You may be thinking that this is a ‘students' iPad’, as Apple has made a big deal about the tablet's classroom credentials, but in reality most of the people who buy it will be those who want something to use on the commute and around the house – and as you’ll see, it fares pretty well in those respects.
 
While this might all sound impressive, it’s still not the full picture, as all these features are combined with the best tablet platform out there, iOS – there’s a reason the iPad sat so high in our best tablet rankings for so long.
 
iPad 2018 (6th gen) is the linear successor of last year's iPad 2017 (5th gen). It takes what was the best value in tablets, adds the Apple A10 Fusion chipset, faster LTE (if you go with the LTE model), a more coppery gold finish (if you go with the gold model), and support for the Apple Pencil, all while keeping the price the same. And that makes iPad 6 almost exactly half an iPad Pro — for almost exactly half the price.
But is that enough? Paired with a Logitech Rugged Keyboard and Crayon, is that enough for kids in classrooms that are increasingly going Chromebook? With its faster chipset, is that enough for people looking to upgrade from one of the original iPads, iPads Air, or iPads mini? With Apple Pencil, is that enough for someone who wants to draw and write by hand but just couldn't justify the price of a Pro?
 
The 2018 iPad (6th Generation) lacks the laminated, DCI-P3 wide color gamut, 120 Hz ProMotion, color-matching TrueTone display of the iPad Pro. It lacks the quad-speaker system for landscape stereo. It lacks the 4 GB of RAM for simultaneous side-by-side and slide-over apps. The Smart Connector for Apple Smart Keyboard. The 12 mp / 4K rear camera and 7 mp / 1080p front camera. And the larger 10.5-inch and 12.9-inch options.
 
And for that you get the same chipset as the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus (which is the same as iPad Pro, minus the X-tra cores), the same Apple Pencil support as the iPad Pro, faster LTE networking (optional), and access to the same 200,000 education apps and 1,000,000 tablet-optimized apps in the iPad App Store.