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The new base iPad comes with twice the storage but no Apple Intelligence
It gets an A16 chip and costs the same as its predecessor.
Apple has been steadily updating its product lineup over the last year or so to make sure as many devices work with Apple Intelligence as possible. But shockingly enough, the new base iPad now has an A16 chip rather than the A14 in the previous model. That'll certainly provide better performance, but it's not enough for Apple Intelligence. It's an obvious way to differentiate this iPad from the just-updated iPad Air, which now has an M3 chip. The two most recent Air models also work with Apple Intelligence.
One nice thing here is that Apple doubled the storage and kept prices the same — the 128GB model costs $349, and you can also get it with 256GB or 512GB of storage. It comes in blue, pink, silver and yellow.
Besides the A16, much remains the same here, though. The iPad still has a 10.9-inch screen (that they're just calling 11 inches at this point) that lacks some of the niceties you'll find on the iPad Air display like full lamination to the front glass and an antireflective coating. It has basically the same camera array as other non-Pro iPads at this point, a 12-megapixel shooter on both the front and back. There's no Face ID, unsurprisingly — you'll need to authenticate with Touch ID on the power button.
As with the iPad Air, the new base iPad is open for pre-orders now at Apple and Amazon, and will be available on March 12.
