While some might think of a tablet as traditionally having a screen size between that of your smartphone and your laptop, Apple might be throwing that all out of the window with a potential 16-inch iPad. According to people familiar with the project, Cupertino is currently planning to launch a 16-inch tablet by the end of next year, though there’s no concrete release window for now.
Right now, the biggest tablet you can get from Apple is the 12.9-inch iPad Pro, which finds itself in a balancing act between a normal tablet and a MacBook-lite. However, it seems like some in Apple believe that an iPad Pro with a 16-inch display could just be what it takes to make their flagship tablet more attractive for creative professionals like artists and graphic designers. A 16-inch tablet could also be better for the dozens of users who want to take advantage of Apple’s Stage Manager feature in iPadOS 16 that is supposed to help with multitasking. Apple is already looking at adding external display support for Stage Manager in the next release of iPadOS, and with a 16-inch display you could ostensibly have the tablet set up next to a monitor like how you would with a laptop.
There’s been rumours of an even bigger iPad Pro swirling around for some time now, with known Apple journalist Mark Gurman mentioning a 14-inch or 15-inch tablet back in 2021; Gurman also recently said that a larger iPad could be coming within the next few years. Ross Young, a supply chain analyst, also recently claimed that we could be seeing a 14.1-inch iPad Pro packing a Mini LED display with ProMotion support next year. However, this new rumour would be the first time that we’ve heard the possibility of a massive 16-inch tablet from Apple though.
In any case, a 16-inch iPad Pro wouldn’t be the only large screen tablet out there right now. The Samsung Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra was launched just this year and has a huge 14.6-inch, WQXGA+ Super AMOLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate. A flagship tablet, it even has a notch on the top when viewed in landscape mode so Apple users wanting a bigger tablet right now may just feel right at home. Nevertheless, even if Apple’s 16-inch tablet becomes reality, it still wouldn’t be as big as 2019’s Samsung Galaxy View 2, which had an absurd 17.5-inch display on it.
Right now though, if you want a large screen iPad from Apple, you’ll have to pick the 12.9-inch iPad Pro as it’s the biggest option available. It was recently refreshed with the new Apple M2 chip, offering ‘breakthrough’ performance, but does also come with a higher price tag than before. The 12.9-inch iPad Pro now starts at RM5,399 for one with 128GB of storage and WiFi connectivity, and if you want to put in a SIM card you’ll need to fork out at least RM6,149 for the tablet.
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