Yeah, but those 75W and above cards are operating at a significantly higher performance. You cannot really compare it straight like rust, because 1- not only is the NV cards doing full FP32 compute compared to mixed FP16 and FP32 on the iPad, meaning it is inherently a more strenuous workload to begin with. 2- performance scaling is not a linear function
In short we can't really take those claims at face value because A- we don't have a way to measure and compare performance in the first place (which brings me to the question of how is apple actually comparing? Using TFLOP performance? Because TFLOP is not an accurate way of measuring GPU performance as a GPU has to do more than just FLOP. Take a RX580 at almost 7 TFLOP and a similar GTX1060 6GB at 4.5TFLOP in FP32. The TFLOP difference suggests a huge performance differences butcher they both perform similarly.) and B- again NV doesn't really make cards that scale down to what the iPad is having. In short, best case it's truly an apples to oranges comparison and I don't think you can directly translate that GPU in the A12X performance against AND or NV because it just not the same comparison both in power target of even how the performance is measured
Just responding firstly to endorse your comment, and secondly to note that Nvidia do make something at that scale - the 256 CUDA-core Pascal GPU in Tegra X2 would be a solid point of comparison, were it not basically impossible to perform one.
When looking at Nvidia jetsons running X2 and X1 most performance improvement are on the CPU side of things.
Also for power refference. The Nvidia shield is not a portable device, and the nintendo switch, running the older version of the 256 cuda core SoC have the GPU running at 764mhz in docked mode and 324 in handheld. The reason is a combination of the battery and the active 30mm fan + somewhat heatsink, cooling solution. The charger is 40W charger, and while it does charge the battery, i will assure you no more than 15W is used for this, and based on charging time during full load, it's less than 10W. Note also that the screen is NOT on.
An nvidia TX2 is rated at ~20W if i recall, making it WAY more power hungy than the A12 chip
Eh, the A12X puts a lot into perspective when it comes to compute performance. The big three players in the x86 CPU and GPU space are chasing performance at a cost of rising TDP, at least the phone and tablet competition is highly constrained by power and thermal limits inherent to the platform. The result is that the technological improvements we see in those highly mobile products generally focus on both power and performance. Its a pity to see stupid dual slot coolers on graphics cards to that have to cope with TDPs that range from 75 to an absolutely irrational 200+ watts and processors that blow their TDP budget by 50% under load. I had a Packard Bell 386 PC that was happy with a 60W internal power supply. Computers in 2018 are stupid. They shouldn't even need cooling fans at this point or heatsinks. That old Packard Bell ran a bare IC without even so much as a piece of metal glued atop it and under load, you could rest your thumb on the CPU and it would feel warm, but not hot to the touch.
It's several fabrication node shrinks back (28nm vs 7nm) and on a 2013 architecture.
You could probably get something close-ish to XBO performance in a handheld Xbox on 7nm, that would be an interesting product if it had full compatibility...
The Xbox One S (which I think is the comparison here) is actually on 16nm, though it's still that 2013 architecture. I think Apple gets about 2/3 of the advantage from the architecture and 1/3 from the process, and it does work out still to >3x efficiency.
Yup, that is an impressively quick bit of hardware hiding inside the new iPad. It doesn't speak well for a lot of hardware that soaks up a bunch more power and needs a lot more cooling to accomplish similar task. I'm hoping the A12X will be something of a kick in the proverbial pants for the rest of the chip industry to get off their behinds and deliver better performance at much lower TDP, that is both CPU and GPU companies that are inflating real TDP to comparably absurd levels while chasing incremental and insignificant increases in performance.
To be fair, the A12 is one of the first 7nm chips to ship. AMD's Ryzen 2700U, in theory, is at least as powerful, but is built on a 12nm process so it consumes more power.
A year from now, its very likely that AMD will have a mobile Ryzen built on the 7nm same process at the same foundry (TSMC) as Apple, which has the possibility of being more powerful at the same power consumption depending on workload (again, AMD and Apple optimize for different things in their chips, and an.... Apple to oranges comparison is hard to make).
Within a couple years, we'll see how Intel's new GPU unit does - they've committed to releasing dGPUs but you'd have to think that a side effect would be increased performance of their iGPUs as well. IF they're finally able to start mass-manufacturing on their 10nm (and future) process, they should be competitive as well.
+1 to this. Very interested in what Intel can do at low TDPs given their experience there. UHD620 is an old architecture now, so you have to wonder what all the intervening development will grant their first real next-gen GPU.
AMD have been struggling of late but it sounds like, if they coalesce their development around Navi, they should see some serious benefits at low TDPs too.
I actually considered buying the new iPad Pro but as long as iOS and its and 3rd party apps keep working the way they are working, all that performance is wasted IMHO. For the device to be really productive, a real file browser and full access to files is required. Let me organize my files the way, I want. The share button and weird iCloud browser doesn't cut it. Professional workflows require multiple apps to work on the same files, so, as antiquated as Apple wants to make it feel, an "open with" and "save as"-Dialog is crucial. Same goes for file access and network integration. Why can't I access SMB-shares? Most iOS users I know still send files per eMail because that is still the most convenient way to do it. The 3rd party file browsers can help but it is still hardly possible to use these files in any other apps. Some actually start a streaming server if you want to play media with VLC because you cannot tell the app to simply open the file. From my point of view, the hardware is great and way ahead of the competition. But the software is keeping it at a toy level for the time being.
Well, far from a toy level, which you would know if you used one. But you’re right that some things are just not available, or not up to snuff. Apple was expected to make major changes to iOS this year for the iPad Pro, but held off until next year due to the rwoerking of the OS for efficiency so that older devices would work better, as well as more modularizing the OS and getting rid of some higher level bugs.
I hope these expected changes to the Desktop next year not only involve the look and function of the Desktop, but also full use of the USB port for mass storage and hierarchical folders.
Apple seems to be moving in the right direction, but more slowly than I would like.
At this point, I'll believe it when I see it. Adobe had to get very creative with handling files on iOS to bring real Photoshop to the iPad, and they've got the "benefit" of their own cloud platform that they've foist on all their current customers.
