Apple iPad Pro (10.5 inch)

Apple's 10.5-inch iPad Pro tablet packs as much power as a laptop, but using iOS for pro-level applications will take some getting used to for many professionals.

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$649.00

  • Pros

    Extremely fast. Light. Excellent screen and cameras. Better battery life than previous iPads.

  • Cons

    Expensive. Using iOS for pro-level applications requires a shift in thinking. Screen technologies may be too advanced to perceive.

  • Bottom Line

    Apple's 10.5-inch iPad Pro tablet packs as much power as a laptop, but using iOS for pro-level applications will take some getting used to for many professionals.

By Sascha Segan

It's taken seven years for Apple to achieve a laptop-class tablet with a truly touch-first interface and pro-level apps. The first iPad Pro worthy of the name, the 10.5-inch model ($649 for 64GB) could herald a whole new way of working. With a blazing-fast A10X processor and a new generation of apps, the Apple slate is finally capable of doing many of the things you would typically use a laptop for. But the entirely new workflow involved with professional-level tasks on an iPad use takes some getting used to.

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Physical Form and Display

The 10.5-inch iPad Pro replaces the 9.7-inch model that was released last year. As far as design goes, it's still an attractive metal slab with a glass screen. It's slightly taller and wider, but slimmer than the 9.7-inch model and the current non-Pro iPad, with somewhat narrower but still quite visible bezels.

There's a Touch ID home button at the bottom of the screen, volume buttons on the side, and a power button and headphone jack on top. Both cameras are oriented to be used in portrait mode, and the main, rear camera produces a noticeable protrusion on the back of the tablet, which is otherwise flat.

At 1.03 pounds, the 10.5-inch iPad Pro is easy enough to tote around in one hand, which can't be said for its 12.9-inch sibling. The 12.9-inch iPad Pro packs a 2,732-by-2,048 screen with the same pixel density and costs $150 more than the smaller iPad at every storage level. We're currently testing the larger iPad, but the tablets are otherwise identical in terms of power, performance, and features.

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The 2,224-by-1,668 screen is the same 264 pixels per inch as other iPads have used since the first "retina" display model in 2012. There's a little more room to play on this screen than on the current 2,048-by-1,536 iPad or the previous iPad Pro 9.7; the interface elements, in general, tuck into the new edges. Screen reflectivity is delightfully low, which is a big plus over the current non-Pro iPad. Backlit, or in outdoor light, it's noticeably easier to work on the iPad Pro because you aren't squinting through reflections. The screen is also slightly brighter than the current iPad, at 600 nits compared with 500.

But I physically can't appreciate Apple's two greatest display innovations. The iPad Pro's TrueTone display is supposed to optimize color temperature to be more compatible with ambient light. To me, it makes everything look yellow. I prefer the screen with TrueTone turned off. The iPad Pro is also the first tablet of any kind with a 120Hz refresh-rate display, which is supposed to make everything smoother and more fluid. I can't perceive it. Seriously, I can't. Many users and other reviewers say that this is a revolution in terms of the sharpness and smoothness of scrolling, though. I realize I'm in the minority here, and you may well be able to appreciate these differences.

Network Performance and Battery

802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.2 are integrated. If you get the LTE model (for an extra $130), there's a single global unit—unlike with iPhones—with an embedded SIM card that works on all four major US carriers and most international carriers. It has almost all of the bands that US and Canadian carriers use, except for T-Mobile and Freedom's new band 66 (that said, it has enough other T-Mobile bands that it will do just fine on its network). The tablet is Category 9 LTE, capable of top speeds of 450Mbps—not as fast as top-of-the-line phones, but still fast.

You don't need to sign up for a plan when you get the LTE model, and you can switch carriers at will. In the US, you can choose between prepaid plans from AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, AlwaysOnline, and GigSky on the tablet itself (The last two carriers specialize in global roaming.) The tablet also works on Verizon, but not with Apple's SIM—you need to remove it and replace it with a Verizon SIM card.

speaker

Testing the iPad Pro's Wi-Fi produced mixed results. With strong network signals, the tablet maxed out all of our backhaul connections, meaning its Wi-Fi performance was faster than the source internet connection. At 50 to 100 feet from the router, it's faster than most other tablets, and on par with the current iPad. But at the edges of coverage areas, we saw faster Wi-Fi speeds with the current iPad—sometimes more than double the download speeds with two different connections and two different routers. As the current iPad is the cheaper, non-Pro model, I'm not sure what to make of the fact that I got better Wi-Fi performance on it over the Pro.

