iPad Pro (2018) Review: The Verdict
The new iPad Pro is the best iPad to date, but it's still just an iPad. And quite an expensive one at that. Excellent as it may be, for most it will still complement a traditional computer rather than replace it.
What we love
- Gorgeous display
- Incredible performance
- Improved Smart Keyboard and Apple Pencil
What could be improved
- No headphone jack
- USB Type-C port doesn't work with flash drives
- Expensive
The new iPad Pro is a luxury. A status symbol, even.
Most of Apple's products could be classed as luxury goods, but none fit this description as well the 2018 iteration of iPad Pro.
Sure, there will be some who can genuinely take advantage of the iPad Pro's boggling amount of processing power and try to make it work as a laptop replacement, or just fall in love with its creative tools, but for most, it's a luxury. It's a prettier, pricier, more powerful version of the iPad we're all familiar with.
The iPad, refined
Unsurprisingly, being prettier and more powerful makes the iPad Pro the best iPad.
It's also the flag-bearer for the first major iPad redesign in quite some time. Taking cues from the iPhone X, the iPad Pro ditches the home button in favour of facial recognition and a larger display. This means you get an 11-inch screen in roughly the same size body as the old 9.7-inch models, or a 12.9-inch display in a much more manageable body compared to its predecessors. It also happens to be a really nice screen, that's smooth as butter.
The lack of a home button means you use iPhone X style gestures to navigate your iPad Pro. A swipe up from the bottom of the screen closes the app you're in, a swipe down from the top-right-hand corner brings up the control centre, and so forth. One key difference is that facial recognition works in any orientation, which is a significant improvement from Face ID iPhones - they need to be right-way-up in portrait mode to recognise your face. Since there's a myriad of ways to hold your iPad Pro, it will even prompt you if you're blocking the sensors.
This gorgeous display is backed up by a whole lot of grunt. Benchmarks suggest the iPad Pro is technically a more capable machine than some recent MacBook Pros, at least in terms of pure processing prowess. So what do you do with all this power? While it feels like Apple has left plenty of headroom for future use cases, there's plenty of amazing creative apps that can take advantage of it right now.
Adobe Lightroom is lighting fast - almost instantaneous - when editing photos, and we're expecting to see the full version of Photoshop hit iPad in the first half of this year. Apps like iMovie, Premiere Rush, and Luma Fusion are veritable video editing powerhouses. There plenty of apps for illustrators who want to take advantage of the improved Apple Pencil (which now attaches to your iPad magnetically - and charges at the same time). And the App Store is also host to a massive range of audio production software - although Apple did remove the headphone jack from the iPad Pro this year, which means mobile music producers may need to invest in some dongles.
It can genuinely feel like a magical piece of glass, especially if you work in a creative field. And if that sounds too much like work, there's also plenty of great games on the App Store.
Almost a laptop replacement
The iPad Pro is easily the closest Apple has come to creating a tablet that's a genuine laptop alternative. For less demanding users, the iPad Pro could easily replace a home computer. If all you use your PC for is sending emails, browsing the web, watching videos, or writing the odd document, the iPad Pro will do the same job admirably.
This is largely thanks to the new Smart Keyboard. It feels more responsive than previous iterations, and now offers two different angles for resting your iPad. This might seem like a small change, but it's significant enough that the iPad Pro feels more comfortable to use in most situations, whether it's on your lap or on a desk.
Once you move outside the realm of "basics", you start to run into hurdles. For one, spreadsheets are hell on the iPad Pro. Touchscreen navigation just isn't precise enough for working in densely packed documents; especially if you've got two up side-by-side. It doesn't help that raising your hands from the keyboard to screen feels disruptive at best and unnatural at its worst. Mouse support would genuinely help make the iPad Pro a more versatile machine.
Personally, I love the iPad Pro as a writing machine. I keep all of my work synced in OneNote, and I've got a 4G data-only SIM in my iPad. This makes it easy to keep working on whatever I was writing on desktop when I'm on the go, without searching for Wi-Fi or dealing with complex document management. As soon as I open up OneNote, the last story I was working on is ready to go. But when I want to publish stories to the WhistleOut website, working in our content management system is just so much easier when I have a mouse. I can feasibly do it on the iPad Pro, but it isn't seamless in the way it is on my regular computer.
It's clear Apple is exploring the potential of the iPad Pro being more PC like; it swapped its proprietary Lightning connector for a USB Type-C port this time around. This opens quite a few possibilities: you can use the iPad Pro with an external monitor, you can import photos directly from your camera, you can connect audio hardware, you can even use the iPad Pro to charge another device. But that's about the extent. Typical PC functionality - such as plugging in a flash drive to access files - is oddly absent. At the very least, the (impending) ubiquity of USB Type-C accessories means you get more choice when it comes to dongles and cables than you would with Lightning.
At the end of the day, the iPad Pro is still an iPad. The prettiest iPad with the best display, but even a golden shovel is still a spade. Almost paradoxically, it makes a viable laptop-alternative for its least demanding users. The iPad Pro unsurprisingly excels when it comes to browsing the web, taking notes, sending quick emails, watching videos, playing games, reading ebooks - you know, iPad things.
It does these iPad things well, but so does the "standard" iPad. And the standard iPad starts at $469, which is about a third of the iPad Pro's starting price - before you factor in the Smart Keyboard and Apple Pencil. In fact, the price of a second generation Apple Pencil and the 11-inch Smart Keyboard Cover adds up to the same price as standard iPad.
Who is the iPad Pro for?
As lovely as the iPad Pro is, for most it will complement a traditional computer rather than replace it. The same could have been said for previous generation iPads, but the question of whether it's worth owning a third device on top of your computer and smartphone becomes a lot harder when that third device is equally expensive.
If you have money to burn, the iPad Pro is an impressive piece of tech. It's definitely the nicest iPad you can buy, and for some, it will be an invaluable creative tool. The rest of us should be asking if a flashier, faster iPad Pro is worth the premium over the standard no-frills iPad.
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