Hands on: Hands on: Apple has taken the iPad back to formula and improved it in nearly every conceivable way
It’s 2018 and it’s towards the tail end of the year, and that means it’s likely Apple is going to launch a new range of iPads – sure enough, that’s what happened in New York.
The new iPad 9.7 emerged in the first half of the year, bringing Apple Pencil support to a non-Pro device for the first time, so let’s see how well the new iPad Pro 11 can compete with that well-priced device, considering the new additions certainly aren’t cheap.
The first thing to note of the new iPad Pro 11 is that it’s one of the most powerful tablets on the market, with Apple claiming it can do all manner of things from great media playback to robust photo manipulation, as well as acting as a second screen on the go. Is that enough to make it the best iPad to buy?
One of the good things about an Apple event is that you know you’re going to find out when you can get your hands on the new thing that you immediately find yourself lusting after – and the painfully high cost it’s going to set you back.
The new, smaller, iPad Pro 11, which we’re previewing here (there’s also a new iPad Pro 12.9) will start at $799 / £769 / AU$1,229, and comes in variety of configurations.
To start with you can get it in a Wi-Fi-only version, or with a cellular connection to allow you to access 4G data on the go.
Then you’ve got a variety of storage capacity options, so let’s break down the pricing. That starting price above is for the Wi-Fi-only version with 64GB of storage on board.
The next storage size up is 256GB, which starts at $949 / £919 / AU$1,449, followed by 512GB for $1,149 / £1,119 / AU$1,749. Top of the heap is the 1TB version, which costs a whopping $1,549 / £1,519 / AU$2,349.
Note that all the above prices are for the Wi-Fi-only version of the slate – if you want to add cellular connectivity you’ll need to shell out an additional $150 / £150 / AU$200.
The new iPad Pro 11 is available to pre-order now, and the release date is imminent, as it’s set for November 7.
There’s one reason you’d pick up this new iPad: the sheer improvement in terms of the way it looks in your hands. Gone are the large, cumbersome bezels on the sides, replaced with thinner ones that more closely resemble those on the new iPhone XR.
There’s still room on the left-hand side (if you’re holding the tablet in landscape mode) for all the sensors though – Face ID, front-facing camera and so on – which are necessary so that you can actually get into the tablet without the home button.
Oh, yes, that’s right: the home button is now gone from the tablet, and we can’t say we’re that bothered about its loss.
While it makes sense on a phone, where your thumb naturally falls on that spot (although of course it’s now gone from the iPhones), on a tablet it’s quite an effort to get your digit into the right place.
The smaller bezel doesn’t leave you with too little bezel to hold though – yes, you do clutch it a little more lightly, but it’s still a comfortable experience, even though the edges are less rounded.
We found that using Face ID to unlock the device works much more slickly in practice, and can be used in both landscape and portrait orientations with ease.
We’ll wait for our final review unit to test this out properly, because checking it in a crowded demo area at a launch event is never going to result in the best experience.
There are a couple of other changes you need to know about. The first is that the Lightning port has gone. Yep, the ‘controversial’ port that Apple developed for the iPhone 5 is now no longer present on tablets.
Instead, we’ve now got a USB-C port, as seen on the Macbook range – according to Apple this allows you to connect an iPhone, camera or even charge other devices.
It’s an interesting move, and it does mean that you can no longer plug your iPhone cable directly into your iPad to charge it, which is going to be annoying for some.
However, given the possibilities the change of ports brings, it’ll be interesting to see what comes of it – the accessories market for Lightning connectors is geared more towards Apple’s phones than its tablets, so we can’t see this move having quite the impact that changing the connector on the iPhone would.
The other change to note is to the Smart Connector on the back – it’s moved from the long edge to the bottom of the tablet, and there are many magnets on the back to allow you to connect the new folio smart keyboard – and you can still only use the keyboard when your iPad is in landscape orientation.
Trying the folio keyboard, it’s a very similar experience to that found on the iPad Pro 10.5 – the keystroke quality hasn’t changed much at all. There are two ‘ridges’ on it now, which allow you to prop the tablet up in different ways depending on what you’re doing.
We didn’t try the new iPad Pro on our lap, but as a desktop angle it worked pretty well.
The screen quality on the new iPad Pro 11 is, as you might expect, very strong, and has been improved upon once again by Apple.
There were few leaks about this beforehand, and overall quality has been enhanced by bringing the LCD technology from the iPhone XR – in practice there’s a real upgrade to the slickness of the display across all applications, most notably when it’s running at 120Hz for smoother gameplay.
The new iPad Pro 11 is, as you might expect, one of the most powerful tablets you’ll have ever held in your hands.
Combined with the new Apple Pencil, which sticks to the side of the iPad magnetically and charges wirelessly, the new tablet has the capability to do more than any other device from Apple, thanks to using the new, upgraded A12X Bionic chip, which already eclipses the power from the iPhone XS we saw last month.
In practice, it’s hard to notice much of a change when scooting around the new iPad Pro, namely because we’ve had more than enough power to do that for a number of years.
But it’s for the heavy lifting with more power-hungry apps that Apple is touting the upgrade – there were a lot of demos where content creation was on the agenda, with full Photoshop from Adobe and console-level graphics.
We played both Pro Evolution Soccer and Assassin’s Creed on the new iPad Pro, and the level of graphical reproduction and the fluidity on the screen was very impressive – we’re looking forward to seeing whether developers actually do try and exploit the power available in the new iPad Pro or whether there won’t be the user base that wants console-level graphics on a tablet.
It’s hard not to be impressed with what the new iPad Pro can do – we’ve felt that way when looking at every new generation – but it’s debatable whether the average user will really get that much benefit from the added grunt, with only the hardcore buyer really getting much benefit.
The new iPad (2018), which landed earlier this year and is now imbued with Apple Pencil support, is a much cheaper device, and does a lot of the tasks many will want a tablet for with aplomb.
But it feels like if you’re ever going to do any image or video manipulation, want to render 3D models on the go, or just feel like you want to flick between loads of projects, the iPad Pro 11 might be an upgrade worth looking at.
On the latest iPad you can even double-tap the Apple Pencil to change modes when sketching – the demo showed this off with the Notes app, and other apps like ProCreate allow you to switch between your own custom activities with a couple of taps.
