Apple iPad (8th Generation, 2020)

Apple's eighth-generation iPad is a speedy, reliable remote-learning tablet for a time when most schooling is happening at home. Starting at $329 (or $309 for students), it's the least expensive iPad Apple offers, and miles ahead of just about any other tablet you can find at this price. While the only difference between this and the seventh-gen iPad is a faster processor, that leap in power makes the low-cost iPad a decent investment for the next four years, and an Editors' Choice, even if it's starting to feel a bit long in the tooth.

Still an iPad

The new iPad looks and feels exactly like last year's model—that's going to be the overall theme of this review. It measures 9.8 by 6.8 by 0.3 inches (HWD), weighs 1.08 pounds, and comes in gray, rose gold, or silver, just like last year's. It has a curved metal back and a flat glass front.

The $309/$329 price mentioned above is for a 32GB iPad. That's fine if you intend to use the tablet primarily for cloud applications like Google Classroom. If you plan to play a lot of games or shoot video with it, you should step up to the 128GB model for an additional $100. And if you want cellular connectivity so you can access the internet when Wi-Fi isn't available, it's an extra $130 (plus an additional cost with your cellular service provider).

The iPad's screen design is starting to look pretty old. Like last year's device, it has a 10.2-inch, 2,160-by-1,620 LCD that isn't laminated, so it's super reflective (as you can see in the images in this review). The screen is surrounded by gigantic bezels (for 2020), in part to keep the physical Home/Touch ID button below the screen intact.

To a great extent, Apple is just constrained by the pricing here. So far, I haven't seen 120Hz or OLED tablet screens happening anywhere near the $309 price that Apple intends to sell this tablet to millions of students. With that price in mind, the iPad is up against generally 1080p, LCD Chromebooks, and in that context the screen performs well.

Once again like last year's iPad, and once again from a lower-cost perspective, this year's model has a single set of speakers at the bottom. They provide loud-enough, but somewhat tinny sound, without a stereo effect. The iPad Air, and some other more expensive tablets, have stereo speakers on both ends. Students will hopefully be using headphones, though, and the iPad has both a traditional 3.5mm stereo jack and Bluetooth for that. On the bottom, there's the old Lightning port. This will hopefully be the last iPad with Apple's expensive, proprietary port, as the iPad Air now uses the more common USB-C.

Remote learning will almost certainly require a keyboard. Apple's Smart Keyboard is the best one, but at $159, it's costly. The Smart Keyboard also works as a case protecting the screen. It snaps onto a physical connector so there's no Bluetooth pairing or lag, and I find its liquid-proof keys delightful to type on—matte, textured, and with enough travel. But if price is an issue, go with the $35 Logitech K480 Bluetooth keyboard, which has a slot to drop your iPad into.

Like the sixth- and seventh-gen iPads, the 2020 iPad works with Apple's $99 first-generation Pencil. The Pencil is still an easy-pairing stylus with excellent sensitivity; if the second-gen Pencil didn't exist, I'd say it was the finest tablet stylus available. But having now used the first- and second-gen Pencils extensively, I can tell you I like the second-gen one a lot more.

The first-gen Pencil is perfectly cylindrical, so it rolls off any slanted surface. It charges by awkwardly sticking into a Lightning port. And it feels slippery on the unlaminated surface of the low-cost iPad. The second-gen Pencil is a single matte piece, with one flat side, which charges magnetically and has better drag on a tablet screen. Of course, to use the second-gen Pencil, you'll need to get an iPad Air.

Upgraded Performance

The two-year-old A12 processor here, the same as in the iPhone XS, iPhone XR, iPad mini, and last year's iPad Air, is a significant jump in power over the A10 in the previous iPad. It also means a significant jump in usable life: Apple tends to optimize its operating systems for chips up to five years old, so this tablet will have a lifespan of at least three years of properly running the latest OS updates.

On benchmarks, it's a big jump from last year. Compared with the 7th-gen iPad, the Antutu benchmark score went from 257,075 to 443,387, and Geekbench went from 770 single-core, 1,400 multi-core, to 1,114 single-core, 2,474 multi-core.

The 8th-gen iPad is as fast or faster than last year's iPad Air. On the Basemark Web 3.0 Safari benchmark, I got 592.82 on the new iPad, as opposed to 518.59 on last year's iPad Air. And on the 3DMark Ice Storm Unlimited graphics benchmark, the 8th-gen iPad performed almost exactly the same as last year's iPad Air and the iPhone XS Max.

See How We Test TabletsSee How We Test Tablets

This means better application performance, too, especially in heavy applications. The Unreal Engine 4-driven game Life is Strange, for instance, performed just as well on this $309 device as it does on my $999 12.9-inch iPad Pro. Image meshes in Affinity Photo changed and flexed very smoothly, and iMovie edits went and saved relatively quickly.