In our battery rundown test, the iPad Pro 10.5 managed 6 hours, 54 minutes of LTE video streaming with the screen set to maximum brightness. That's better than we saw on last year's 9.7-inch iPad Pro, which lasted 5 hours, 38 minutes, and on the current iPad, which managed 5 hours, 15 minutes. It also means you'll see about 10 to 12 hours of real-life use with the screen brightness set to 50 percent, which is solid.

Processor and Apps

The iPad Pro uses Apple's new A10X processor, which is like the A10 chip in the iPhone 7 series, but with better graphics performance. When we benchmarked it against other iOS and Android tablets, we found that it's the most powerful processor in the ARM realm right now.

I performed some application comparisons between the iPad Pro and the current iPad, which uses an A9 processor. For video editing, the Pro is twice as fast. A video export that takes 34 seconds on the current iPad, takes 17 seconds on the iPad Pro. That's impressive. You'll find even greater differences with older iPads. I also saw photo filters applied noticeably faster, although I didn't see visible speed improverments in standard web browsing and more text-based applications like Microsoft Word and OneNote.

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Comparing the iPad with X86 or Windows tablets is a lot trickier, because the operating system's overhead comes into play. iOS is much lighter, faster, and more stable than Windows 10, and it uses fewer system resources. Up until now, though, iPad apps generally haven't been powerful enough to earn the tablet a "pro" designation from a workflow perspective.

I realized this when I was scrolling through and cutting 4K video in iMovie on the iPad Pro, which is buttery smooth and effortless. That same video jumps and shudders on a Microsoft Surface Book. New, professional-level apps like the Affinity Photo editing suite, Navicat for MySQL, various SSH and remote desktop apps, Autocad 360, Microsoft Office, and Adobe mean that it's much more possible to work on an iPad than it was two years ago.

The iPad Pro still falls short of apps in several professional categories. iMovie is nice, but there's no pro-level video editor app for the next step up. There's no actual Photoshop or Illustrator. And Microsoft Office lacks the most powerful, arcane features from the desktop version, like scripting.

But the bigger problem, for me, is that the interface metaphors are so completely alien to the workflow I'm used to. iPad apps' minimalist, entirely touch-centric interfaces give very few cues or clues for users trying to learn more complex features. I'm fairly certain Affinity Photo could do 80 percent of what most people need Photoshop for—if I could just figure out how to commit a filter. The new interface metaphors make me feel like I'm on the dustheap of history, clicking along with my 1978 Xerox PARC mouse.

keyboard

The upcoming iOS 11 will add multitasking features that the iPad has desperately needed for years, which will make it more competitive against laptops. You'll be able to open three apps on the screen at once; drag and drop between any two apps; and switch more easily between apps. It finally buries the whole unitasking problem the iPad has had.

iOS 11 will also fix some of the file system issues that pro users have experienced. Files on iOS are strictly sandboxed, meaning they're difficult to move from app to app. Drag and drop will help move them between apps, but there will also be a Files app that lets you peer into each sandbox and move files between them.

But even there, the metaphors are so different from what we're used to. From the UI perspective, there's a lot of swiping in from edges, swooping through, and multi-touch tapping. And from the file system perspective, you have to think in terms of sandboxes and various clouds, and not the generic, universal local file systems we've had for decades.

This is what makes it really difficult to "replace" a laptop with an iPad. The iPad Pro can do what a laptop does, but it does it so differently that anyone who's used to working with a laptop will find themselves lost at sea, at least at first.

Accessories

Keyboards may be a fading relic of ancient times, but I can't work without one. Apple's $159 Smart case has a keyboard that's a little bit roomier than the previous 9.7-inch model's, and that makes a difference. It really does feel like a full-size keyboard, and I find the chiclet keys more comfortable to type on than the keys on a default Surface Pro keyboard. They may even be more comfortable, with better travel than a MacBook or MacBook Pro keyboard.

You can use another Bluetooth keyboard with the iPad Pro, by the way: I tried an Apple keyboard and a Logitech keyboard, and they worked just fine. The iOS has no way to interpret mouse input, though. So no matter what, you're going to be doing a lot of work by tapping on the screen.

Pencil

When the $99 Apple Pencil first came out, I gave it a glowing review. The Pencil isn't new, but the Pro's screen updates more quickly so it feels more responsive. It remains the most accurate, sensitive stylus I've used on a tablet, including the Samsung S Pen and the Surface pen. On the new iPad Pro, it's lag-free, and the pressure sensitivity is impressive. In an app like Autodesk Sketchbook, it's positively glorious.

