Another Amazon Prime Day is upon us, which means it’s another prime time of year to buy a new iPad for yourself or as an early holiday gift for a loved one. In typical fashion, it’s not just Amazon offering killer deals.
Best Buy is running its own sale alongside this latest Prime Day, and it includes a lot of discounted iPads — including the old 9th Gen iPad, the iPad mini, and multiple versions of the iPad Pro. They’re all tempting deals, but you shouldn’t bother with any of them. If you buy a new iPad during Prime Day, you need to make sure it’s the 10th Gen iPad.
The 10th Gen iPad launched in October 2022 and is currently the base iPad in Apple’s lineup. It’s a great machine, but when it initially launched for $449, it was priced too high to be worth your money. During Apple’s Let Loose event this past May, the company permanently cut the price to $349, making it a much more tempting offer.
Now, only for Prime Day, you can get the 10th Gen iPad for just $299. While the iPad 10th Gen might have been a tough purchase a couple of years ago, it’s now one of the best tablet deals around — and the only iPad you should buy this week.
I haven’t used the 10th Gen iPad in a while, but I thoroughly enjoyed it when I reviewed it in 2022. The 10.2-inch display is a great size for web browsing, doom scrolling, and watching too many YouTube videos. It’s large enough that you have plenty of room for everythin,g but still compact enough that the iPad doesn’t feel too unwieldy. I love it. The screen quality isn’t the best, but it still looks great in most situations.
I also adore the iPad’s design. It’s lightweight and comfortable to hold, and the vibrant colors are fantastic. I particularly love the yellow color Apple sent me for my review, but the blue and pink colors are just as gorgeous.
Fundamentals, like performance and battery life, are great, too. The A14 Bionic chip inside the iPad 10th Gen may not be the newest in Apple’s lineup, but it’s still a rock-solid chip for everyday tasks. Even graphically intense games like Call of Duty: Mobile ran incredibly well during my testing. As far as battery life is concerned, you can expect around two days of use per charge with about two hours of screen time per day.
And, of course, you get all the benefits of buying an iPad. Typically, iPad apps are often better optimized and of a higher quality than their Android counterparts. You’ll also continue to get software updates for the next several years, something we can’t often say about similarly priced Android tablets.
The 10th Gen iPad isn’t mind-blowing in 2024, but it nails all of the basics you could ask for. It has a fantastic design, a good display, reliable performance, strong battery life, and great software. Can you ask for much more for just $299?
It becomes an even better deal when you look at other Prime Day discounted iPads. The 9th Gen iPad is also on sale for $200. That’s a really low price, but you’d also get a smaller and lower-quality display, worse performance, a Lightning port instead of USB-C, slower Wi-Fi, etc. The $100 savings is nice, but I don’t think it’s worth it.
The iPad mini is also on sale, but it’s still more expensive at $400. You do get a slightly better chip and minorly improved display quality, but that’s about it. Numerous iPad Pro models are on sale, too, but even at their sale prices, you’re still spending at least $949.
What I love most about the 10th Gen iPad is how accessible it is. Similar to the iPhone 16, the 10th Gen iPad isn’t the most technically impressive in Apple’s lineup, but it is one of the easiest and most enjoyable to use. It’s everything you could ask for in an iPad and at a phenomenal price during Prime Day. Don’t let this one slip by.