And lack of pointer support is getting harder to stomach - its annoying for pro-users with a keyboard, and it ALSO really limits the ability of people who use assistive communication devices to use iOS AT ALL since a lot of them work via mouse drivers. You'd think adding decent mouse support would be like, a weekend project for a team of engineers.
Adobe ran that file at the presentation while it was residing on the iPad. You can’t do that from the cloud. That’s storage, not live functioning in the app. It doesn’t matter how they did it on the iPad. The fact is that they did, and it was very impressive indeed.
Pointer support isn’t a matter of a team of engineers. It’s a matter of philosophy. Apple, at this time, still doesn’t believe in it. I don’t happen to agree with their stance. With the original 9.7” iPads, sure, but not for the bigger Pro models. So I agree there.
But even without it, things work dine in most cases. Would I want to write a novel 9n it? No, but I can get away with several pages of writing.
iOS is praised for its ability with assisted communications. Not as good as the Mac, but better than Android by a long shot.
I’m happy to see what happens in the developers conference next June. We should have a good idea where their going then. If nothing much happens, I’d be surprised. I don’t expect everything I want, but some of it.
Yeah, mouse support is probably a toggle away in their development process. Anyway, Affinity Photo for iOS is impressive, with both cloud and local storage options. Local photos much be handled through iOS Photos, and traditional file management must be through the files app/cloud service of your choosing. Not as many options as a desktop, but there are at least some options.
That's where the app store comes in - it would make sense to ban any apps that didn't work with just the touchscreen. That would make a lot more sense than what they originally did with the Apple TV and gaming controllers...
It absolutely is a "toggle" - at least for basic functionality - the iOS Simulator has been around for a decade and is a "mouse driven iOS" after all...
How much storage does the iPad you tested have? Was it 1TB meaning 2GB extra RAM? If so, since most people won't be getting that version, how does that affect performance or battery life (if at all)
It's the 1TB model. So yes, it has an extra 2GB of RAM. Not that it would make a difference in a device this large. The screen is the single biggest power consumer by a large margin, followed by the SoC.
As for performance, it's more difficult to say since we don't have a 4GB model. It shouldn't be impacted much, but throw enough large applications at it and you might trigger something.
Adobe demo’d photoshop on the 1TB 12.0’ model using a 3GB file with hundreds of live layers, and the speed popped. The amount of RAM doesn’t seem to be an issue here. I would have liked to see tests of the storage subsystem to see the speeds there.
Honestly wondered this too. Apple don't seem to like performance segmentation at the top-end, and I'd bet that 1TB unit uses TLC flash, so extra caching in system RAM would massively help performance and longevity. Just a supposition though.
I picked up the 1TB model for the 6GB of ram. Apps/games stay in memory far longer than they do on the iPhone XS Max with 4GB of ram. Of course, that could also be related to the way iOS is designed to perform on iphones vs. ipads. But either way, the 1TB model also has a much faster disk. If you use your iPad for productivity, I would try to find a way to justify the extra expenditure. My justification was the pending release of Adobe Photoshop, as well as trying to do some of my 4K video editing strictly on the iPad.
Writing this as somebody who is not an iOS fan or Apple fanboy, this tablet is clearly the reigning king of tablets, with the pricing to match. However, a laptop replacement it is not, despite what Apple keeps saying. The one aspect that I did find disappointing is the rear camera setup; despite statement by some of Apple's head-honchos, plenty of people I know do use their tablet (usually iPads) for photography, and for the current iPad Pro prices, Apple could have thrown in the camera setup from the iPhone XS.
I think what Apple is saying is that it does what most people need a computer to do, not that it would replace everything a notebook does. For me, it does about 90% of what I need. This plus a low-end ultralight notebook with a big screen would be all I need right now. My employer insists on giving me a quad-core notebook that weighs a bulky 3.5 lbs. I’d take a Spectre over my PC setup. On business trips, the iPad is all I need.
On the GPU test - it looks like there is no change in resolution between the iPAD 1112x834 and 2224x1668 settings. Instead, it looks like the rendered resolution is exactly the same, just scaled by 2X (the @2.0?). Are you sure the rendered resolution actually changed between the tests? It seems unreasonable that the average / frame would be completely unchanged.
the author said the framerate appeared to be capped at 27fps (presumably for the sake of power consumption and thermals). So we don't know how fast it could render Civ at full tilt, only that it's at least 27fps at both resolutions. I assume this just means the GPU is just working less hard to hit the framerate at the lower resolution, but we don't know how much... Apple may have GPU design chops but even they can't magic their way out of resolution performance scaling limits, only obfuscate said limits ;)
Wow, this tablet is nearly flawless. I can't think of a single aspect of the hardware that doesn't make the absolute best of what modern technology has to offer.
Hopefully either the apps will catch up, or iOS will open up (or both).
I feel dirty about defending an Apple device given I've opted for PC hardware and Androids, but you can easily buy a backlit bluetooth keyboard and changing the angle of a tablet is a trivial task. Those two factors are weak disqualifications at absolute best.
It is actually a big issue if you're someone who's used a Surface Pro. The Surface Pro keyboard/trackpad, along with its kickstand, is an absolute wonder to use. I think I was able to hit about 110 words per minute on the Surface Pro keyboard. So if you're comparing the iPad to the Surface Pro in that area, you're looking at no trackpad, far worse/slower/bad feeling keyboard, no backlight, and yet a higher price.
There are bluetooth keyboards that include trackpads. I used a model from Jelly Comb (or some random company of similar name) with my phone to work on my novels when I travel. It cost $30 from Amazon and the point is that anything with bluetooth can pair up with a different interface device so that is simply a non-issue.
I mostly use an iPad in my hand, with the software keyboard, though I do have the folio. The iPad forces you to think outside the notebook metaphor, in a good way. You can revert to that in a pinch, but it isn’t meant to be the primary way of interacting with the device.
I understand Apple wants to obfuscate the computer out of productivity (hence the lack of a truly accessible file system), but in doing so they ignore workloads that need access to the "computery stuff" like software development. I mean, even Chromebooks have a real terminal.
They supply a 1 meter USB C cable because the usb 3.1 gen 2 spec for data transfer is 10Gbs for 1 meter, but 5Gbs for anything longer to about 3 meters, where it then peters off to about 3G s to about 4 meters.
