I Used M5 iPad Pro For Two Weeks To See If It Can Finally Replace My MacBook

I have been using the M4 MacBook Air for quite some time now, and it has been my primary machine for writing, editing, research, and everyday work. It is fast, reliable, and honestly good enough for most people. But recently, I got my hands on the new Apple iPad Pro with the M5 chip for review and I decided to do something different. I ditched MacBook Air and used the M5 iPad Pro for work and fun for two weeks. By the end of the week, I realised this machine didn’t just feel capable, it actually kind of replaced my MacBook Air for daily work. Here is why. Super Slim And Premium DesignThe new iPad Pro is seriously thin at just 5.1mm. It almost feels unreal when you hold it. Every single time I picked it up, I had to check how light and thin it actually is.

This is easily the slimmest iPad Apple has ever made.

Apple hasn’t changed much visually compared to the M4 iPad Pro, but that’s not a bad thing. The design already feels premium. The build quality is excellent, the aluminium finish feels premium but yes it is a fingerprint magnet. My fingerprints were all over the front and back within minutes.

With the Magic Keyboard attached, the iPad feels sturdy enough to work on a table, on your lap or even while travelling. The Magic Keyboard completes the experience.

Typing feels comfortable, the trackpad works well and overall, it genuinely feels like a laptop replacement.Bright Display And Excellent AudioThe iPad Pro comes in two display sizes. I got my hands on an 11-inch model. Both the sizes offer Super Retina XDR OLED display coupled with a 120Hz adaptive refresh rate and 1600 nits of peak brightness. To be honest, the display is simply incredible. I can confidently say this is the best display I have ever used on a tablet.

You get a 120Hz ProMotion display with HDR10 and Dolby Vision support. The contrast is excellent, colours look rich, and text appears very sharp and clean.The screen gets extremely bright. At night with lights off, I had to reduce the brightness because it was too sharp. Even at around 50 per cent brightness, it feels almost as bright as my MacBook Air.

Watching Netflix late at night, doing my video calls with family, or even scrolling through social media feels exciting. Everything looks smooth and well-polished. There is also a 13-inch version, but I personally prefer the 11-inch model because it is easier to carry and more comfortable to use anywhere. To be honest, it felt like I was using a laptop but with touch display. Even the audio is excellent. The quad-speaker setup on the iPad Pro felt louder compared the M4 MacBook Air I use. Sound is loud, clear, and has proper depth..

Watching movies or listening to music on Apple Music and YouTube without headphones is genuinely amazing. That said, I still wish Apple added a headphone jack. There is clearly enough space but Apple continues to ignore it.PerformanceWith the M-series chipsets, Apple’s current iPad lineup is as powerful as many laptops. Apple says the new M5 chip unlocks the most advanced iPad experience ever, packing an incredible amount of power and AI performance. According to the Cupertino-based giant, the new iPad Pro claims to offer up to 3.5x the AI performance than iPad Pro with M4 and up to 5.6x faster than iPad Pro with M1. The new iPad Pro also features N1, a new Apple-designed wireless networking chip that enables Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, and Thread.

N1 also claims to offer better performance when connected to 5GHz networks and improves the overall performance and reliability of features like Personal Hotspot and AirDrop.For the first time, Apple has added neural accelerators directly into each of the 10 GPU cores. In simple words, AI-related tasks are much faster.Another big upgrade is RAM. Every M5 iPad Pro now starts with 12GB of RAM instead of 8GB. If you go for the 1TB or 2TB model, you get up to 16GB of RAM. This makes a massive difference with iPadOS 26.In daily use, everything feels fast and responsive. Apps multitasking feels smoother, and Safari tabs don’t keep refreshing. Overall performance feels smooth. In fact, scores on Geekbench and AnTuTu I have attached here gives the idea of how powerful this machine is.

Be it writing, browsing, editing images, watching content on Netflix or playing Ms Rachel videos on YouTube for my 9-months old son, honestly, I can say the iPad Pro never slowed down. Everything felt fast, smooth and consistent.While I don’t personally game much on tablets, I did test a few heavy games. Performance was excellent. Games ran smoothly at high frame rates and the tablet stayed surprisingly cool. Thermal management I feel is impressive. Even during extended gaming sessions, the iPad Pro never became uncomfortably warm. I was expecting the battery would drain fast on this tablet, but this wasn't the case with the iPad Pro.

Coming to the battery life, Apple has finally added fast charging to the iPad Pro and it makes a real difference. Apple claims you can charge up to 50 per cent in around 30 minutes and Apple still gives a 20W charger in the box. With the MacBook Air adapter, the iPad Pro didn't take much time, so you’ll need to buy a faster charger separately. That said, battery life is excellent and easily lasts a full day of heavy usage. For browsing and streaming, it can even stay alive for over a day.Camera PerformanceThe M5 iPad Pro’s 12MP front camera is now placed on the landscape side and that makes video calls feel much more natural. With Center Stage, I stayed properly in the frame even when I moved a bit.

The 12MP rear camera is decent for scanning documents or clicking quick notes, but I wouldn’t use it for proper photos. Zoom and low-light shots look average, so for anything serious, your phone camera is still the better option.iPadOS 26This is where the iPad Pro truly becomes a MacBook alternative. iPadOS 26 brings proper window management, floating and resizable windows, a new menu bar and much better external display support.You can run multiple windows from the same app and arrange them freely. I was comfortably using multiple apps at the same time without feeling restricted. Stage Manager finally feels useful. For the first time, I did not miss macOS during my daily workflow.What surprised me the most is how natural it started feeling after a few hours. I was using Google Chrome with multiple tabs, jumping between different apps and it didn’t feel like I was working on a tablet anymore. It genuinely felt like a touch-screen laptop.

The new menu bar also helps a lot. It makes apps feel more desktop-like and gives quick access to settings and tools without digging around. Small changes like these make the iPad experience feel closer to a MacBook than ever before.Even multitasking feels less stressful now. I could keep a video running in one corner, work on my article in another window, and quickly drag and drop files or links between apps. That’s the kind of workflow I like. In fact, iPadOS 26 is on of the big reasons why the M5 iPad Pro felt like it could replace my MacBook Air for daily work.Can It Replace a MacBook Air?With Magic Keyboard, for daily work like writing, editing, browsing, research and multitasking, the answer is yes. The M5 iPad Pro kind of replaced my MacBook Air without frustration. In some cases, it even felt faster and more flexible.If you already own an M4 iPad Pro, you don’t need to upgrade. But if you are using older machines or even an iPad Air, this feels like a massive upgrade.Available at a starting price of Rs 99,900 in India, the M5 iPad Pro feels like using a MacBook with a touch display. With the right accessories, the iPad Pro can genuinely be your primary work machine.