The newly announced iPad Pro hides a sneaky upgrade option that Apple didn’t mention during its event today. When you cough up the $600 it costs to jump from the 256GB base model iPad Pro to the 1TB version, Apple doesn’t just double the RAM along with that — it also puts a faster chip inside, going from a nine-core M4 chip to a 10-core version.

This is the first time Apple has offered a processor upgrade on a specific tablet model — in the past, no matter what other options you picked on a given tablet, you knew you were getting the same chip as any other configuration. In the past, Apple only tied RAM upgrades to storage boosts; that’s still true here, with the quantity doubling from 8GB to 16GB. You also get the privilege of buying Apple’s glare-fighting nanotexture glass for $100 (lucky you!), which isn’t available on the lower-end models. So, if you really want the best-performing iPad Pro, you have to bump your storage to the 1TB or 2TB configuration.

Screenshot: Apple

Realistically, you won’t probably lose much processing power by sticking with the 256GB and 512GB storage tiers. Both versions of the chip feature a 10-core GPU, the same memory bandwidth of 120GB/s, and each supports hardware-accelerated ray tracing. With six efficiency cores each, which are designed to handle more mundane, less demanding day-to-day tablet tasks, you’d be hard-pressed to notice much of a difference in ordinary use.

So far, Apple hasn’t really justified even the power of the M1 chip in my iPad Pro, but the company is trying to. The new aluminum Magic Keyboard really makes the tablet look more laptop-like, especially with that function row up top. And some of the features that Apple introduced for Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro for iPads really do seem like they’ll need some real power to run well.

Like with Apple’s “Pro” MacBooks and its higher-end desktop machines, though, it’ll be hard for most folks to come up with a need for the power of these new tablets. I’m still not sold on upgrading to the new iPad Pro, even with its OLED screen, but at least there’s more to it than a spec bump and Apple Pencil hover exclusivity this time.

Source: The Verge You can upgrade the iPad Pro’s processor now, too