Read this before you buy an iPad on Prime Day

Hoping to grab a good Prime Day iPad deal? Then make sure you've done some research. A little preparation can ensure you know a genuine iPad deal when you spot one and help you decide when the price is right.

While there are still a few days until Prime Day on 16 and 17 July, Amazon already has some good iPad deals, and there's a chance that some of the current prices won't be beaten during Prime Day itself. For example, Amazon currently has $101 off the new M4 iPad Pro and a record $80 off Apple's AirPods Pro 2.

At Creative Bloq, we've tested and reviewed all of the iPad generations over the past 10 years, so we're well placed to provide advice on how to choose and when to buy (I recommend following our Prime Day MacBook deals page and our general Apple Prime Day deals page too). Read on for our top tips for getting the best iPad discount possible.

How to find the best Prime Day iPad deal

The easiest way is to make sure you're following our own Prime Day iPad deals page. We've already started tracking iPad prices, not only at Amazon but across all of the main online retailers, and we're updating our Prime Day iPad deals roundup daily in the run up to the sale. We're providing context by comparing deals against the best previous prices that we've seen to help you decide how good each deal is.

These are the best current iPad discounts in the US:

• iPad Air 11 (M2, 2024, 256GB): was $699 now $654.99 at Amazon
• iPad (10th Gen, 2022): from $349 $321 at Amazon
• iPad (9th gen, 2021): was $329 now $249 at Amazon

Decide which iPad is for you

It's a good idea to decide what iPad you want in advance to save you from having to make a rushed decision on which model and configuration to go for. If you want a tablet for general browsing and entertainment, then the economical 9th or 10th-gen iPads should do you fine in terms of power. If you want to do some light creative work, I'd recommend an iPad Air. Finally, for photo editing, video editing and professional digital art, I would go for the new M4 iPad Pro with its OLED display. This is a tablet that can outperform many laptops.

But then you also need to consider whether you want a WiFI-only iPad or WiFi+cellular connectivity and also how much storage space you want. The more economical iPads aren't very generous when it comes to the SSDs in their entry-level configurations, offering a mere 64GB. That might be fine if you're not using the device for work, but it will fill up quickly if you're handling image or video files. The latest iPad Pros start with 256GB and go all the way up to 2TB.

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For help choosing, see our iPad Pro (M4, 2024) review and our iPad Air (M2, 2024) review.

Get familiar with iPad prices

The best way to ensure you know a real deal when you see one is to be aware of Apple's own recommended retail price. Retailers sometimes inflate prices in order to claim that they're offering a discount, so knowing the official price is a good way to avoid falling for this.

Of course, there are so many different configurations that it can be hard to keep every price in mind, which is another reason that it's good to decide what configuration you're going to go for. A few key numbers to bear in mind are that Apple' selling the iPad 10 from $349, the 2024 M2 iPad Air 13 from $599 and the king of all iPads, the M4 iPad Pro 13 from $1,299.

Be realistic about how big iPad Prime Day deals will be

When there's already a discount on an iPad, it can be difficult to know whether to grab the deal or to wait to see if the price falls further, so it can be useful to bear in mind the size of the savings that we tend to see. iPads don't usually have more than $100 off, so savings of around this amount are deals to grab.

Even the expensive iPad Pros tend to only see bigger savings than this on the higher spec configurations. On the cheaper entry-level iPads, the savings are more often of between $20 and $70. Anything higher than this can be considered a good deal.

Check other retailers

Amazon does tends to have the best prices during Prime Day, but not always. It's always a good idea to check other retailers to be sure. If you're following our own coverage, you'll save yourself a job since we do that for you. But if you're in the US, Best Buy and B&H Photo are the main alternatives to consider since they often match Amazon prices and sometimes even beat them on specific configurations.

In the UK, Currys, Laptopsdirect, Very and John Lewis are also worth checking. We track the prices at all of these retailers and more to save you from doing the legwork and we provide direct links to their deals (see the best current prices in your region below. The one place where it doesn't make much sense to look is at Apple itself, since Apple never offers direct discounts. That said, you might want to go with Apple if you want to get a trade-in deal or get an Apple student discount.

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Joe is a regular freelance journalist and editor at Creative Bloq. He writes news, features and buying guides and keeps track of the best equipment and software for creatives, from video editing programs to monitors and accessories. A veteran news writer and photographer, he now works as a project manager at the London and Buenos Aires-based design, production and branding agency Hermana Creatives. There he manages a team of designers, photographers and video editors who specialise in producing visual content and design assets for the hospitality sector. He also dances Argentine tango.