I imagine they’re concerned that people will complain that they’re not getting the 10Gbs speeds, and blame Apple and the iPad for that if they give a longer cable. Apple has difficulty communicating these problems for some reason. They should just state the data transfer speeds with different cable lengths so that people understand what they’re doing. I have a few USB 3 to USB C charging cables, and none are usb 3 anything. They’re all usb 2 cables with a 480Mbs transfer rate. Most people don’t understand the totally screwed up spec that usb is.
Last news I heard was the iPad Pros were the first to move to 3.0 while the phones were still on 2.0, I don't see anything corroborating 3.1 gen 2 on a quick google for the new ones.
The iPad pro's USB 3.0 functionality is heavily restricted and is only enabled for the lightning to SD card dongle. Anything else like connecting to iTunes to transfer media is limited to USB 2.0 speeds. This is what I've experienced so far on my 2017 iPad pro 10.5. I'm not 100% sure but I think it's the same for the new iPad pros as well
I hope iOS13 does remove most of the hurdles with working off iOS. The power is clearly there, if you chart out Apple device performance per dollar the 11 inch Pro is way ahead of the Macbooks, but you just can't do as much on it.
Something as simple as working off of media off an external hard drive which you take for granted on any traditional OS you just can't do here. External hard drives aren't natively supported at all. Then there's lack of a trackpad and a cursor for fine text selection, Xcode, etc etc.
All this power seems like it was meant for an OS that was pushed back in favor of polish, and hopefully 13 really unleashes it.
IOS and Mac OS ( or Windows ) are different OS - iOS is app centric OS while Mac OS and Windows is desktop centric OS. Apple is unfortunately in delusion that iOS and iPad Pro can replace the desktop / laptop devices.
Even with Photoshop Creative Cloud on it - it nothing like the Photoshop CS5 ( which I owner ) and in my opinion it just and over larger iPhone.
There are definitely lots of use cases where it can't beat laptops but saying it's just a large iPhone is disingenuous at best. It's all about use cases and what the individual person needs.
I disagree with you only in that I don't think Apple will ever want to add fans to this. Heatpipes, perhaps, but even then they've been tending on a "slimmer and lighter is better" trajectory for a long time. I imagine the first MacBook to run from a descendant of this SoC will be fanless and trumpeted as the lightest ever, silent, no dust issues, etc.
Macbook and Macbook air, sure, go for it, but I hope the Pros retain active cooling, no matter how efficient the chip it still allows higher performance, plus with how GPUs scale with wattage for the 15". I hope they retain the 35W+35W chip setup and that should still mean fans.
In the article you mentioned “A more telling test, perhaps, will be once Adobe has ported over the full-fat version of Photoshop to the iPad, which is expected next year.” Instead of waiting on Adobe why not use Affinity Photo from Serif to perform some benchmark tests? The have working versions for Mac, Windows, and IPad. Their application works just as well, if not better in some areas as Adobe. https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/
Affinity runs far better on my 2017 iPad Pro than my 2017 5K iMac. I can develop RAW on each, and the sliders are near instantaneous on iPad, but seriously slow on MacOS. Side by side, you’d swear two different developers made these apps, despite looking very similar.
Which GPU does your iMac have? It's worth knowing as this may primarily be a function of performance scaling. You're asking the iMac to render 4x as many pixels as the iPad, and depending on your GPU it may be much less efficient than the iPad at moving that much information through its memory.
Not arguing that performance is impressive here, just that the iMac may not be doing as badly as all that in comparison.
I find Affinity Photo to be clumsy. It’s pretty buggy in some areas too. There are a number of pretty good photo apps for iOS though, in addition to Photo. I like Enlight and Lightroom CC as well.
I've never understood all the obsequious praise for Affinity Photo, and all the Affinity apps, really. They're unbelievably buggy, the company that produces them, Serif, is constantly on the edge of financial failure, they've missed every single one of their publicly stated development deadlines, and their tech/customer support is basically non-existent. Their user forums are this uncomfortable mix of people praising them like the second coming of their lord and savior, or complaining bitterly about the most ridiculously basic features for these classes of software being missing or broken.
This is the "Adobe killer" everyone keeps crowing about? Please. They'll be dead and buried inside of five years. Meanwhile, Adobe will hum along printing money.
In the article, you mentioned “A more telling test, perhaps, will be once Adobe has ported over the full-fat version of Photoshop to the iPad, which is expected next year.” Instead of waiting on Adobe, why not use Affinity Photo from Serif? They have working versions for iPad, Mac, and Windows and works just as well if not better than Photoshop.
Since APIs and shader precision are different or obfuscated at times, how is this an apples to apples comparison? The same game might run different resources on ios compared to its windows versions. FP16 will always be faster than FP32 especially on custom built hardware for it.
I think it's still a worthy comparison, because the MX150 and 1060 can't use double rate FP16, so it's tailoring to the strenghts of what all of them can do.
Landing so close to the 1060 is eye popping with almost no cooling. I can't wait to see these in clamshells with fans.
Well at this point I guess I can safely say I am disappointed by Andrei's methodology and conclusions regarding performance comparisons.
He's missing the FACT that iPad Pro is shown to be FAR faster than any laptop shown here in the actual real life performance (4K video editing). It will render the same material in the same way, much faster.
How is that not a legit and clear absolute performance metric??
Ha, and just think there are $3000 laptops where you can snap the screen hinge just by strongly bending it back or twisting it. Better dodge that falling sky!
I saw the teardown of this thing. Actually I saw this detail on the Apple promo video itself...
Doesn’t the RAM package look sort of like HBM sitting on an interposer to you ? The RAM chips are siting right next to the A12X heatspreader, nothing like that in previous iPads and if anything they at least saved some space this way.
It's a DRAM chip, but it certainly looks like it could be getting ready for a future like Intels EMIB where they have HBM2 or something else on-package.
For what it’s worth, Affinity Photo on my 2017 iPad Pro performs much better than Affinity Photo on my 2017 5K iMac. Perfectly usable on iOS, not good at all on an i5-7500 with Radeon Pro 570.