That said, I'm no longer in love with the Pencil's ergonomics, especially compared with the Surface Pen and the Staedtler S Pencil for Samsung. It's too long, too round (it rolls), too heavy, has to charge by sticking into the end of your tablet (which is just weird), and the tablet has no way to attach or hold it, which means it ends up kicking around in your bag. Apple sells a $129 leather sleeve with a Pencil slot, which is classy, but overkill.

If you're thinking about buying an iPad Pro as a laptop replacement, you have to factor in the price of the accessories as well. The $799 Microsoft Surface Pro also doesn't include a keyboard or a pen, but most laptops include their keyboards, of course. A 64GB iPad Pro with an Apple Pencil and Smart Keyboard is $907.

Camera

Multimedia

Apple uses the iPhone 7's front and back cameras here, and they're excellent. It has a 12-megapixel main camera with a f/1.8 aperture, an LED flash, 4K video recording, and fast autofocus, and a 7-megapixel front-facing camera with an f/2.2 aperture and 1080p video recording. The cameras are terrific for snapshots and FaceTime.

There's a bigger, better use for the iPad Pro's cameras that's coming with iOS 11, though: ARKit. High-quality cameras are going to be a big deal for augmented reality. We've seen a few AR apps on the iPad before—star charts and the like—but Apple's official AR SDK will probably lead to an explosion of AR options next year, and the iPad Pro is well-positioned to take advantage of them. This makes me wish that Apple would have included dual rear cameras like on the iPhone 7 Plus, though, because you need two cameras to detect depth properly.

headphone

The quad speakers sound richer than on any other tablet I've tested. With two speakers on each side of the iPad Pro, depth and harmonics are present in places they are simply missing in other iPads, with their bottom-mounted speakers. Each individual speaker is slightly quieter than other iPad speakers, but overall, when you measure volume over the center of the tablet, you get a sound that's 3-4dB louder than the current iPad. There's also a headphone jack, fortunately.

Conclusions

The current non-Pro iPad, starting at $329 for 32GB, is all the slate you need for traditional tablet use, which includes games, magazines, comics, and basic email, writing, and web browsing. The iPad Pro starts at twice the price ($649 for 64GB), and just goes up from there as you add more storage and/or cellular connectivity. And there's also the pretty-much-mandatory Smart Keyboard, which adds another $159. That's a big jump in price, and one that can only be justified by using your iPad as a primary computer.

And yet, I can't give up my laptop. There are iPad apps that do everything I need to do. But for real office and creative work, I can't get with the interface metaphors, the lack of menus, and all the swiping, holding, and pinching, or the cloud-based file system approach. For me to find the iPad Pro less usable than my laptop is not an indictment of it, but of myself, trapped in paradigms I can't escape. The iPad Pro transcends me and defeats me. It is like Snapchat or Venmo, two things I know to be revolutionary but that I can't figure out how or why to use.

keyboard edge

The iPad Pro is undeniably powerful. It is fast and stable. It is light and beautiful. It always picks your work up where you left off. The optional keyboard is better than the Surface keyboard. If you do your work on a standard iPad, such as the iPad Air 2, the iPad Pro 10.5 will deliver a major performance boost (but then again, so will the current-gen iPad). If you've got last year's 9.7-inch iPad Pro, there's no need to upgrade. The new iPad Pro has a faster processor and that 120Hz screen, but you just spent a lot of money last year and the upgrades aren't transformative.

The iPad Pro can cost more than Apple's entry-level MacBook Air, and in many configurations, as much as a MacBook Pro or a Surface Laptop. It's no media-consumption device. It's for editing spreadsheets, reshaping photos, or cutting 4K video. In the future, it is going to be for augmented reality. I understand the power here, although I can't say it works for me just yet.

Sascha Segan By Sascha Segan Lead Analyst, Mobile Twitter Email

PCMag.com's lead mobile analyst, Sascha Segan, has reviewed hundreds of smartphones, tablets and other gadgets in more than 9 years with PCMag. He's the head of our Fastest Mobile Networks project, one of the hosts of the daily PCMag Live Web show and speaks frequently in mass media on cell-phone-related issues. His commentary has appeared on ABC, the BBC, the CBC, CNBC, CNN, Fox News, and in newspapers from San Antonio, Texas to Edmonton, Alberta. Segan is also a multiple award-winning travel writer, having contributed… More »

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