The iPad Pro 2021 blew us away last year with a killer combo of design and performance upgrades, and now it’s starting to sound like we’ll see Apple’s top-tier tablet get a revamp in 2022 that could cement both sizes as some of the best iPads you can buy. Both the iPad Pro 2021 (11-inch) and its bigger sibling the iPad Pro 2021 (12.9-inch) impressed us with their speed and battery life, byproducts of the fact that they were the first two iPads to ship packing Apple’s remarkably efficient M1 chip. That bespoke piece of Apple silicon helped iPadOS set new performance records in our testing lab, and now we have reports from an inveterate Apple leaker which point to a 2022 in which we see new iPad Pros debut packing an even more powerful Apple M2 chip. That tip comes courtesy of regular Apple leaker Dylandkt, who took to Twitter (opens in new tab) yesterday (January 23) to report that we’ll see Apple ship M2-powered iPad Pros this fall alongside the Apple AirPods Pro 2. They went on to note the iPad Pro 2022 may ship with some level of wireless charging or MagSafe charging, but that they’ve heard “nothing but concerns from multiple sources” about the status of those upgrades. Most importantly, they also made a potentially game-changing claim: that this year all iPad Pro models will ship with a mini-LED display, which would be a big upgrade for the 11-inch Pro. If that proves true, it means the 11-inch Pro will finally be able to compete toe-to-toe with its big brother. While both models of the 2021 Pro earned acclaim for their stellar design and performance, the 12.9-inch model’s gorgeous mini-LED display elevated it to be one of the best tablets you can buy. Its 12.9-inch Liquid Retina XDR (2,732 x 2,048 pixels) display achieves outstanding picture quality for a tablet, delivering vibrant colors and striking contrasts. It can get remarkably bright too, though you really need to be looking at HDR content (which remains sparse on iPadOS) to make the most of the mini-LED display’s unique strengths. Now that Apple has also launched redesigned MacBook Pro 2021 (14-inch) and MacBook Pro 2021 (16-inch) laptops with mini-LED displays, the time seems right for the smaller 11-inch iPad Pro to get the mini-LED treatment as well. These mini-LED displays are a big deal because they can be thinner and more energy-efficient than more traditional LED displays while delivering picture quality that rivals that of an OLED, so it’s extremely exciting to hear that we may soon live in a world where all iPad Pros sport mini-LED displays.
