The 10th-gen iPad drops below $300 for the first time

I got a nice sunrise surprise this morning. Sure, trees and power lines in my little corner of Texas were being hewn to the ground by the storms ripping across the central South, and I’m still without power as of this writing — but I have just enough juice in my power bank to inform you that we’ve found the best deal yet on the 10th-generation iPad. The 64GB / Wi-Fi configuration is down to $299.99 (about $34 off) at Amazon in select colors when you clip the on-page coupon. That’s a new price record for Apple’s entry-level iPad.

The latest baseline iPad now looks more like the pricier ones in Apple’s lineup, although it’s lost the home button and headphone jack and switched out the Lightning port for USB-C. And while it’s still on the A14 Bionic processor (compared to the M-series iPad Air), you don’t need to stretch for something more powerful than that if you’re only looking for basic browsing, entertainment, and light gaming. You’re still getting the newest versions of iPadOS, too, which should get even better after Apple makes new software announcements at WWDC in June.