Just checked this out after responding another comment of yours - the results are interesting! The GPU in your iMac has something like 3x the resources of a Vega 10, which itself seems to be in the same performance ballpark as this Apple chip. Your iMac requires that the GPU do 4x the pixel-processing work your iPad needs to. It sounds like the performance difference is greater than just that, though - but we've already established that the iPad GPU is running at a lower precision. The GPU in A12X can also discard a lot of data before rendering that the Polaris GPU can't, so with those factors taken into account the performance difference isn't so shocking. Still impressive what Apple can do with solid optimisation, good design and a process shrink, though!
I'd really like to see some comparisons to Chromebooks. There's a number of recent ones that are aiming for the same premium portable productivity category, e.g Pixel Slate, HP x2, etc.
GRID™ Autosport is another choice of cross-platform game on iOS, which may be used for comparison. This game seems to require more performance than Civilization VI on graphics and it needs iOS 11 which looks like based on Metal 2. Although the game's graphic settings are not open to users now, but they should be similar to MEDIUM level on PC.
If you have that game on iOS does it have the benchmarking mode that is part of the PC install? The nice thing about Civ is that it does have the debug mode ported over.
". And the color accuracy is pretty much second to none. Really the only thing missing is HDR – and the battery life hit that would entail in such a portable device would probably not be worth it."
Curiously the last gen iPad Pros did advertise HDR, but this year they stopped doing that, probably because the LCD doesn't have the 1000 nits to cover it (nor is it an OLED which could do it with 600). But, it does play HDR content as best it can, for a decent enhancement over not having it at all
Eh, OLEDs don’t do it either. Last year I went to an audio trade show I go to every year, and Sony was demo’ing among other things, two large TVs. One was an OLED, and the other and LCD. Both were expensive at $9,000.
I asked the engineer which he would recommend for HDR and he said the LCD. The truth is that OLEDs simply don’t get bright enough. Black levels aren’t as important.
I'm not sure that's entirely accurate, except for from a strict ""adherence to specifications" view. In reality, past a certain level of brightness, a TV with better contrast will look superior in an environment with controlled lighting than a brighter display that has visibly worse contrast.
These reviews all seem to ignore that the iPad Pro 10.5 ever existed.
This is weird because for all the talk of “this is the iPad Apple always wanted to make!” its largely the iPad they made last year, but for a fair bit more money and with more marketing hype.
Sure the CPU/GPU is even faster than the A10X, and there is now ML acceleration, but hardware hasn’t mattered on the iPad since the Air 2. There is literally nothing that runs poorly on the 10.5 at all. It even has the same 120hz “Liquid Retina” screen. Unless you are in the tiny niche of people who edit 4K video *on the iPad* (or pretend to need to), there is really no benefit from the extra CPU power.
The “revolutionary design” looks exactly the same to 99.9% of people. Especially once in a case. And in exchange for this design, you get .5” of screen, but lose the home button, fingerprint reader and headphone jack. You also lose accessory compatibility in both directions. So there is real drawback there.
For someone wanting to jump on an iPad Pro now, the new one obviously makes sense. But this is always true. Pretending that this latest iPad is more than just iterative is really disingenuous, yet every single article is treating it like we’ve gone from Air 2 -> Pro 11”
I don't get it why do you think it's so hard to compare performance between OSes and devices? Who cares what are the absolute scores for the SoC itself, what matters is real life performance.
Is there no such benchmark, that would measure some common (or less common) scenarios, like: - take a camera where you have some video - transfer it to a pc - do whatever editing you need to do
Or, like, loading and scrolling through 100 most popular webpages?
Well thank goodness you so clearly defined the methodologies—"do whatever editing you need to do"—so it should be a totally clear and reproducible set of results within your comparison. Oh wait. What are we measuring using your system, again? Time? Against what scale? What if one task requires a different set of procedures on one operating systems than the other, which is your baseline?
I don't mean to be a complete prick, but I don't think I'm too far out of bounds here to call your entire message one of the stupidest fucking things I've read yet today. But the day is young, so you've got that going for you.
Many fanboys here are praising A12x which is faster than A11 but considering the price of the iPad, is it faster than the mobile Ryzen 5 or the Core i5? And for an additional 936GB of storage, you have to pay $750 more. I thought 1TB of NAND flash cost about $130 now. What a ripoff! This is straight up robbery and I refuse to be the victim.
The most interesting thing, to me, is the cache topology. While everyone else at the high end has been retreating to private L2 caches, and a large shared L3, Apple has doubled down on a - LARGE L2 that's - shared by at least 4 clients with L3 acting more as the communications/sharing space between different blocks like CPU, GPU, ISP, NPU.
Clearly it's working for them! It also suggests that when they scale even larger (the inevitable ARM Macs and [internal use] servers) they'll likely ship something that looks very different from not just Intel's high end (private L2, distributed L3 slice per core) but perhaps also the current ARM servers?
Do we know anything at all about the NoC that's in use on Apple SoCs, and, second best, on other ARM SoCs (eg QC, Samsung)? A ring? A crossbar? Point to point with direct links from each block to L3, but no block-to-block communication?
These reviews lately are killing me. Zero consistency from chart to chart. Why in one metric are we comparing a tablet to phones, and others to other tablets...and nada against its predecessor? There are so many reviews like this.
Charging time with a proper adapter is insanely fast on the iPad pro. Using a 20,000mah battery pack, I was able to charge it up from 3% to 45% in about 30-35 minutes. That is absolutely incredible.
Also, you can change the tip on the Apple Pencil as it is a simple screw off design. Apple itself doesn't sell different tips but I'm sure 3rd party would step in pretty soon.
One thing you didn't cover is the disk read/write performance. And it differs greatly based on which model iPad you get. The 12.9" 1TB WiFi model is substantially faster than other capacities. And the extra ram has helped keep apps/games in memory far longer than they would on my XS Max with its 4GB ram.
We'll be able to better compare the productivity performance of the iPad Pro once the full Photoshop CC port is released in 2019. But in the mean time, I'm editing through 4K videos using LumaFusion like it's nothing. This isn't a desktop. But with the right apps, it can come pretty close to being able to handle 90% of your workflow. In such a small and portable package. I find myself designing websites on it while sitting on the couch. The drag-and-drop feature between application windows in split view is such a big help as well.
