Apple’s iPad Pro lineup easily soars past the $1,000 mark, and that’s before you even think about adding a Magic Keyboard or Apple Pencil. But the standard iPad has always been refreshingly different. It brings the Apple experience without the Pro price tag. Right now, Amazon is clearing out the 2025 iPad 11-inch with the A16 chip, 128GB storage and WiFi connectivity for just $299, down from $349. This drops Apple’s already approachable tablet right into budget Android territory, where devices like the Fire Max 11 typically hang out. Except here, you’re getting the full Apple ecosystem with iPadOS.
The Apple Chip That Changes Everything
Inside this iPad sits the A16 processor which is same chip Apple put in the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 15. We’re talking about a 5-core CPU running at 3.4 GHz paired with a 4-core GPU and a 16-core Neural Engine. That means smooth multitasking across apps, fast photo editing and gaming performance that leaves budget Android tablets in the dust. The A16 powers through 4K video playback and handles productivity tasks like document editing or spreadsheet work. Apple paired this chip with 6GB of RAM, up from 4GB in the previous generation so you can keep more apps running in the background without slowdowns.
The screen also gets a mention: The 11-inch Liquid Retina offers 2360 x 1640 resolution at 264 pixels per inch with 500 nits of brightness. The True Tone comes handy as it adjusts the color temperature depending on the lighting of your room. This makes reading on the screen very easy on your eyes when you’re late at night. The screen size comes handy as it helps you watch movies on planes, read digital copies of your favorite magazines and watch recipe videos in the kitchen.
Apple increased the base memory to 128GB of storage, at last providing enough room for your apps, photos, and downloaded Netflix content without having to juggle memory around. The 12-megapixel camera on the rear of the laptop now records 4K video. The camera scans documents quite well using Smart HDR 4 capabilities to extract additional detail and colors from your images, and the 12-megapixel Ultra Wide camera on the front of the laptop supports Center Stage: Apple’s clever functionality automatically zooms as you move around during video communications.
Connectivity includes the basics with Wi-Fi 6 for improved internet speed and efficiency on busy networks, as well as Bluetooth 5.3 for your wireless headphones and keyboards. The USB-C connector supplies power to the tablet as well as hooks it up to an external monitor or an external storage drive. The limitation here being that it maintains only USB 2.0 data transfer speed. The fingerprint ID sensor resides inside the power button: This provides swift and secure unlocking without resorting to facial recognition. The battery life lasts an entire day of normal use and 10 hours of web browsing or video playback before needing a recharge.
The true value comes in the software ecosystem: The latest version of the operating system (iPadOS) provides better multitasking functions that enable you to work with two applications at once or have access to a third via Slide Over. The new and improved App Store provides you with access to two million applications that have been designed with the bigger screen of the iPad.
For $299, it goes low enough on the totem pole among low/mid-range Android offerings but offers world-class build quality.
