Review iPad Pro: large tablet with dreams of being a laptop

Since I saw the light of day, Apple iPads always had the dream of being the future of computing. Five and a half years later, the iPad Pro – Apple Tablet largest, fastest and most powerful to date – make a strong commitment to meet this ambitious goal.

In retrospect, it was a steady march. When I bought my first iPhone half a decade ago, I tried to make it my all in one device; one that was e-book reader, game player and even a modular portable. He did a lot of things that I needed. I kept my short trips connected to visit my mother in Long Island. She stayed with me even though my laptop to stay home.

I wanted to replace my Mac. But I could not do everything. Still I needed, and I need my laptop to do homework every day. Especially for my work. Certain apps and Web tools just do not work so well on the iPad and … cannot easily edited.

Since then, there have been devices that seek to bridge the gap between a tablet and a laptop. However, Apple still has the iPad and the Mac as two separate entities. Each has moved a little closer to each other, gradually over time, but remain separate. No need to wait for the future: the future is here.

Apple iPad Pro is the largest attempt – literally – and boldest of the company to reinvent what the iPad is and can become. It incorporates a screen of nearly 13 inches; some accessories, including a super precise stylus called Pencil, and a new connector for keyboards. The operating system allows multitasking in split screen. It has a nearly 13-inch screen.

You might think that the sheer size of the iPad Pro may be absurd, but we’ve gotten used to it. It is beautifully designed, and extra space can be extremely helpful at times. Still, it might not be the alternative to a laptop that we all hope … and that costs almost as one: US $ 799 for the 32GB model; US $ 949 for the 128GB and US $ 1.079 for the 128GB LTE. And that without keyboard or other accessories.

It is an amazing tablet for artists, because that is something that the iPad Pro really true: be a lot bigger for graphics work, with the help of a stylus (Pencil) which is really very good canvas.

For everyone else, it has some limitations, as with other iPads. But compared to something like the Microsoft Surface Pro, but this represents only a few small steps. It has a nearly 13-inch screen. Some new accessories including a super precise stylus (Apple Pencil) and a keyboard cover. It has an operating system that allows some split-screen multitasking.

For everyone else, has its limitations – just like any other iPad. But it could become a replacement for the Mac if Apple allows it (if allowed) through apps and iOS. The hardware is fantastic, fast and the screen is impressive both as advertised. But the apps and inputs entries need it supports the need to rise up to make it everything it can be. I hope it happens, Because the one thing standing in the way of this “Pro” iPad is Greater flexibility and more customized software. The iPad is growing up, and it can use some new tools. And a lot more apps.

iPad Pro: Drawing as an artist

I’ll tell you right now who want to work on an iPad Pro: anyone who likes to draw or work with images. The most spectacular part of the iPad Pro even comes in the box. Here the real star is Pencil, the new Apple stylus sold separately. It is specifically designed to work with the iPad Pro, and beats by far any capacitive stylus that I used on a regular iPad. It is a tool of pressure sensitive, accurate drawing pixels and, for applications that supports, is glorious: it is fast, it feels like a normal pen. I was able to write by hand and feel normal.

A Marc Mendell, an artist by profession, he really loved. “This device was made for me … it is too sweet.” Mendell noted that it was “ultra precise and responded very well to their drawings,” Mendell but lost some of the qualities capacitive 53 Pencil, a stylus that has been available for several years to work with the app Paper 53.

Even those who are not artists they will appreciate. It feels like a traditional pen. I managed to write with him and felt ordinary. Pencil accuracy is much better than other stylus you’ve probably tried the other iPads. It’s more like the Samsung S-Pen for using their phones and tablets or the stylus on the Surface of Microsoft.

The most magical part comes when you tilt the pen tip at an angle, you can make the hatching of a drawing as you would a traditional pen. Any amount of off-angle tilt can do additional things depending on what application allows. The pressure sensitivity, although it takes time to get used to it, is finely achieved.

The combination makes this feel like a tool of artists, and not only as a piece of technology.

I loved drawing with the Pencil in as many applications as possible find: Notes app Apple Procreate, Paper by 53, the Adobe suite of apps optimized for iPad Pro and Evernote. My 7 year old loved it up and draw him too: he treated him as one of his crayons in his box. To him it was just a sketch pad. Lindsey Turrentine said his nine-years immediately took it and began to create things in the Notes app. “He said, ‘is very good I much prefer to use your hands to make drawings This pen really works well;.. It is very precise.”

