The iPad Pro is the newest tablet from Apple, and the first with a screen larger than 9.7 inches. With a screen size of 12.9 inches the Pro is one of the biggest tablets available at this moment. It offers big advantages when viewing multimedia and creating documents and presentations, although the iPad Pro is a lot less portable than the iPad Air 2 and iPad Mini 3.
iPad Pro, tablet or laptop?
But what is the iPad Pro? Is it a genuine laptop replacement? Or is it nothing more than a larger tablet from Apple? It depends what you see a tablet as. For some, it’s a device that sits on the sofa with you, and you sometimes idly think about getting a keyboard for it so you could do some writing on the go. For others, it’s a laptop that packs a detachable screen for portability. Apple doesn’t seem to be pushing the iPad Pro into any particular market though – it’s designed to be a media hub, a decent word processor, a creative design tool, and then anything the app world can dream up besides.
iPad Pro display
The display on the iPad Pro is stunning. With a resolution of 2732 x 2048 at 264 pixels per inch, it’s actually the highest-resolution display on any iOS device, but all that means nothing until you see it. Photos, videos, even text look big and crisp and real. The only knock you could make on the display is that it doesn’t include the new 3D Touch technology Apple introduced with the iPhone 6S, something that arguably could have been more useful on a tablet meant for multitasking than it is on a smaller-screened phone.
iPad Pro processor
The tablet’s processing power is even more notable than the display. Apple has rigged the iPad Pro with its latest chip, the A9X, which it claims has twice the CPU and twice the graphics performance of the previous processor. (Apple points out it also “rivals most portable PCs” in terms of power.) And it has four strategically placed, self-adjusting speakers that wowed me with their sound when I watched videos on it.
In terms of battery life, Apple says you should get 10 hours. In my test, following The Verge’s standard battery test for tablets, I got just about 9.5 hours. In less formal tests, like on the day we shot a video of the iPad Pro while cycling through multiple applications, the Pro would last nearly a full work day without charging.
There are a bunch of other tech features to consider: the 8-megapixel rear camera and the 1.2-megapixel front camera, 1080p HD video recording capabilities, and a variety of sensors, including a fingerprint sensor.
- Larger 12.9-inch Retina display with 2732 by 2048 pixels
- Available in gold, silver and space gray
- Improved touch screen with optional keyboard and stylus
- 8 megapixel camera with the ability to shoot in 4K
- Powerful Apple A9X chip (64 bit) with 4GB memory
- Only 6.9 millimeters thick and 712 grams in weight
- Average battery life of 10 hours
- Release on November 11th 2015 in a 32GB- and 128GB model
iPad Pro conclusion
So fundamentally the iPad Pro can’t do all of the things a MacBook Pro can do. And, as of right now, the iPad is still not quite the computing savior that Steve Jobs predicted it would be five years ago. But it is a worthy runner-up to a laptop. This new iPad is powerful, it’s fast, it has a large display, and it never lagged when multitasking or switching between apps. It’s not better than a laptop, but makes far fewer sacrifices than expected.