Apple's cheapest iPad just hit a brand new record-low price for Black Friday

I've gamed on all kind of tablets, including meaty iPad Pros and giant Android tablets. But honestly, if you're on a budget, the entry-level iPad is an affordable powerhouse — and a fantastic Black Friday iPad deal has brought the newest-gen model down to its lowest-ever price.

The Apple iPad A16, which launched earlier this year, can be found for just $274 at Amazon, marking $75 or 21% off its MSRP. That's a great price on tech that isn't very old, and the savings extend to the cell models as well as various storage sizes. Even the much-pricier 512GB model has a $70 saving, for example, and these all mark the best Black Friday iPad deals of the year.

iPad A16 (128GB) | $349 $274 at Amazon
Save $75 - This is the lowest price we've seen Apple's newest standard-series tablet drop to, beating the Prime Day discount and even the pre-Black Friday saving. I don't imagine it'll go this cheap again until its successor is out, so it's worth grabbing now. The savings are on a range of color models.

UK: £329 £299 at Amazon

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To give you a quick run-down of the tablet's specs, it has an Apple A16 chipset as well as an 11-inch Liquid Retina display. The front and back cameras are both 12MP, and the tablet has Touch ID built into the power button. Like all of Apple's new tablets, it uses the modern thin-bezel design. Accessories like a keyboard folio or stylus don't come included.

The base model, which I've covered in the deal, has 128GB storage. That's enough for a light entertainment device, for watching Netflix or Apple TV Plus, but may not be enough for gamers, students or business users. The 256GB and 512GB models provide you more space but while they are on offer too, the prices are still higher.

Should you buy the iPad for gaming?

I really rate the iPad for gaming.

Partly, that's because it provides you access to Apple Arcade, the company's games hub which provides you access to quite a few great mobile games. There are over 200 titles and some of my personal picks include Slay The Spire, Balatro, Really Bad Chess and What The Golf?.

This is a paid additional subscription but new purchases of Apple tech generally include a free trial, which you can use to test out the platform.

Beyond that, there are plenty of great games on iPad and the A16 can handle them all. I have a different, slightly weaker iPad and I still easily get stuck into games like Mechanicus, Lego Star Wars, Minecraft, Tropico and several Total War titles. My particular Achilles' Heel is XCOM 2, and I find myself getting stuck into a new playthrough every few months.

Most of those games are PC or console games which have been ported over to iPad, and that's mainly my preference so I can enjoy PC games on the go, but there are plenty of other titles built for the mobile experience too.

If this has won you over to team iPad gaming, then this deal is really worth jumping on. I'd only advise avoiding it if you need a more powerful slate for work or your other hobbies, but there are deals on those too:

• See all Black Friday deals at Amazon
• More iPad deals at Amazon
• iPad A16 (128GB) | $349 $274 at Amazon

We've got an overall page on the best Black Friday gaming deals for you to peruse, as well as pages on Black Friday iPad deals that are already live, and also Black Friday retro deals.