Apple’s high-end iPad is down to $229 for a limited time

Although Apple’s tablet lineup has undergone several changes in recent years, we have long considered the ninth generation iPad to be the best budget iPad you could get. That changed when Apple lowered the price of the 10th-generation iPad to a more reasonable $349 and discontinued its base model. But the 2021 iPad remains a perfectly good listing, especially now that the base model with 64GB of storage has dropped to an all-time low of $229 ($100 off) in Amazon and $229.99 at Best buy.

As far as hardware goes, the ninth-generation iPad is a holdover from Apple’s old design language. The 10.2-inch tablet has a traditional iPad look with large bezels, a dedicated home button, and a Lightning port — not to mention a 3.5mm audio jack for using a pair of wired headphones.

Inside, you’ll find Apple’s aging A13 processor, which, despite first appearing in the iPhone 11 in 2019, still delivers fast performance when playing games, watching movies, browsing the web, and performing all the usual tasks you’d use a tablet. . It’s still indebted to the first-generation Apple Pencil and older accessories like the Smart KeyboardYes, but given the age and price, it’s an understandable trade-off.

If you’re worried about support, rest assured that Apple’s next-generation iPad will be compatible with iPadOS 18 when it launches in the fall. However, it won’t support any of Apple’s upcoming Apple Intelligence features, which require a newer model iPad Pro or iPad Air with an M1 chip or later. I guess the new calculator app will have to do.