The iPad Lineup, Amortized: What Each Model Costs Per Year of Actual Life

The Premise

It is mid-April, the one season when Americans reliably confront arithmetic. In that spirit, the Editorial Staff has amortized the iPad.

Apple currently sells six iPads relevant to this exercise: the base iPad (11-inch, A16), the iPad Mini (A17 Pro), the iPad Air M3 in 11-inch and 13-inch sizes, and the iPad Pro M5 in 11-inch and 13-inch sizes. Current pricing for all six is on the deal cards below when discounted, and on Apple's own site otherwise. Reviews of these devices traditionally discuss how they feel. We will instead discuss what each one costs per year of actual life, which is a number, and therefore something we can defend.

Method

Two calculations per model.

Calculation One: sticker price divided by projected years of software support. Apple publishes no support commitments, so we projected from precedent: recent cutoffs have granted base-tier iPads roughly six years of iPadOS updates, Airs roughly seven, and Pros seven to eight — the 2018 iPad Pro was still receiving updates in its seventh year. These are estimates. We have labeled them estimates. We will not be answering letters about them in year nine.

Calculation Two: the four-year exit. Purchase price minus a realistic resale value at year four, divided by four. Resale figures are rough estimates for the corresponding 2021 and 2022 models in good condition, not logged sales data, and should be read with the tildes intact.

Table One: Sticker Divided by Support

We will spare you the line-by-line arithmetic, since every dollar in it depends on Apple's current pricing, which readers can check on the deal cards below or at Apple.com. The ranking beneath it, however, does not move with the sales cycle, cheapest cost-per-supported-year to priciest:

• iPad (11-inch, A16) — cheapest per supported year, by a wide margin
• iPad Mini (A17 Pro)
• iPad Air 11-inch
• iPad Air 13-inch
• iPad Pro 11-inch
• iPad Pro 13-inch — most expensive per supported year, and not close

The base iPad wins outright. The 13-inch iPad Pro costs categorically more per supported year — for a device that runs the same App Store, streams the same video, and displays the same seventeen browser tabs you will not close.

Table Two: The Four-Year Exit

We'll spare you this table too, for the same reason: the dollar figures move, the ranking doesn't. The order is identical to Table One, top to bottom. The Pro models retain a somewhat higher percentage of their value at resale than the base iPad, and it does not matter, because percentages are not dollars, and the dollars favor the cheap with a consistency the staff found almost restful.

Notes on the Arithmetic

First: the base iPad's dominance survives every variation of the math. Suppose you replace it at year six with whatever the base iPad costs then — call it the same price, for round numbers — the twelve-year total still lands at the same modest per-year rate, still below every other line above. Catch it on sale, and the per-year figure drops further still, to a level no other Apple product approaches.

Second: accessories quietly rewrite these numbers. A Magic Keyboard adds a meaningful chunk to an iPad Pro 11-inch's total outlay, and keyboards retain almost nothing once used. A keyboarded Pro's per-year cost climbs enough that several laptops become relevant, including some from Apple's own lineup.

Third: the Mini. It costs noticeably more than the base iPad against identical projected support, entirely for being small. We pass no judgment. Smallness has always commanded a premium, in electronics and in produce.

Fourth: none of this measures joy, speed, or the 120Hz display's undeniable smoothness. We were interested in cost per year. Other publications are available for the feelings.

The Conditions Under Which the iPad Pro Makes Sense

We identified four, after deliberation that outlasted two pots of coffee:

1. The M5, the ProMotion display, or the Thunderbolt port is load-bearing for paid work — video, illustration, audio — such that the device generates income rather than consuming it.

2. Your ownership horizon is genuinely seven or eight years, allowing the longer support tail to actually amortize instead of theoretically amortizing.

3. Someone else is paying.

4. The 13-inch screen is replacing two devices, not supplementing one.

Two or more conditions: the Pro defends itself. Exactly one: buy the Air, which does roughly 90% of everything for meaningfully less of the annual cost. Zero: buy the base iPad and put the difference toward a savings account, where it will sit quietly until it becomes your next iPad, which is more than the ProMotion display would have done for you.

Conclusion

Purchase price divided by useful life remains the least glamorous number in consumer electronics and the most predictive of regret. The base iPad wins both comparisons without appearing to try. Division favors the cheap; it always has; this is why division is unpopular.

— The BuyGetRewards Editorial Staff

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