Apple have announced an upgrade to the iPad Pro line, bringing their M2 chip to the device, giving users the ability to run desktop level applications on the go and more.

“The next-generation iPad Pro pushes the boundaries of what’s possible on iPad, bringing even more versatility, power, and portability to the ultimate iPad experience,” said Greg Joswiak, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “Powered by the M2 chip, the new iPad Pro features incredible performance and the most advanced technologies, including a next-level Apple Pencil hover experience, ProRes video capture, superfast wireless connectivity, and powerful iPadOS 16 features. There’s nothing else like it.”

For those who have a M1 enabled iPad Pro, like me, the upgrade to the M2 model comes with a small boost, up to 15 percent faster, with advancements in both performance and efficiency cores. However, with its 10-core GPU, it should deliver up to 35 percent faster graphics performance for the most demanding users.

Combined with the CPU and GPU, the 16-core Neural Engine can process 15.8 trillion operations per second — 40 percent more than M1 — making iPad Pro even more powerful when handling machine learning tasks. The M2 chip also features 100GB/s of unified memory bandwidth — 50 percent more than M1 — and supports up to 16GB of fast unified memory, making multitasking and working with large assets even more fluid.

The new iPad Pro is available to order beginning today, 19 October, at apple.com/au/store and selected retailers, with availability in stores beginning Thursday, 27 October.

Sizes are available in both 11-inch and 12.9-inch models and will be available in silver and space grey finishes, with 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, 1TB, and 2TB configurations, so you can find the space needs that suit you.

Prices for the new iPad Pro are about in line with past product launches, the 11-inch iPad Pro starts at $1,399 for the Wi-Fi only model and $1,649 for the Wi-Fi + Cellular model; whereas the 12.9-inch iPad Pro starts at $1,899 for the Wi-Fi only model, and $2,149 for the Wi-Fi + Cellular model. All those prices are for the 128GB storage option, so prices will go up based on storage needs.