The M5 iPad Pro: Power Without Purpose?
Apple’s new M5 iPad Pro is a marvel of engineering, but it’s also a lesson in excess – a showcase of power trapped inside a body that never asked for this much muscle. It’s like bolting jet engines to a bicycle: thrilling for a moment, but absurd when you stop to think about it. The M5 chip inside this year’s iPad Pro is so powerful it could rival workstation-level computers, yet the device it lives in remains a tablet, bound by all the same old limitations.
Let’s break it down. The M5 SoC features 10 cores, with four performance cores blazing at 4.6 GHz and six efficiency cores cruising at 2.95 GHz. A monstrous 16 MB of L2 cache ensures data moves through this silicon monster without delay. Add to that a 10-core GPU, each with its own Neural Accelerator, and a dedicated 16-core Neural Engine that eats through AI and ML tasks as if they were rounding errors. Apple pairs this with 16 GB of LPDDR5X unified memory, running at 4.8 GHz with a staggering 153 GB/s of bandwidth. On paper, this isn’t a tablet – it’s a portable supercomputer.
In real-world tests, the M5 iPad Pro delivers around 14% faster single-core and 15% faster multi-core performance over last year’s M4 version. The M5 chip’s performance even edges dangerously close to Apple’s workstation-grade M1 Ultra, a feat that would’ve seemed absurd a few years ago. And yet, despite all this raw horsepower, the iPad remains what it has always been: a tablet first, a computer second, and a serious productivity machine only in theory.
The problem isn’t the power – it’s the practicality. The iPad’s form factor simply doesn’t allow users to take full advantage of that M5 chip. Sure, you can edit 4K video on your couch, but after three hours your battery is gasping for air. Once you plug it in, the illusion of mobility is gone. If you’re tethered to a charger, why not just use a MacBook Pro? Even with the Magic Keyboard and Pencil, the M5 iPad Pro still feels like a half-step toward a laptop that Apple refuses to let it become.
And that’s the frustration: Apple has created a breathtakingly fast device that’s trapped by its own philosophy. The company insists the iPad stay a tablet – a beautifully crafted, ultra-thin slab that can do anything, but never for too long or too freely. Imagine a Formula 1 engine inside a compact city car – you’d admire the engineering, but question the purpose.
In the end, the M5 iPad Pro is a technical triumph and a practical paradox. For those who just want the fastest, sleekest media tablet on the planet, it’s unmatched. But for anyone who hoped Apple would finally unleash the iPad’s full potential, the M5 proves that raw power means little when the body can’t handle the soul within. Maybe someday Apple will let this bicycle fly – but not today.