Although Apple’s next-gen 11 and 12.9-inch iPad Pros have unsurprisingly captured the limelight in anticipation of a reportedly low-key announcement just about guaranteed to happen by the end of this month, a new edition of the company’s entry-level tablet is also expected to go official soon, targeting cash-strapped iPad fans no longer content with the internals of last year’s “standard” 10.2-incher.
Despite carrying an outdated A13 Bionic SoC under its hood and still coming with a universally despised and soon-to-be-outlawed Lightning port in tow, the ninth-gen non-Pro, non-Air, and non-mini iPad is arguably a solid bargain at a cool $60 discount.
Amazon’s latest deals are good (at least at the time of this writing) on the 64GB Wi-Fi-only configuration in both silver and space gray colors and a 256 gig cellular-enabled variant in the former hue, tying the e-commerce giant’s October Prime Day promotion and Best Buy’s non-member-exclusive special offers from last week for an undoubtedly limited repeat of the iPad 9’s lowest ever prices.
Naturally, you don’t need a Prime subscription this time around to save big on Apple’s most affordable iPad, which remains far more impressive in many ways than all of the best budget tablets… running Android right now.
That aforementioned A13 Bionic chipset, for instance, is definitely more powerful than Qualcomm’s mid-range contenders, while the iPadOS experience is simply unrivaled… especially at these substantially reduced prices. As for the fast-approaching iPad 10, its clear advantages over its 2021 predecessor will naturally be offset by a higher price unlikely to be knocked down anytime soon for the most budget-conscious Apple fans out there.
