Black Friday iPad deals already include M5 models

The best iPad for you will depend on what you want to use it for. For browsing, watching movies, social media and just occasional note taking and sketching, this year's standard 11-inch iPad with the A16 chip will do just fine, and it doesn't make much sense to spend more. We hope to see some good prices during Black Friday because this has been out for eight months now and was already reduced to just $279 in the US during Amazon's Prime Day sales in July and October.

If you're an artist and want a more efficient drawing experience, I'd recommend stepping up to the iPad Air. A new M3-chipped generation of this tablet was released in March, and we could see some good deals on this during Black Friday. This tablet comes in two choices of size: 11 inches or 13 inches.

If you're a professional artist and you have the budget for it, the iPad Pro is the top-of-the-range option. Also coming in 11- and 13-inch models, it has a superior screen with a bright OLED panel for improved contrast along along with a faster 120Hz refresh rate for a seamless drawing experience.

Coming with the M5 chip, this is the iPad to choose if you want to replace you're laptop when working on the go, and it's cut out to handle more demanding creative software, including video editing. The downside is that it was only released last month, so we might not see any huge Black Friday iPad deal on this, but look out for better deals on last year's M4-chipped generation, which some retailers will be looking to clear out. It's really the same device in terms of design, with the only difference being the relatively slower M4 chip..

Finally, don't overlook the iPad mini. It's more powerful than the standard iPad and its compact 8.3in size makes it handy for commuting.

Remember that all iPads come in various configurations, with the option of WiFi and cellular connectivity or just WiFi alone, plus two size options for the Pro and Air and at least two choices of internal storage capacity. When quoting prices above, we've generally quoted the price of the base model with WiFi and the smallest SSD. This might not necessarily be the option that meets your needs, but retailers will usually list other configurations under the same product listing.

If you use a tablet for work and want to store large files on the device, you may need a higher capacity. The iPad Pro, for example, is available with 256GB, 512GB, 1TB or 2TB. the price rises notably, but the higher-spec models sometimes come in for bigger discounts.

We'll be linking directly to the best Black Friday iPad deals across all four models here on this page. The best thing you can do to prepare to choose the best deal for you is to think ahead about which iPad you want and in which configuration – It's not great when you see a deal but aren't sure about the different options, so we recommend doing a little research.

Once you've decided which iPad you want (the Pro, Air, mini or standard iPad), choose the size (there's a choice of 11in or 13in with the iPad Pro and iPad Air), whether you want cellular connectivity or WiFi alone and which storage capacity you want. That way you'll already know what configuration to look out for when the deals start hotting up.

Based on previous years, I don't expect Apple to run iPad Black Friday discounts itself. There is usually an Apple Black Friday offer of sorts but it involves gift vouchers rather than direct discounts. This can be appealing if you know that you're going to want to buy another Apple product in the future, but even then the saving is usually no better than the direct iPad discounts offered by third party retailers.

In previous years, we have seen good Black Friday iPad deals at many major retailers in the US and UK. In the US, Amazon, Best Buy and B&H Photo tend to have the best prices, while Walmart and Target can also be worth checking. In the UK, Amazon and Very tend to have the biggest discounts, while Laptops Direct is worth checking for discounts on older models. We track prices at all of these retailers and more.

Defining when Black Friday starts and ends becomes more difficult each year. Traditionally, Black Friday was the Friday after Thanksgiving in the US, falling at the end of November. It's since extended to cover almost the entire month at some retailers. Best Buy has even been flagging deals as Black Friday discounts since late in October.

As for when Black Friday ends, many retailers continue it until the Monday after Black Friday itself, which some dub Cyber Monday. This year, that falls on December 1 2025.