The Pencil is paired via Bluetooth, and also needs to be charged: a Lightning connector to the end allows you to connect it to the Pro for quick charge (20 minutes increased from 38 percent to 100 percent), or connect to a Lightning Cable using an included adapter to charge separately. A single charge makes your battery last 12 hours, but never drew for long enough to be exhausted.

Pencil I love, but I would like to come included in the price expensive iPad Pro. It is rare that there is no place to put it. I do not like having a removable cover to hide your charger or the Pencil Lightning just sits there next to the iPad when charging; It is very strange.

But these are trifles. Pencil is very good, and all iPads must be compatible with it (and I’m sure it will be in the future), although currently only works with the iPad Pro). And really it should come packaged with Pro, because if you do not use, you really are missing something important.

iPad Pro : Smart keyboards and smart connectors

Apple added a new way to connect accessories to the iPad Pro: a small row of magnetic contacts on one side called Smart Connector (something like smart connector). It is a similar idea in theory, to which the Microsoft Surface tablets have to connect your keyboard covers. The accessories are connected and can be powered by the iPad.

I wrote all this analysis using the first two accessories iPad Smart Connectors Pro: Smart Keyboard, manufactured by Apple, and the new Logitech keyboard-cover, Create. He alternated between them for over a week and a half and I have no clear favorite.

The Apple keyboard is thin and light, but offers no protection to the back and folded in the shape of origami and as a support for the iPad. The keys, covered in a soft nylon, are protected from dust and are extremely sensitive, but feel a bit far between for my taste.

The Logitech keyboard is bulkier: the iPad mounted in it’s almost the size of a MacBook Pro with Retina display of 13 inches. But it offers complete protection cover, and the backlit keys are great, more like a standard notebook. But both keyboards are sold separately and cost more than US $ 150 each. Yes, you can buy a Bluetooth keyboard for just US $ 40 to take care of the basics, but also serve as cover or screen protector.

The Smart Connector could enhance other peripherals and entries, in theory, including for example a trackpad. The iPad lacks one Pro 9 or from iOS and supports the idea of ​​one with the exception of some limited control of the cursor on the screen keyboard of the iPad, if you press two fingers down. To edit and work on the Web with my tools I work every day (Google Drive, the system web-based publication of my company), need a trackpad to work well. IOS hope that future 10 and other peripheral permit.

But to write, could work at a fast pace in the iPad Pro. The Logitech keyboard was better for my lap, while Apple is better on a flat desk. However, neither allow adjustable angles to the screen as it does a laptop. And the extra-high screen iPad Pro made it difficult to accommodate in tight places like train my seat in the New Jersey Transit. The Apple MacBook 12-inch or 11-inch MacBook Air are much more compact.

iPad Pro : Oversize

Sometimes I forget I’m working on an iPad: sitting at my desk and lost on a huge screen.

Yes, the iPad Pro is great. It’s like the top half of a MacBook, literally. In terms of length and width it is between a MacBook Air 13-inch and 12-inch MacBook. You can hold it in one hand, but his giant size makes it unwieldy. But trust me, it is lighter than it looks: with 1.57 pounds is not much heavier than the first iPad – which is already an impressive accomplishment, considering how much bigger it is.

This is due to their size, you need a work area with enough to fit and also a good size bag to carry it everywhere space. It is held on a desk with keyboard and support accessories such as a minimonitor, but better use could be flat on a table or on your lap.

Its size makes it something almost like a television. I sit on my couch, turn on Amazon Instant Video. IPad Pro is resting on a couch. In some ways, it is like the other Apple TV. The 12.9-inch screen and resolution of 2,732×2,048 pixels (264 dpi) feels bigger because it is in a ratio of 4: 3, meaning it is extra-high compared to TVs or laptops (in landscape mode, is as high as a regular standing iPad in portrait mode). It is the height of the screen of a laptop of 15 inches.

If you pair Bluetooth control games – the same type that work with the new Apple TV – you will see that this iPad is a spectacular game machine. You can do this also on a iPad smaller, but the pixels of this additional resolution iPad display and brilliant look fantastic, even with video games and applications that have not been optimized for the tablet. Even better, his four horns – located at the four corners of the iPad thin body – automatically adjust treble and bass based on the guidance, deliver a fairly decent stereo separation and they will not muffle the sound when you cover one by accident and finally sound as good as the screen looks good. They are also very powerful.

