setting increases the display’s output to about 1,000 nits. That’s nearly twice as bright as the iPad Air’s brightness, and up to the brightness of some OLED TVs.
Its App Store is easy to use and has better apps than other platforms. The App Store is available on any iPad, but the selection of apps available on iPadOS has more options for professional users than Android, especially for note takers, artists, photographers, and video editors. Companies like Adobe have focused on apps for Apple devices and have abandoned their Android options. In contrast, the Microsoft Surface Pro can install any compatible Windows desktop application but lacks the processing power to take full advantage of most of them.
The webcam is best used in landscape mode, just like you would on a laptop. Apple has moved the iPad Pro’s webcam to the center of the tablet’s right edge, where you’d expect it to be when using the iPad Pro as a laptop. This design change makes your video calls look more natural, especially if you’re using the Magic Keyboard or another case that positions the tablet in landscape mode.
It works quietly, and its battery lasts a long time. Unlike other Windows laptops and tablets we’ve tested, no iPads require a launcher. Some parts of the tablet can get warm when you use it for a long time, but it will stay quiet no matter what you do. Most people will have no problem getting the battery to last a full work day, and with light to moderate use your iPad Pro can go for days between charges. The M5 iPad Pro is also the first iPad to charge quickly, and with the included charger it can charge up to 50% in just 30 minutes.
Its accessories, Apple Pencil Pro and Magic Keyboard, are great (but sold separately). Apple has made some of the best iPad Pro accessories we’ve tested, like the Pencil Pro stylus and Magic Keyboard, and the M5 iPad Pro supports them. This extends the functionality of the iPad, because you cannot properly write or type on the device without some kind of accessory. The Pencil Pro is loaded with sensors to determine the angle of the stylus, its pressure on the screen, how close it is to the screen, and whether you’re pressing or tapping it for additional controls. The Magic Keyboard is a vertical keyboard case with a full set of function keys and a USB-C port for pass-through charging (though you have to remove the iPad from the case to use it in portrait mode). But Apple accessories are expensive. We recommend the best inexpensive third-party options in our guide to the best iPad Pro keyboard cases and best styles.
The 13-inch size is better for multitasking and comparing documents. The 11-inch iPad Pro is a better choice if you use your tablet as a tablet, as a second device that you can use to take notes, quickly enter information, or read and annotate documents. However, if you plan to use your iPad as a laptop — that is, in landscape mode with the Magic Keyboard case and with multiple apps open at once — the 13-inch version has enough space for texts and windows to stay open at full size. We found that multitasking on the 11-inch iPad Pro felt cramped when working for long periods of time.
Face ID makes unlocking the tablet surprisingly easy. The iPad Pro has a Face ID camera that scans your face to log you in, similar to the one on iPhones; the process may take some getting used to if you’ve used an older or less expensive iPad with a Touch ID fingerprint reader integrated into the home button or power button, but Face ID was fast and accurate in our testing.
Flaws but not dealbreakers
It’s still best as a second device, not a laptop. Many people use the iPad Pro as their primary device, but even with iPadOS 26’s multitasking features, most computing tasks are still easy to do on a regular desktop. Any type of work that involves spreadsheets or requires precise mouse clicks or special software not available on iOS is difficult on the iPad. But for general tasks, such as sending email, typing documents, editing, or making video calls, the iPad Pro is more than capable.
Not good for coding. Apple doesn’t allow coding apps like Xcode or Visual Studio in the App Store, and even third-party web browsers on the iPad need to use the same engine that Apple uses in Safari, so the iPad is a bad choice for coding apps or browsing web pages. (There are Swift playgrounds, but they’re more educational tools than serious code editors.)
Not user configurable. There are no repairs you can do yourself on the iPad Pro. If you don’t have AppleCare+, Apple’s extended warranty, repairs can cost up to 85% of the tablet’s price. (Our top pick for Windows users lets you replace the SSD yourself.)
It does not have a headphone jack. We don’t like that the iPad Pro leaves out the 3.5 mm headphone jack, something that’s still included on many Windows tablets and Apple’s MacBook lineup. Either you need to get a dongle to use your existing headphones or you need to switch to Bluetooth headphones.
