The Apple M1 consumes up to 30% more than the A12Z Bionic does in the iPad Pro

Equipping the latest iPad Pro with an M1 is a bold move by Apple, not least because it is a laptop-class processor. The company has not released any official TDP figures for its latest tablet so far, making it unclear how much power the M1 is sipping in an 11-inch and 12.9-inch chassis. We are yet to put either model through their paces either, but a YouTuber called Golden Reviewer has.

Writing on Twitter, Golden Reviewer reports that the Apple M1 consumes up to 10.7 W in single-core CPU tasks and 14.3 W when an application engages all the SoC's eight CPU cores. Additionally, 3DMark's Wildlife stress test pushes the SoC to 16.3 W, while Divinity: Original Sin II gets the M1 to consume 19.9 W.

By contrast, the M1-powered MacBook Air and MacBook Pro peaked at 30.3 W and 47.5 W during our tests. However, they averaged 25 W and 28 W respectively when subjected to sustained load, which is closer to the new iPad Pro's power consumption. Nonetheless, we would be surprised if the new iPad Pros could match their M1-equipped siblings, given the obvious power consumption discrepancy.

Apple allows the M1 to consume significantly more power than the A12Z in the last iPad Pro, though. When we reviewed the previous 12.9-inch model, it peaked at just 15.3 W and averaged 11.7 W under sustained load. Similarly, the Snapdragon 888 reached 11 W in the OnePlus 9 Pro and averages around 5.5 W in stress tests. Apple has changed the battery capacities of the iPad Pros this year, so it will be interesting to see how these changes and the M1 affect battery life.

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