Overall, I picked the iPad Pro over the Surface Pro due to the 120Hz display. And once Photoshop is ported over in a few months, I'll be able to do so much more of my work on it. I think my only gripe is that Microsoft Office is so weak on the iPad Pro. If only I had access to the full desktop version.
"In addition, Apple’s iPad Pro offers their ProMotion technology, which means it is a 120 Hz display, but one that supports variable refresh rates in order to lower the display's refresh rate for power management purposes."
The foundation of your entire at point is questionable at BEST. A tablet is bought for a few major reasons, without which, there would be no tablet. 1) a portable device that requires no extra components to do its primary function which is.. 2) browse net, absorb entertainment and read on while being ultra portable and low effort to accomplish. 3) Ease of use. Simplicity above all else. "So easy a child can use it".
The iPad can do all of these, but where it begins to fail is in the uses youve laid out. If you render a video for your youtube channel you better have your charger nearby. (Hurts #1 above). If you plan on doing ANY EDITING, you better have a mouse and keyboard nearby. (Hurts all 3 above.) If you plan on playing graphic intensive games on it, you better have a controller laying around or in your bag.( kill all 3)
The point is what Apple is trying to do with this device defeats the PRIMARY PURPOSES of a tablet. Therefor I would suggest you simply go buy a laptop to accomplish all the feats you just mentioned.
I find the roundation of our point to be ludicrious. So ludicrious I cannot believe youre that silly to get a tablet to show your buddies how fast Apples new cpu is (which it is) then post here how you love it. Your comment reads like a paid shill post which I see here all the time. Or you have Apple stock.
Either way, this tablet from apple has an impressive cpu/gpu that is completely squandered for 99% of the people who would buy it. Its a development misstep by Apple. Writing this I wonder if they will do some data recon to see whos actually using their cpu/gpu to decide on the future path of the line.
My bets for the future would be low power cpu/gpu thag give you days of 1,2,3 before having to charge again. Thats the proper path.
Your reasons are for refuting are dubious. 1. Do not need to bring charger as iPad hardly uses any power when rendering videos. 2. Can edit fine with the Apple pencil for precise adjustments 3. Not all games need a controller. Some like civ vi, are even better with touch.
Although I do not edit a lot of videos, I do edit lots of photos using Lightroom CC. Compared to a traditional laptop. 1. Battery life is tremendous. Can get around 8 hours of usage compared to 4 in the 2017 13” MacBook Pro. Also in complete silence compared to fans blaring half the time on the Mac. 2. Using the pencil has been great when needing to be more precise. In some cases even better tan mouse when selecting areas of an image.
1) You should try working with 4K video in LumaFusion before you talk. It doesn’t skip a beat. And the device doesn’t get hot. Nor does it drain a lot of battery.
2) That’s your usage for the tablet. Not mine. If that’s all I wanted to do, my iPad Air 2 is more than sufficient for the task.
Also why do you need a keyboard for editing video or photos? Have you seen how amazing it is using your hand and the pencil together? It works like a Wacom device. Touch input is used for image size/position manipulation, as well as tool selection/adjustment. It doesn’t interfere with the work the pencil does. And yes. I do have 2 Wacom devices as well.
Regarding gaming, it depends what you’re playing. I love playing racing games like Grid Autosport, rpg games like final fantasy, or simulation games like civilization. If I want to play hardcore games, I do it at 4K 144Hz with HDR on my desktop.
You talk about needing a mouse and keyboard to be productive. But here’s the thing. I have an i7 surface pro with keyboard and pen. And I honestly find it harder to use. While there is more flexibility in apps and what you can do, it can’t do it as easily as iOS can. The surface pro is a portable desktop. iPad Pro is a different type of device. If you can find the right apps to cover your usage needs, it’ll be far easier to use than the surface pro. I even do my server management on the iPad Pro.
But I appreciate your personal attacks and insults towards me. They say far more about you as a person than they do about me. Also, it’s ludicrous. Not ludicrious, as you misspelled twice. Maybe if you had an iPad Pro, you could take advantage of auto-correct.
In many ways an amazing product, packing so many outstanding features in such a small package. At the same time I can't shake the feeling it's a product looking for a real use-case for all its power. What can be properly done on the Pro which can't be done with far less power? Read pdf files? Play the light games the app store offer, watch some media etc. I could easily be doing all of it with a 100 dollar tablet with a Snapdragon 400. And when talking "real work" Windows or OS X is far more versatile compared to iOS.
Agree with Calista and others earlier. I have an ipad 4, a ipad mini, an ipad Air2 and the new education ipad+pencil in my family. I frequently use the iPad Air 2 to take notes and send emails but do not use it for core productivity like ppt/excel - primary reason is lack of a defined local file storage structure and inability to connect to a usb drive - cloud storage is clunky at best for people on the move in trains/public transport.
Why don’t you use a locally synced cloud service like iCloud, google drive, Microsoft OneDrive, Dropbox, etc? The “files” application on the iPad Pro is really lacking on some very fundamental features such as file compression and decompression. But...it does give full access to browse all apps folders. Even across apps. So you can use apps like iZip or Documents by readlle, to extract, compress, move around, manipulate, edit text, look at pictures/videos etc. etc. you can access all those files in your other apps. It’s definitely flawed and limited, but usable. You also can use usb drives. But not directly in the files app. Has to be imported from a 3rd party app.
Back in the day, used to be a tech guy (well, sysmanager/dba anyway) and a lot of the stuff on this site is over my head now. But at the risk of wasting space, let me thank you for a thorough and excellent review that is understandable to me.
Been a user of the original iPad Pro since it came out. I use it for taking notes and have completely eliminated paper note taking in my life. Was very interested in this new version but two things make it a non-starter and they are very subtle. The physical width of it is slightly wider and thus I can't comfortably hold it in my hand while writing on it. The second thing is that the keyboard when folded has the keys sticking out instead of tucked in like the original. Don't get me wrong the original has a lot of problems. It is a bit of a love hate relationship I have with it but I do use it all the time every day with the pencil and I was looking forward to a new version but this very small and simple change makes it totally a no go - so sad!
"But iOS is certainly less RAM hungry compared to the PC, thanks to the more limited applications available"
The statement makes no sense. If you need RAM for something, say, precessing of a photo from a raw format, IOS or Windows - it does not matter. For code ARM64 actually requires more RAM than x64, but that pales in comparison to photo/video requirements.
