Apple iPad (A16) review: The vanilla ice cream of tablets – PhoneArena

Apple iPad A16 Intro

New year, new iPad!

Earlier this month, Apple unveiled the 11th generation of the base iPad earlier his month, and totally unsurprisingly, it is pretty much identical to its predecessor with just minimal changes scored.

It’s been more than two years since the previous iPad 10th gen was launched in the fall of 2022, and that one was quite an overhaul of the previous iPad 9th gen, giving us a modern new design, larger screen, better performance, and great value. If that one was a “tick” update, this one here is a “tock” one, with upgrades that can be counted on a single hand. 

Is that necessarily a bad thing, though? Well, no. The base iPad has always been among the best-value Apple products you can get, and the same applies to the new iPad A16. It delivers some welcome performance improvements, gets you double the base storage, while keeping the rest of the package more or less the same, which is just fine!

Let’s explore what’s new and what has stayed the same. 

Table of Contents:

iPad (A16) Specs

Blink and you will miss the changes

Here’s a brief overview of the iPad (A16)’s specs sheet. Spoiler alert, there aren’t many changes in comparison with the previous iPad 10th Gen. 

iPad (A16) Design and Display

Simple yet effective

The lack of regulatory certifications at the back make this one looks super-clean (Image by PhoneArena)

The new iPad (A16) comes with no design changes in comparison with its predecessor, making this a pretty minor refresh. 

We get the same all-aluminum full-screen 3:2 tablet with very uniform but fairly thick bezels on all sides, as well as the now standard all-flat design language that is consistent with the iPhone and iPad Pro/Air lineups. It’s a pretty decent design language, a far cry from the outdated relic that was the iPad 9th Gen.

Ergonomics have suffered in comparison with the former model, of course, but that’s the price we have to pay for this more industrial and modern design language.

The rest of the exterior layout is the same: the power button with Touch ID at the top frame when you hold the device in portrait mode, while the volume buttons remain positioned on the right-hand size. The FaceTime camera is neatly hidden away in the display bezel, thankfully alleviating the need for employing a display notch, and the speakers are still just two despite the quad speaker grills all around the device. 

The perfect balance between screen size and overall dimensions (Image by PhoneArena)

One major change in comparison with last year is that you no longer get the “iPad” and regulatory labels at the back, which definitely makes for a cleaner overall design.

The iPad (A16) strikes the perfect balance between available screen size and overall dimensions. It’s big enough for most use cases, but not as enormous and weird as the 13-inch iPad Air or iPad Pro. At the same time, it’s sufficiently compact and not very heavy, making it a pretty smart choice for just about any activity you might think of: reading e-books, watching TV shows, and gaming.

The iPad (A16) comes in the same Silver, Blue, Pink, and Yellow color options as its predecessor, so no change on this front. We do love the more colorful and playful nature of the color hues in contrast with the usually more serious and boring selection that the iPad Pro is available in. 

Here’s what you get inside the iPad (A16) box (Image by PhoneArena)

Inside the iPad (A16) box, we get the following:

What we no longer get here are the classic Apple stickers of old, which have been axed due to environmental reasons. 

The display is the weakest aspect of the iPad Air (Image by PhoneArena)

At the front of the iPad (A16), we get the same 10.9-inch screen that debuted with the previous iPad 10th Gen. That one was already outdated in late 2022 and things haven’t changed in 2025, where this screen feels even more outdated. It’s an IPS LCD Liquid Retina screen with a 2360 x 1640-pixel resolution and a 264ppi sharpness. 

Moreover, the display boasts an old-school 60Hz refresh rate and low 500-nit SDR brightness, which is only sufficient for indoor use. There’s no XDR brightness support, so HDR content can’t be viewed and colors and brightness won’t pop up like on an iPhone. The display is extremely reflective, as there’s no antireflective coating or nano-texture display glass option like on the more premium iPad Pro units.

The biggest offense here is the fact that the display is still non-laminated. This means that there’s a slight air gap between the screen glass and the display panel itself. As a result, the display feels “hollow” and interacting with it is surprisingly noisier in comparison with fully laminated iPads, especially if you use an Apple Pencil. We don’t really like non-laminated displays, but it’s true that they are cheaper to repair and this is a base iPad after all. 

Essentially, the only change with the iPad (A16) display are the semantics: Apple has rounded up the screen size and calls it an 11-inch one, albeit it still being 10.9 inches across. Classic Apple.

In terms of screen properties, the iPad (A16) fares rather similar to its predecessor in our in-house display tests, achieving similar maximum brightness, color temperature, and color accuracy. 

Touch ID button (Image by PhoneArena)

The tablet is one of the last Apple devices that still comes with Touch ID, which is embedded right into the top-positioned power button. Earlier this year, Apple removed Touch ID from the iPhone lineup by employing Face ID on the new Phone 16e, making this here iPad A16 and the iPad mini (A17 Pro) the last of the Touch ID Mohicans. 

