Hardware-wise, today’s iPads can function much like a Surface Pro. Use just one, and it’s a sleek, portable tablet with a large, high-resolution screen (and a much better selection of touch apps than the Surface). But tap an Apple Magic Keyboard or similar third-party accessory, and it becomes a laptop-like device. The addition of an Apple Pencil makes it suitable for full-fledged digital drawing, note-taking, or PDF annotation. No dedicated laptop can match this level of versatility.
iPad easily wins in streaming videos, reading and browsing photos. A premium tablet provides a thin, lightweight window into your favorite Netflix shows, books, or articles. You can hold it as close or as far away as you want, or prop it up—there’s no permanent keyboard to deal with. When it comes to portability, the iPad is undefeated.
iPads also give you the option of a cellular connection so you can stay online even away from Wi-Fi (and without using your phone as a hotspot.) Apple is rumored to be releasing its first cellular-enabled laptop soon. But given that this will likely be part of an “ultra” expensive MacBook that also has a touchscreen, the iPad will likely remain the more affordable option for 5G connectivity.
Drawing, photo editing, and handwriting are right at home on iPad, giving you a more immediate connection with what you’re creating or working with. While they don’t always measure up to their desktop counterparts, apps like Procreate, Photoshop, Lightroom, and DaVinci Resolve make creative work possible without a “real” computer.
Performance isn’t really an issue. While Apple’s M-class iPads aren’t necessarily more powerful than their MacBook counterparts, they’re essentially peers on a raw hardware level (at least if you put RAM aside). As our reviews of the iPad Air M4 and iPad Pro M5 found, both of these devices (especially the latter) have far more processing power than most tablet workloads require, with enough power for heavy multitasking and demanding creative applications. In practice, the biggest bottleneck is usually iPadOS itself.
Fortunately, some of the old complaints about iPadOS have diminished or even disappeared. iPadOS 26 finally introduced a proper windowing system that lets you resize and move app windows freely. (You can also still use the old full-screen-only mode.) Apps now have a Mac-style menu bar. The Files app is more powerful and closer to a true Finder replacement. The preview even made its way to the iPad.
This combination makes Apple’s tablet a much more powerful laptop replacement than it was just a few years ago. The iPad looks more like the new kind of personal computer Apple wants it to be.