Well in your example it doesn't matter, but in many other examples it does. The desktop versions of Word for Windows or Mac for that matter are a lot more powerful than Word for iOS, thus iOS needs less memory to run its "more limited" version of Word...
Word on iOS is a joke. And there’s no reason for it. Word is not a heavy application. If they’re forcing you to buy a monthly subscription to use it, they could at least make it more like the desktop version.
Between memory compression and 1GB/s nvme ssd it becomes far more manageable than many expect. Guaranteed once photoshop comes out, the 6GB iPad Pro 1tb will outperform the 8gb surface pro 6 at handling large multi layer files.
Macbook Air is a software feature (recompilation from x64 to ARM8, likely better done in App Store once with full optimization) away from switching to Apple's own SOCs. Is there a x64 to LLVM compiler?
Good write up as ever but still some niggling general commentary; 1) we don’t need Adobe Photoshop to provide real-world productivity validation when we already have Affinity Photo. We already know the integrated CPU/GPU architecture provide a huge boost over discrete components. 2) no GUI PC provides full file-system access either. On my iPad provides the same local system that has PC users running round in circles with Admins in hot pursuit. Cloud Drive (take your pick) and file localisation has been a way better prospect for the last few years.
There is one thing I did not see done in this test which would have been great to see. Previously when syncing an iPad or iPhone with a MacBook Pro via iTunes a sync would take ages to sync depending on how much you had to backup to MacBook first before syncing. The new iPad Pro uses a USB type C cable and is supposed to have faster transfer speeds. I would like to know how fast data transfer for syncing is on the new iPad Pro compared to the last generation iPad. There are different cables out there these days. Would be nice to see the stock iPad Pro cable used for a sync compared to previous cable on last generation iPad. Also would be nice to see it tested with a USB C 3.1 and 3.2 Type C cable along with a Thunderbolt 3 Cable to see if transfer speeds for syncing make a big difference or not. Surprised this was not tested
The charts need to include the iPad Pro 10.5” which is the more relevant comparison. Can you update and repost? I expect most people would be intersted in this comparison.
There’s no comparison of storage (SSD) performance with 10.5” iPad Pro. Seems faster to me, but I would like to see real measurements. Also, all the charts always need to include the “replaced” product so we can better see how much of an improvement upgrading would imply. That is the principal interest of most iPad Pro Review readers.
First and foremost, the iPad Pro is still just a tablet and cannot replace a laptop. Even for those seeking the bare minimum, web, office and communications, I would take my Google Pixel Slate over it any day of the week. However, for music creation, photo management and light video editing work, the iPad Pro is fantastic. In fact, those who create music, it's a must have piece of equipment, for my needs it's the brain for a two of my midi keyboards.
iOS still needs a lot of work before it can replace OSX, Windows and Linux. Some of the most important features it's lacking is; a file-system that can be accessed directly from every single app installed and a decent file-manager that can not only manage local files but remote as well, let it be a personal or work NAS, another computer on the network or server. It needs support for an external monitor at native resolution, along with extending the workspace instead of just mirroring. It needs support for a mouse, USB printer, 3D Printer, Wacom boards, etc. True multitasking as in the ability to run multiple apps in the background while using another in the foreground. For example, right now, I'm typing this comment through the Citrix app, streaming Word
, while downloading and uploading a 400GB file to my NAS, while compiling the new version of Blender for my new Nvidia Xavier Jetson via a remote SSH session, while streaming a video to my TV, all in the background, with zero lag, using my Samsung Tab S4. Also, everything I listed above, I can also do on this wonderful tablet. In fact, except for those wonderful music creation apps, video and photo work, the Tab S4 is the better tablet for actual office work.
I'm connected to a 24" Dell touch monitor (resolution is fully supported), a mouse, a USB Printer, I have Citrix streaming ever Windows 10 application that need, including Photoshop. I can mount my NAS, all of my firms servers that I need access to as local folders on the file-system using simple Linux commands. I have every single scripting language that I could possibly want, PHP, Perl, Javascript, Ruby, SQL, etc. I'm running a LAMP server so I can develop web sites as well as custom apps using PHP/MySQL, HTML 5 wrapper for my S4 and Note 9. The list just goes on and one.
All I'm saying is, the iPad Pro isn't the best tablet, there are many, many, tasks in which I could I never do on it. It's why I own multiple devices.
I’m more of a designer than artist, I've used a few XP-Pen drawing tablets, including Artist monitors . I've been looking for portable device that works well for sketching and illustration as well as media consumption and fun. iPad Pro combined with the pencil looks quite promising so far.
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jeremyshaw - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
Crikey, that's a fast chip.That question about the xbox one s class GPU does raise questions. Why does the Xbox One S draw so much power?
axfelix - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
Because it's still using an AMD GPU architecture from 2013, and Apple's and Nvidia's architectures are >3x as powerful per watt at this point.PeachNCream - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
Eh, NV is just as bad. Their current gen products (GT 1030 aside) generally need more than 75W of power and occupy space equal to two PCI-E slots.Pyrate2142 - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
Yeah, but those 75W and above cards are operating at a significantly higher performance. You cannot really compare it straight like rust, because 1- not only is the NV cards doing full FP32 compute compared to mixed FP16 and FP32 on the iPad, meaning it is inherently a more strenuous workload to begin with. 2- performance scaling is not a linear functionIn short we can't really take those claims at face value because A- we don't have a way to measure and compare performance in the first place (which brings me to the question of how is apple actually comparing? Using TFLOP performance? Because TFLOP is not an accurate way of measuring GPU performance as a GPU has to do more than just FLOP. Take a RX580 at almost 7 TFLOP and a similar GTX1060 6GB at 4.5TFLOP in FP32. The TFLOP difference suggests a huge performance differences butcher they both perform similarly.) and B- again NV doesn't really make cards that scale down to what the iPad is having. In short, best case it's truly an apples to oranges comparison and I don't think you can directly translate that GPU in the A12X performance against AND or NV because it just not the same comparison both in power target of even how the performance is measured
Spunjji - Wednesday, December 5, 2018 - link
Just responding firstly to endorse your comment, and secondly to note that Nvidia do make something at that scale - the 256 CUDA-core Pascal GPU in Tegra X2 would be a solid point of comparison, were it not basically impossible to perform one.olde94 - Wednesday, December 5, 2018 - link
For power/performance i have a few inputs.When looking at Nvidia jetsons running X2 and X1 most performance improvement are on the CPU side of things.
