Ben Lovejoy sums it upon pretty accurately over at 9-to-5 Mac:
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Itās pretty interesting how many of the latest innovations make the iPad less appealing as a a low-friction tablet, and how they make Microsoftās Surface line look better and better. The iPad is no longer way lighter or way easier to use. The main saving grace is that itās still possible to use the iPad as a dumb single-tasking device, but that doesnāt exactly require M2 level performance.
They seem to be painting themselves into a corner: bringing performance way up beyond the needs of the typical casual user (and the price way outside the budget of the casual user) and complicating the UI to be able to use all that performance for the few power users that would probably rather use macOS. Interesting times.
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You folks all no me - Mr. Go, no whoa, always wanting everything YESTERDAY, but I have to say from my position it looks like it will be years before iPad Pro becomes a real laptop replacement for productivity use, if ever, exactly because āApple is Appleā and knows what is best for us. Instead of this morass called Stage Manager, why didnāt they just mandate āNo pro features for you - go buy a MacBook Proā the exact same way Cook told the reporter to ābuy your mom an iPhone.ā
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Agreed. Given the power of the iPad it makes sense to add more power user functions, but based on what Iāve read so far the mostly managed to make the UX more convoluted. I would have expected more multitasking gestures, like grabbing a window and placing it a snap layout using a combination of drag and pinch zoom. And then maybe enabling a multi-desktop option (taking the role of stagesā¦ is that what they call those four app sets?) that you swipe between with four finger gestures. Thatās plenty complicated, and allows users to set up custom workspaces as well (desktops), but is closer to what weāre used to.
OK - this guy IS me (in disguise) - TL&DR - just dual boot MacOS already!!!
BUT - seeing as this will never happen, itās time to double down on the SP8ā¦looking now for best way to access my iCloud Photo Library from Chrome on SP8ā¦
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The Ars review is out:
The Good
As the 2021 model: peerless performance, impressive screen, mostly reliable OS
Hover is a nice upgrade for Pencil devotees
M2 boosts graphic rendering performanceThe Bad
Just one port for everything, unless you use the Magic Keyboard to charge
If youāre not an artist or video editor, itās probably not worth an upgrade yetThe Ugly
Front-facing camera still shuts off during multitasking and is still on the wrong side
Their review of the new ābudgetā iPad is not as positive:
Their alternate title was ā2022 iPad review: The best oneāexcept for all the othersā 
Basically the M2 is their current chip; cutting back/ending M1 production; so you get M2 now. They mailed this one in (literally a press release) and thatās the gist of it. At least iPadOS 16.2 beta brought back external display support for M1/M2 iPadsā¦
At this point, anything short of porting MacOS and its full application support to the M1/M2 iPad Pro is a complete waste of time. Add dual external monitor support and move the M2 MacBook Air to the BOTTOM of the MacBook Pro line; bridge āregular iPadā and āMacBooksā with the iPad Pro, and unite the clansā¦
PS - since Iām giving Timmy free marketing advice this morning, one more thing - put the year (at least in two digit form) into the name of EVERY newly released device so you can quickly identify the vintage of each - finding the ānewestā or which of the ālast couple of yearāsā model is genuinely a nightmareā¦
EU make it so (worked for USB-C, sort of)ā¦
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Found this nugget in the Ars review to be a hoot:
" New this year, the Pro models can capture ProRes video from their cameras and then transcode ProRes footage up to three times faster, according to Apple. The M2 package, in particular, can play multiple 4K and 8K ProRes video streams at once. This is ideal for those who edit video on an iPad, or, as is often depicted in Apple promotional videos, those who capture astounding nature footage at a professional level while choosing to only bring along a single Apple product for the job. If either of those is you, youāll see some real gains in this model based on our benchmarks."
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Similar to our reaction. Itās been a while but the 10th gen iPad is a product that in a lot of ways feels deliberately hobbled by marketing.
I donāt know why they didnāt stick a coat of fresh paint on the prior Air (Pre M1 Chip) use the non laminated display and call that the10th gen. Though the engineer in me suspects that laminated display is needed to support the Pencil 2
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I didnāt think of that. I do believe you may have nailed it.
Meanwhile on the M1 iPP 11 front, itās every bit as useful and satisfying as when I decided to buy it, and then some (itās gotten better, just not in the way or to the extent that others might have wished). A poster child for ābuy for what it does now, not for a dreamed-of future possibilityā.
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Yeah that 's an upside to Appleās approach under Cook. Older stuff stays genuinely useful for a long period of time.
Heck for that matter, If I didnāt have a genuine use case for Stage Manager with external display support Iād be perfectly fine continuing to use my 2018 Pro 11
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Latest rumors about the next M2 ultra and M2 extreme processors for the new Mac pro - they will be even more powerful:
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Lisa has been busy! Hereās her iPad Pro M2 review:
Thereās a demo of the hover functionality at 5:20 minutes in.
At 6:38 she uses drag and drop between apps, canāt say Iāve ever used that!
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Along with selecting her pretty kitty out of a photo, yeah.
Also, nice tshirt as usual, @lisaMobileTechReview 
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My kitty and my t-shirt collection thank you 
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Dave2D has some great insights. He spends most of the first half showing the advantages of Pencil hover (though heās still a little unclear about pen history).
Shockingly, in the second half he explains why a non-laminated base iPad is a good thing. 
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