APPL E CHOICE
The working tablet age is here
There’s an adage for most new tech: don’t buy the first version. No matter how ground-breaking and good it is, the second will be even better. And so it has come to pass that the smaller iPad Pro’s second version leaves its predecessor looking like an unfinished thought.
With its eye firmly on the ‘Pro’ side of things, Apple has improved things in three key areas from the 9.7-inch iPad Pro: the amount of working space, the quality of the display, and the performance. The move to a 10.5-inch screen with a higher resolution of 2224x1668 adds about 20% more display area, while keeping the same sharp pixel density (and barely any extra size to the chassis, due to the new design). Items on the screen generally stay the same size as they were on the 9.7-inch model, but you have more space to play with, and it allows for extras such as the on-screen keyboard (and attachable Smart Keyboard) being just about full size, which does help for typing speed. It’s subtle overall, but it’s instantly obvious if you work in Split View a lot. Before, it was usable but a little cramped on the smaller Pro. Now, we’ve found that we can happily do all kinds of work with our email app locked to the right-hand quarter of the screen. Obviously, the 12.9-inch model is even more comfortable for Split View work, and will be the best platform if you want to use four apps simultaneously (enabled in iOS 11), but this screen is now a wonderful balance between space and portability.
A refreshing change
But the size isn’t the only interesting change to the display. One big feature is 120Hz support, which doubles the number of frames per second the screen shows compared to Apple’s previous displays. It makes animations look extremely smooth, and scrolling text more readable. This is lovely but, more importantly, it also makes the screen twice as responsive, because it shows the result of any interactions twice as fast. This is huge in the case of the Apple Pencil.
The iPad display is powered by ProMotion tech, which doesn’t always operate at 120Hz. If you’re watching a TV show or reading a book, the screen runs at a lower rate to save power. This is all essentially unnoticeable, but the iPad Pros do have excellent battery life (we typed this
review for a couple of hours, then spent another hour browsing the web and viewing photos, then left it on standby overnight, and it was still at 80% in the morning), so it seems to do its job.
The screen’s brightness has been amped up too. Combined with the wide colour gamut, it makes photos look astoundingly vibrant, and helps with viewing in bright light (along with an improved anti-reflective coating). And it’s even good enough to display High-Dynamic Range video, though support for this won’t arrive until iOS 11. Regardless, these Pros are still the best screens Apple has made yet.
Pro power
There’s another huge boost to the Pro: the sheer, raw computing power. The new A10X chip is a triple-core chip (up from the dual-core A9X), with 4GB of memory and a new, more powerful graphics unit. Opening and switching between apps is very fast, but other iPads don’t feel slow in comparison. It’s in intense tests that you see its power: in Geekbench 4, it scores 81% higher than its predecessor, and 42% higher than the latest generation of 12-inch MacBook. In fact, its score beats most 13-inch MacBook Pro models.
In real-world tests against its predecessors, you see less dramatic results, but still big. To test the processor, we used WinZip to compress a 1.2GB folder of files, and the new Pro finished the task in 25.16 seconds – 30% faster than the 39.93 seconds of the 9.7-inch Pro.
Not many apps use this much power now, but it helps future-proof this machine as more and more powerful apps appear. Take Affinity Photo, which is basically a full-fat equivalent of Photoshop on the iPad. On the old Pro, it works great, but with some pausing after you apply certain brushes. There’s no such waiting on the new iPad Pro.
There are improvements for pros in other areas too, such as the option of up to 512GB of storage, and USB 3 support over the Lightning connection. The speakers are still great, and while the Smart Connector hasn’t changed, it’s handy for accessories like the Smart Keyboard (which remains eye-wateringly expensive – wait for a cheaper third-party option if you can).
So, should you get it? Absolutely – if you’re looking for a portable work machine. If you just want an entertainment tablet, its HDR support is great, but it’s very much overkill – the fifthgeneration 9.7-inch iPad is almost half the price, and fantastic for non-pro stuff. But with its gorgeous display, oodles of power, and amazing drawing prowess, this really can be a laptop replacement for some. In fact, it might just be our favourite computer in years.