There is something great, sometimes, to have such a large screen: read Web sites, it feels as if you missed it on a laptop or even a small desktop PC. The page (not the application) of the New York Times extends before me like a newspaper at my kitchen table. The documents are scattered as large prints. I forgot, many times, that he was on an iPad.

iPad Pro : Speed ​​- is relative

In theory, this iPad Pro is about the power of a laptop everyday. His A9X processor Geekbench tested through 3 and 3DMark Ice Storm Unlimited, the popular tools of speed tests shows that the iPad Pro reaches the range that the Microsoft Surface Pro 4 equipped with a Core i5 … or even a 13-inch MacBook Air.

Software: waiting optimized apps

As I said, only a few applications really take advantage of the Pro tablet until the time of this analysis. And that’s no surprise, since the Pro still is not for sale. But already here they show very well their pixels and potential. Adobe creative tools and applications as Procreate art drawing sizes get larger; iMovie feels easier to navigate, and is easier to watch video clips (which can handle video editing without problems). Apps like Evernote begin to feel almost like desktop applications, and you can do much more at a time.

But you have to work within the limits of what the App Store will give you, and what iOS in September allowed as split-screen work. For video editing, it becomes a challenge Ariel Nunez edited one of our videos on iMovie, and found it very different to what we could do at work on an iMac.

“The touch and pinch gestures make easier and faster edits many of the steps that would have to take a desktop system,” says Núñez, but the “basic editing functions” confuse “No window view Prior, no stereo editing, filters and transitions limited, there is no possibility to frame composition “. He admits that it is “easy to preview video and the simple edits can be made fast but he sees this as a quick tool rather than a way to do more intricate work.

“I do not see myself doing a documentary or a music video of something that requires a complicated issue,” he says.

iMovie is one of the only video editing applications that are currently for iPad Pro. will arrive other and use their own peripherals and consumables? At this point we do not know. And that’s the problem for any professional.

What could be the iPad Pro

Did you expect too much from this iPad Pro? Yes! It costs as much as a MacBook Air, when you add the extras that you will certainly want (keyboard, stylus and 128GB storage). There are plenty of opportunities where this could have been a bolder, more professional experience.

The home screen: there are lots of wasted space there. The spring of my appearing at the bottom of the screen still accommodate only six icons, max. I wish you could fit more, as I do in the dock in a MacBook. And I want notifications and widgets, now available in a dropdown menu, can live next to my screen if you so desire. I want access to more things in one place. I want more apps and widgets living side by side. And why would I want to customize more? Because I think the iPad can offer that.

There is no USB port on the iPad, but the Lightning port supports USB-3 speeds that come with adapters. Why not open it even more, with new fixtures? Although, certainly, the use of cloud storage to drop files to and from the iPad Pro is easier than ever (although it is still more dependent on a normal computer applications Mac or Windows), and making AirDrop from an iPhone or Mac to the iPad Pro works wonderfully.

And yes, I want a trackpad. And I want you accommodate IOS. Or, at least, to let me use the applications that work with one. Smart Connector port that has a lot of potential, but the keyboards do not really show what he could do.

iPad Pro : Conclusion – another step towards the future of Apple PCs

The greatest strength of the iPad Pro today is for artists and creative design. With the stylus and its potential to draw and use apps on split screens, it is an iPad with a large canvas. It’s expensive, but much better than any other iPad for those tasks. It is huge and beautiful and stylus pressure sensitive, makes a big difference.

And if you’re looking for the ultimate tablet to consume media – watching videos or listening to music – this tablet meets the requirements despite its high price.

For everyone else? This iPad Pro probably feel like something is not ready yet. Until you get more software and accessories, it is really a very big iPad with some improvements and more power.

Right now, the iPad still can not completely replace my laptop. And probably not going to replace yours either. But sometimes, it comes close. All weekend before writing this review I did not open my laptop once. I just used this iPad Pro. And I liked it, except to approve editions in Google Docs, which did very well.

Now I am back using my 13-inch Retina Pro. Using split screen apps and the iPad Pro. Making edits on the same desktop. And strange iPad Pro, a little bit, sometimes, for certain things.

I want the future of computing. I do not like buying decisions difficult. Apple iPad Pro is a strange product. It is half the future of Apple Computer. And the other half is not. It is a giant 12.9-inch tablet, in a place where many products Apple 12-inch and 13-inch perform very well: the MacBook Air, Retina MacBook Pro and the new MacBook.

I want the iPad will finally eat the Mac of the way the iPhone ended the iPod. The iPad has already advanced enough to become as big as a Mac. But iOS needs to change radically the same with him. I need to connect there all my old files and Web tools, because that’s what I need as a professional. The iPad needs to close that gap.

IPad Pro feels like the top of a futuristic laptop superpower. But I also want the other half.