Gadgetory

Apple's latest tablet seems strangely out of character for the company who's fabulous success is due largely to conservative iteration just as the first iPad was demeaned as an oversized iPhone the iPad pro is easy to dismiss as just an oversized iPad is Apple's newest tablet big enough to get out of its own shadow i'm michael fisher with pocket now let's find out in part one of our iPad pro video review a quick note on this video folks we tested the Wi-Fi only iPad pro for five days all by itself without the keyboard dock and Apple pencil and we did that because well one there backordered and we're waiting for them to be delivered but also because there are people out there who will buy the iPad pro as a standalone tablet whether it's to save money or for some other reason now what we want to find out here is whether that purchase is worth it let's talk hardware most people who buy the iPad pro on its own are buying it for one very big reason the display at 264 PPI the screen brings competitive pixel density with color saturation and brightness in line with what we've come to expect from Apple plenty bright in other words it's IPS LCD so the blacks aren't as dark as what you'd get on AMOLED but that's a small price to pay for such a massive screen at nearly 13 inches everything from web browsing to watching Netflix to plotting a course on maps is just better with much more room to spread out it's also well suited to gaming and graphics heavy titles like f-18 carrier landing become more immersive while board games like SimCity become much easier to manage or share with a friend there's probably a market for multiplayer board games on something this big come to think of it of course a big screen makes for a very big tablet one that's stretching the definition of portable here's where the oversized ipad complaint has some teeth because while it's all very pretty and high-end as usual apple's decision to retain the traditional placement of the control elements makes it awkward to do things like scan in with your thumb it's also awkward to change the volume because the buttons are way up there in the corner you get the idea without its accessories the ipad pro's size makes it sort of an inelegant product which is strange now it is still much thinner and lighter than most notebooks but it's aluminum construction means it's still pretty hefty at 710 grams and it can't fit into small bags as well as most other tablets unlike the Microsoft Surface line there's not even a built-in kickstand here the result is a tablet that's awkward in a lot of situations once you do figure out a use position that works for you though you're going to love the iPad pros virtual keyboard Apple has used the added space to toss in a persistent number row the formatting toggles for bold italic and underline and other bonuses like dedicated undo and redo keys it's even brought over a 3d touch feature from the iPhone instead of force pressing which doesn't work here drop two fingers on the keyboard for precision cursor placement the added width makes typos less common so Apple's autocorrect is less likely to try to step in with its ducking suggestions and while most folks would still prefer a physical solution for longer writing the ipad pro's virtual keyboard is probably the best we've used on a tablet it took six generations to do it but Apple has finally given the iPad a competitive multi-screen experience with iOS 9 that means if you're reading the local paper in Safari you can swipe in from the right edge to bring up a list of compatible multi-screen apps tap the one you want to dock it to the side of the screen like competing solutions there are limitations only split view apps can be run simultaneously while slide over apps are relegated to a more limited one at a time implementation and right now the number of compatible titles is pretty slim but it is expected to grow as developers build support into their new and existing apps there's more smart stuff here too that makes the iPad pro a little more like a regular computer if you start watching a movie in the videos app and you press the home button you'll find that the movie continues playing in a small moveable window that hovers atop whatever else you're doing this is called picture-in-picture and while we saw features like it on smartphones as far back as 2012 it's got a lot more room to spread out here Netflix and YouTube support has yet to arrive but if you're an iTunes user or you make a lot of FaceTime calls it's pretty impressive even in its current form elsewhere ios9 works pretty much the same there's the multitasking carousel the control center with its system toggles the Action Center now with two columns the spotlight search lets you search the whole tablet for a contact or an app or jump right into a Google search and the center of the experience as always is that four by five grid of icons and folders making up the home screen just like every year we wish Apple would have done something a bit more creative here it's pretty dull compared to what you can do with Android and Windows you but in exchange you get all the welcome improvements of iOS 9 along with its outstanding app ecosystem we've been here before if you're taking important photos with a tablet you're doing it wrong it's not just that you look like a goober though you do it's that tablet cameras just aren't very good and the iPad pro is no different by and large photos taken with the 8 megapixel iSight sensor are dull with large amounts of grain and even moderate lighting about the only thing that's truly good for is scanning an occasional document or showing a FaceTime color what you're looking at when you switch over from the 1.2 megapixel shooter on the front side we were honestly surprised to see Apple settle for a disappointing component like this which is just so out of place on a device that puts such emphasis on being well pro that goes for performance too to an extent the software experience is usually pretty buttery thanks to the new a9 X silicon and four gigs of RAM but we were surprised to find quite a few glitches here as well most prominent that mysterious charging bug which sometimes causes the iPad to become unresponsive when it's plugged into a charger it requires a soft restart stock apps are also sometimes unstable the first time we used picture-in-picture it crashed the videos app and some third-party titles seem to have trouble in the switch iOS 9 as well Spotify needed a quick update to get it to stop crashing on startup and Evernote kept hanging on our device when we tried to update it via the App Store draining our battery while getting nothing done on the bright side there's plenty of battery to drain the iPad pro lasts an incredible amount of time single charge starting with a full charge on Friday night and limiting ourselves to about half display brightness we were able to get through an entire weekend of words with friends podcasts streaming internet browsing and untold hours of SimCity before the iPad finally gave up the ghost late on Sunday night sure takes its sweet time charging though the included 12 watt adapter is only good for about half a percent per minute this is a tablet you charge overnight and finally there may not be a beatsaudio sticker on this thing but it sure does thump Apple has built in two sets of stereo speakers at the corners for a total of four drivers each with its own volume chamber and they're absolutely Bar None the best speakers you will find on a tablet the iPad pro comes in Wi-Fi and 4G flavors with two storage options and three color choices price starts at $7.99 for the base model and climbs to over $1000 for the LTE version with maxed out storage that puts the iPad pro in the same league as the MacBook Air and at the higher trims it even gets close to the base model MacBook Pro and therein lies the problem if you're spending much the same money why would you get the iPad pro instead of springing for a full computer especially if you're buying it's solo for the great speakers the huge touchscreen for the awesome battery sure all good reasons but given the limitations of iOS vs. OS 10 and the big bugs that have yet to be squashed we think most Apple shoppers would be better served either saving their money on a normal iPad or seeking the greater value of a MacBook we'll see if this prediction comes true in part two of our iPad pro review but it may well turn out that in the case of the iPad pro the accessories make the tablet be sure to tune in for that review follow-up folks and in the meantime check out part 1 of the written iPad pro review available at pocketnow.com and linked in the description until next time this has been michael fisher captain to phones on twitter reminding you to keep your sims happy no matter what device you do it on thanks for watching everyone we'll see you next time