Also for power refference. The Nvidia shield is not a portable device, and the nintendo switch, running the older version of the 256 cuda core SoC have the GPU running at 764mhz in docked mode and 324 in handheld. The reason is a combination of the battery and the active 30mm fan + somewhat heatsink, cooling solution. The charger is 40W charger, and while it does charge the battery, i will assure you no more than 15W is used for this, and based on charging time during full load, it's less than 10W. Note also that the screen is NOT on.
An nvidia TX2 is rated at ~20W if i recall, making it WAY more power hungy than the A12 chip
PeachNCream - Thursday, December 6, 2018 - link
Eh, the A12X puts a lot into perspective when it comes to compute performance. The big three players in the x86 CPU and GPU space are chasing performance at a cost of rising TDP, at least the phone and tablet competition is highly constrained by power and thermal limits inherent to the platform. The result is that the technological improvements we see in those highly mobile products generally focus on both power and performance. Its a pity to see stupid dual slot coolers on graphics cards to that have to cope with TDPs that range from 75 to an absolutely irrational 200+ watts and processors that blow their TDP budget by 50% under load. I had a Packard Bell 386 PC that was happy with a 60W internal power supply. Computers in 2018 are stupid. They shouldn't even need cooling fans at this point or heatsinks. That old Packard Bell ran a bare IC without even so much as a piece of metal glued atop it and under load, you could rest your thumb on the CPU and it would feel warm, but not hot to the touch.Oliseo - Thursday, January 2, 2020 - link
That old packard bell was orders of magnitude slower than modern CPU/GPU's and was orders of magnitude less effecient than modern CPU/GPU's.Even if you normalised for cooling requirements.
This doesn't make modern CPU's/GPU's stupid, you know what it does make stupid tho....
tipoo - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
It's several fabrication node shrinks back (28nm vs 7nm) and on a 2013 architecture.You could probably get something close-ish to XBO performance in a handheld Xbox on 7nm, that would be an interesting product if it had full compatibility...
axfelix - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
The Xbox One S (which I think is the comparison here) is actually on 16nm, though it's still that 2013 architecture. I think Apple gets about 2/3 of the advantage from the architecture and 1/3 from the process, and it does work out still to >3x efficiency.tipoo - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
16nm did substantially cut its power use, and 16nm was less of a node leap than 7 (iirc it was closer to 22nm, but one of the finfett rebrandings?)Xbox One S 35-90
Xbox One 70-120
http://energyusecalculator.com/electricity_gamecon...
PeachNCream - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
Yup, that is an impressively quick bit of hardware hiding inside the new iPad. It doesn't speak well for a lot of hardware that soaks up a bunch more power and needs a lot more cooling to accomplish similar task. I'm hoping the A12X will be something of a kick in the proverbial pants for the rest of the chip industry to get off their behinds and deliver better performance at much lower TDP, that is both CPU and GPU companies that are inflating real TDP to comparably absurd levels while chasing incremental and insignificant increases in performance.sing_electric - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
To be fair, the A12 is one of the first 7nm chips to ship. AMD's Ryzen 2700U, in theory, is at least as powerful, but is built on a 12nm process so it consumes more power.A year from now, its very likely that AMD will have a mobile Ryzen built on the 7nm same process at the same foundry (TSMC) as Apple, which has the possibility of being more powerful at the same power consumption depending on workload (again, AMD and Apple optimize for different things in their chips, and an.... Apple to oranges comparison is hard to make).
Within a couple years, we'll see how Intel's new GPU unit does - they've committed to releasing dGPUs but you'd have to think that a side effect would be increased performance of their iGPUs as well. IF they're finally able to start mass-manufacturing on their 10nm (and future) process, they should be competitive as well.
Spunjji - Wednesday, December 5, 2018 - link
+1 to this. Very interested in what Intel can do at low TDPs given their experience there. UHD620 is an old architecture now, so you have to wonder what all the intervening development will grant their first real next-gen GPU.AMD have been struggling of late but it sounds like, if they coalesce their development around Navi, they should see some serious benefits at low TDPs too.
GruenSein - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
I actually considered buying the new iPad Pro but as long as iOS and its and 3rd party apps keep working the way they are working, all that performance is wasted IMHO. For the device to be really productive, a real file browser and full access to files is required. Let me organize my files the way, I want. The share button and weird iCloud browser doesn't cut it. Professional workflows require multiple apps to work on the same files, so, as antiquated as Apple wants to make it feel, an "open with" and "save as"-Dialog is crucial. Same goes for file access and network integration. Why can't I access SMB-shares? Most iOS users I know still send files per eMail because that is still the most convenient way to do it. The 3rd party file browsers can help but it is still hardly possible to use these files in any other apps. Some actually start a streaming server if you want to play media with VLC because you cannot tell the app to simply open the file.From my point of view, the hardware is great and way ahead of the competition. But the software is keeping it at a toy level for the time being.
melgross - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
Well, far from a toy level, which you would know if you used one. But you’re right that some things are just not available, or not up to snuff. Apple was expected to make major changes to iOS this year for the iPad Pro, but held off until next year due to the rwoerking of the OS for efficiency so that older devices would work better, as well as more modularizing the OS and getting rid of some higher level bugs.I hope these expected changes to the Desktop next year not only involve the look and function of the Desktop, but also full use of the USB port for mass storage and hierarchical folders.
Apple seems to be moving in the right direction, but more slowly than I would like.
sing_electric - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
At this point, I'll believe it when I see it. Adobe had to get very creative with handling files on iOS to bring real Photoshop to the iPad, and they've got the "benefit" of their own cloud platform that they've foist on all their current customers.And lack of pointer support is getting harder to stomach - its annoying for pro-users with a keyboard, and it ALSO really limits the ability of people who use assistive communication devices to use iOS AT ALL since a lot of them work via mouse drivers. You'd think adding decent mouse support would be like, a weekend project for a team of engineers.
melgross - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
Adobe ran that file at the presentation while it was residing on the iPad. You can’t do that from the cloud. That’s storage, not live functioning in the app. It doesn’t matter how they did it on the iPad. The fact is that they did, and it was very impressive indeed.Pointer support isn’t a matter of a team of engineers. It’s a matter of philosophy. Apple, at this time, still doesn’t believe in it. I don’t happen to agree with their stance. With the original 9.7” iPads, sure, but not for the bigger Pro models. So I agree there.