There's one exception: If you're part of that small, brave crowd using augmented reality applications, a multi-camera device may offer better AR positioning. I played with a few AR apps on this iPad, and while the A12 processor was smooth and made objects appear instantly, I felt like the tablet's depth perception was sometimes a little bit off. The iPad Pro works better in this regard.

The new iPad comes in dual-band Wi-Fi and LTE models, with the cellular model at the usual $130 premium. The cellular iPad works with all US carriers and all of their frequency bands. The tablet is using an older wireless chipset than the iPad Pro or the latest iPhones, though, and so performance isn't up to the standards of more expensive devices.

With a relatively weak 5GHz Wi-Fi connection through a wall, against a 400Mbps/400Mbps source, I got up to 231Mbs down and 96Mbps up on the 2020 iPad Pro, but only 35Mbps down and 24Mbps up on the eighth-gen iPad. Similarly, compared with a OnePlus 8 Pro phone on the T-Mobile LTE network, I got up to 28.9Mbps down and 23.7Mbps up on the phone, but 21.6Mbps down and 8.9Mbps up on the iPad. That means this might not be the best device for people stuck on weak Wi-Fi or cellular connections.

Apple's stated battery life is the same as the seventh-gen iPad. We're still testing the battery, but we anticipate that it will be the same. On last year's model, we got 6 hours, 41 minutes of battery life while streaming video over Wi-Fi at full brightness, which is easily in line with Apple's projections of 9 to 10 hours at half brightness.

Cameras

The new iPad's cameras are also unchanged from last year: an f/2.4, 8-megapixel shooter on the rear and a 1.2-megapixel front-facing camera. The rear camera is, as always, fine. It doesn't have fancy optical zoom or night modes, and images get noisy in low light, but this is a $300 tablet. The iPad Pro's 12-megapixel main camera didn't turn out noticeably better in testing, although the Pro also has a wide-angle camera for more framing options.

The front-facing camera, on the other hand, is low resolution in this age of Zoom, and could use a real upgrade. It gives you a somewhat grainy 1.2-megapixel or 720p image that will work out fine if your goal is to be one of nine tiny boxes on a screen, but that looks subpar if used for self-filming or TikTok. Once again looking to the iPad Air, it has a 7-megapixel main camera.

Software

iPadOS is still iPadOS. It's fast, secure, and primarily a single-user, uni-tasking operating system, with a ton of supremely well-designed custom applications. Apple's commitment to data privacy goes far beyond Google's, as Apple doesn't rely on targeted advertising as a main revenue source.

It's worth thinking about the limits here: Unlike with a "real" laptop or a Chromebook, you can't have multiple user accounts on the iPad. I think that's fine for a device designed for schooling; you're not going to want multiple kids sharing an iPad anyway, as they'll need to do their work at the same time. You can split the screen between multiple applications, but only one can have focus, so if you're on a video call, you can't do messaging in a side panel. Honestly, that'll keep kids focused on school, though it's not ideal for everyone else.

Apple's commitment to upgrading its devices has stayed firm and still outpaces any of its rivals in the Android world. iOS 14 works with devices that have back to an A8 processor, so this A12 will probably get upgrades as far as iOS 18—if such a thing even exists in the future.

A Student's Best Friend

The 8th-generation iPad is a welcome alternative to a Chromebook for students, and it's a terrific entry-level tablet. At its student price and adding a Logitech K480 keyboard, you have a $350 quasi-laptop that's considerably faster and easier to configure than most competing Chromebooks. It's also, of course, a fine basic tablet, with all of the gaming and media capabilities you're used to from an iPad, juiced up with a considerably faster processor. It's a better buy than the iPad mini, delivering the same level of power with a bigger screen for almost $100 less.

That said, I haven't handled the $599 new iPad Air yet, but it has a lot going for it. It has an even faster A14 processor, a less reflective display with superior color, better Pencil support, true stereo audio, smaller bezels, faster Wi-Fi, a sharper front-facing camera, and even a better charging connector. It's also almost twice the price, but if you intend to use your iPad for any serious creative work, I have a strong suspicion that it'll be worth it.

The iPad's top competitor in the Android world is the $350 Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Lite. It's about the same size, supports a stylus, and comes with more storage at its base price. The S6 Lite's main problem is that there just aren't a lot of Android apps designed for a tablet form factor, and especially if you're trying to fit it into a school or corporate context, you're much more likely to see your institutional software and support tailored toward iPads. That means the 8th-gen iPad is still the tablet to beat in this price range, and our Editors' Choice.