The new 11- and 13-inch iPad Pros are among Apple’s thinnest products ever. Which, of course, means that everyone’s wondering if they’re fragile. Fortunately, there are plenty of YouTubers around who are more than happy to put the new 13-inch iPad Pro (at 5.1mm thick) to the bend test.
Let’s start with Zack Nelson at JerryRigEverything, who got a lot of attention when he did a bend test of the 2018 iPad Pro. Nelson spends most of the video performing other durability tests, including holding a flame to the glass and using a razor to scratch the glass and aluminum enclosure. (If the sound of a blade scraping against metal makes you cringe, be prepared. I wasn’t. Ack!) You need to get to the 8:30 mark of the 11-minute video for the bend test, where Nelson finds “suspicious black magic-levels of integrity going on” when bending it horizontally with his hands. He was able to crack the glass after putting more pressure than anormal situation ever would, but says, “That central spine is definitely providing enough structure for horizontal bends.”
However, the iPad Pro didn’t hold up as well when Nelson switched to bending the iPad Pro vertically. It suffered a “catastrophic failure” at the USB-C port. With the glass removed, you can see the cowling that is used to dissipate heat and reinforce the iPad Pro. It runs through the center with the ends at the short sides of the iPad Pro–this layout is why the iPad Pro was able to withstand the horizontal bend better than the vertical.
The next bend test video comes from Sam Kohl at AppleTrack. He spends most of his 13-minute video bending the 11- and 13-inch iPad Pro with his hands and found similar results as JerryRigEverything: The iPads hold up relatively fine during horizontal bends, but vertical bends lead to dramatic damage. After a horizontal bend, Kohl compares the 13-inch iPad Pro to the previous 12.9-inch iPad Pro and notices that the damage is very similar. Kohl was also impressed that the displays of the tested iPads still worked.
Finally, we have a six-minute bend test video from MobileReviewsEh and Aaron Ho, who took a different approach to the bend tests. Instead of bending with his hands, he placed the iPad Pro on a platform and applied pressure to a central point, with the pressure increasing by adding weights. After 70 pounds, the iPad Pro showed some severe warpedness, but it still worked. it took 95 pounds of weight for the iPad to completely fail.
In all, what does the 30 minutes worth of videos tell us about the iPad Pro? Well, it takes an extraordinary amount of pressure and effort to bend it. Chances are, if you’re stashing it in a bag or backpack, the iPad Pro is probably going to be alright. It’s still a good idea to get Apple Care+ for it, but unless it gets caught in an unusual situation, the iPad Pro is going to hold up.
Apple iPad Pro 11-inch (M4, 2024)
Author: Roman Loyola, Senior Editor, Macworld
Roman is a Macworld Senior Editor with over 30 years of experience covering the tech industry, focusing on the Mac and other products in the Apple ecosystem. He is also the host of the Macworld Podcast. His career started at MacUser, where he received Apple certification as a repair technician (when Apple did that kind of thing). He's also worked for MacAddict, MacLife, and TechTV.