New iPad Pro with A14X chip, mini-LED screen, and 5G reportedly coming early 2021

Best iPad for artists
Best iPad for artists (Image credit: iMore)

What you need to know

  • An anonymous Twitter user has shared details of a potential new pair of iPad Pro models.
  • @L0vetodream says two iPad Pro tablets will arrive in the first half of next year.
  • They'll include faster chips, 5G, and a new mini-LED screen.

Apple might have just launched a mildly refreshed iPad Pro but we're still hoping for something a little more exciting. That might come in the first half of 2021 according to a source on Twitter. User @L0vetodream says that the tablets will come with Apple's A14X processor, 5G, and a new mini-LED screen.

The inclusion of Apple's A14X chip is a no-brainer if the A14 is what ends up powering the iPhone 12 later this year. Apple would likely follow its existing playbook of adding an "X" to the existing iPhone's chip and cranking up the performance. That's barely news.

The existence of 5G is more interesting. It stands to reason that Apple would move to 5G eventually and @L0vetodream says the iPad Pro will use Qualcomm's X55 modem. That would enable support for both mmWave and sub-6GHz 5G – the best of performance and availability all in a single package.

The inclusion of min-LED is also interesting. Apple has yet to ship a product with the display technology although rumors of its arrival have been swirling for months. It would allow Apple to skip OLED on its tablets while still getting the benefit of increased power efficiency and improved display characteristics.

Whether all of this will come in the first half of next year remains to be seen. But this is the same Twitter user that shared various iPhone SE details before it was announced so they are definitely worth paying attention to.

Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.