For all intents and purposes, Touch ID here functions flawlessly, of course with the added drawback that you have to physically touch the power button. In our opinion, Face ID is more convenient, despite what Touch ID’s fiery fan base might claim. 

iPad (A16) Keyboard and Stylus

The magnetic port that lets you attach the Magic Folio Keyboard (Image by PhoneArena)

You can use the Magic Keyboard Folio with the iPad (A16). This accessory was introduced with the previous iPad 10th gen and consists of two separate elements: a back case that protects the tablet and doubles as a kick stand and a separate full-sized keyboard. Both attach to the tablet magnetically and feel very sturdy. 

The keyboard keys feature some pretty decent key travel, making typing on this accessory convenient. The full 14-key function row at the top of the keyboard makes interaction with core features like volume and brightness selection pretty convenient and straightforward. The trackpad is also very convenient, greatly improving the versatility of the tablet.

The iPad (A16) also supports the first generation Apple Pencil and Apple Pencil with USB-C. The Hover feature is not supported here (it requires a 2nd gen Apple Pencil or later).

iPad (A16) Camera

A familiar affair

One camera to rule them all (Image by PhoneArena)

Apple’s latest value tablet comes with an unchanged camera setup in comparison with the iPad 10th gen (what a surprise!). We get the same 12MP F1.8 rear camera with phase-detection autofocus, Center Stage, a maximum of 5X digital zoom, and support for 4K@60fps video-recording. 

Up front, we have a 12MP FaceTime camera with F2.4 aperture and Center Stage support for intelligently keeping subjects in the frame. 

The main change here is the move from Smart HDR 3 to Smart HDR 4. This should improve your and videos, with slightly improved dynamic range. However, don’t expect to spot a noticeable difference between the iPad (A16) and its predecessor––photos and videos look the same. 

Video Quality

Photo Quality

iPad A16 front camera

The front camera is very adequate in all lighting conditions. Decent detail and good subject exposure is the highlight here, a typical and fairly safe Apple camera quality. 

The rear camera is fine as well. Good sharpness, okay dynamics, and decent overall quality is what you will usually get here. 

iPad (A16) Performance & Benchmarks

A slightly hampered A16 bionic chip on deck

The new A16 chip delivers ample performance (Image by PhoneArena)

The difference is in the available cores: the A16 chip in the new iPad comes with five CPU (two performance + three efficiency) and four GPU cores. iPhones outfitted with the Apple A16 Bionic chip had six-core CPUs (two performance + four efficiency) and five-core GPUs. 

The difference shouldn’t be noticeable in everyday usage, and you might only notice that something is “wrong” with this new A16 chip if you compare the synthetic benchmark results with these older iPhones. In real life, the iPad (A16) is a joy to use and has ample reserves of performance. 

What’s important in the hardware is the storage variants that the base iPad model is now available in. The device now starts with 128GB of storage, twice as much as the iPad 10th Gen, which came with the paltry 64GB of storage. The iPad (A16) also comes in 256GB, and for the first time in the range, a spacious 512GB version.

Connectivity-wise, we get the tablet with either Wi-Fi or Wi-Fi and cellular. However, unlike the iPad 10th Gen, it’s worth mentioning that you can’t use a physical SIM card with the cellular version of the iPad (A16), you can only use an eSIM. 

iPad (A16) Software

The iPad (A16) doesn’t support Apple Intelligence. With all the delays and questionable benefit of the Apple Intelligence suite, currently this isn’t a major loss.

The tablet comes with iPadOS 18. That’s one is a fairly major software update for Apple’s tablet-centric OS. 

It introduces many improvements, like a fully customizable home screen that lets you freely position app icon positions, flip the icon appearance between light and dark modes, and even tint icons with a color of your choice (which more often than not leads to tasteless results).

iPadOS 18 also lets you lock and hide apps from prying eyes, personalize the layout of the Control Center and fine-tune it to your unique requirements, and more.

iPad (A16) Battery

The battery size is largely irrelevant though, as we have battery test results, which reveal… no change in comparison with the previous iPad generation. Both devices perform largely the same in our custom battery tests with the screen set at 200 nits of brightness. The new iPad performs slightly better in the gaming test, but loses a bit in the web browsing and video tests. It all evens out, though, so you get the same total battery life. 

PhoneArena Battery Test Results:

Apple hasn’t introduced any upgrades in terms of charging speeds. You still get 20W wired charging and no wireless charging. That’s not ideal, as a full charge takes quite a while––it takes around two hours. 

USB-C is now standard across the range (Image by PhoneArena)

Should you buy it?

The default buying choice for the Apple ecosystem (Image by PhoneArena)

Starting at $349 and now with 128GB of base storage, the iPad (A16) is a great deal, no two ways about that. It’s the perfect tablet for most people, especially those who are in the Apple ecosystem and aren’t really concerned with the premium features found on the iPad Air or iPad Pro lineups. With decent performance and good battery life, it’s the no-nonsense tablet for those who just need an extra screen without too much extra fanfare.