But even without it, things work dine in most cases. Would I want to write a novel 9n it? No, but I can get away with several pages of writing.
iOS is praised for its ability with assisted communications. Not as good as the Mac, but better than Android by a long shot.
I’m happy to see what happens in the developers conference next June. We should have a good idea where their going then. If nothing much happens, I’d be surprised. I don’t expect everything I want, but some of it.
MonkeyPaw - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
Yeah, mouse support is probably a toggle away in their development process. Anyway, Affinity Photo for iOS is impressive, with both cloud and local storage options. Local photos much be handled through iOS Photos, and traditional file management must be through the files app/cloud service of your choosing. Not as many options as a desktop, but there are at least some options.KPOM - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
Mouse support is a double-edged sword. It would make some things easier but also make other things harder, particularly if apps “expect” a cursor.blackcrayon - Wednesday, December 5, 2018 - link
That's where the app store comes in - it would make sense to ban any apps that didn't work with just the touchscreen. That would make a lot more sense than what they originally did with the Apple TV and gaming controllers...blackcrayon - Wednesday, December 5, 2018 - link
It absolutely is a "toggle" - at least for basic functionality - the iOS Simulator has been around for a decade and is a "mouse driven iOS" after all...nico_mach - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
For $800, they should move as fast as an A12x. It should be multi-user and have basic file management features, even if only for external storage.ex2bot - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
Not that this really affects the good points you make, but GoodReader does a very nice job accessing SMB and other shares.markiz - Wednesday, December 5, 2018 - link
100+Lezmaka - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
How much storage does the iPad you tested have? Was it 1TB meaning 2GB extra RAM? If so, since most people won't be getting that version, how does that affect performance or battery life (if at all)Ryan Smith - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
It's the 1TB model. So yes, it has an extra 2GB of RAM. Not that it would make a difference in a device this large. The screen is the single biggest power consumer by a large margin, followed by the SoC.As for performance, it's more difficult to say since we don't have a 4GB model. It shouldn't be impacted much, but throw enough large applications at it and you might trigger something.
melgross - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
Adobe demo’d photoshop on the 1TB 12.0’ model using a 3GB file with hundreds of live layers, and the speed popped. The amount of RAM doesn’t seem to be an issue here. I would have liked to see tests of the storage subsystem to see the speeds there.vFunct - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
Isn't the extra RAM on the 1TB model used purely for disk caching?tipoo - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
Any source for that?Spunjji - Wednesday, December 5, 2018 - link
Honestly wondered this too. Apple don't seem to like performance segmentation at the top-end, and I'd bet that 1TB unit uses TLC flash, so extra caching in system RAM would massively help performance and longevity. Just a supposition though.Socius - Wednesday, December 5, 2018 - link
I picked up the 1TB model for the 6GB of ram. Apps/games stay in memory far longer than they do on the iPhone XS Max with 4GB of ram. Of course, that could also be related to the way iOS is designed to perform on iphones vs. ipads. But either way, the 1TB model also has a much faster disk. If you use your iPad for productivity, I would try to find a way to justify the extra expenditure. My justification was the pending release of Adobe Photoshop, as well as trying to do some of my 4K video editing strictly on the iPad.Speedfriend - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
If the single core power consumption is 3.6-4.3, what would it be at most stressed multicore?eastcoast_pete - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
Writing this as somebody who is not an iOS fan or Apple fanboy, this tablet is clearly the reigning king of tablets, with the pricing to match. However, a laptop replacement it is not, despite what Apple keeps saying. The one aspect that I did find disappointing is the rear camera setup; despite statement by some of Apple's head-honchos, plenty of people I know do use their tablet (usually iPads) for photography, and for the current iPad Pro prices, Apple could have thrown in the camera setup from the iPhone XS.KPOM - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
I think what Apple is saying is that it does what most people need a computer to do, not that it would replace everything a notebook does. For me, it does about 90% of what I need. This plus a low-end ultralight notebook with a big screen would be all I need right now. My employer insists on giving me a quad-core notebook that weighs a bulky 3.5 lbs. I’d take a Spectre over my PC setup. On business trips, the iPad is all I need.WasHopingForAnHonestReview - Wednesday, December 5, 2018 - link
So, email. K.crash86 - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
On the GPU test - it looks like there is no change in resolution between the iPAD 1112x834 and 2224x1668 settings. Instead, it looks like the rendered resolution is exactly the same, just scaled by 2X (the @2.0?). Are you sure the rendered resolution actually changed between the tests? It seems unreasonable that the average / frame would be completely unchanged.Ryan Smith - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
We're sure.Take a good look at the photos. The Retina resolution photos are far clearer since they're not being internally rendered at 1/4 resolution.
tipoo - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
That's wild.*ask to render 4x more pixels*
A12X: *Shrugs*
KateH - Wednesday, December 5, 2018 - link
the author said the framerate appeared to be capped at 27fps (presumably for the sake of power consumption and thermals). So we don't know how fast it could render Civ at full tilt, only that it's at least 27fps at both resolutions. I assume this just means the GPU is just working less hard to hit the framerate at the lower resolution, but we don't know how much... Apple may have GPU design chops but even they can't magic their way out of resolution performance scaling limits, only obfuscate said limits ;)blackcrayon - Wednesday, December 5, 2018 - link
Better question is can we ask the Civ VI devs to please add a high frame rate option for the new iPad Pros :).skavi - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
Wow, this tablet is nearly flawless. I can't think of a single aspect of the hardware that doesn't make the absolute best of what modern technology has to offer.Hopefully either the apps will catch up, or iOS will open up (or both).
Speedfriend - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
No multi position kick stand and no backlit keyboard means it isn't a pro device...PeachNCream - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
I feel dirty about defending an Apple device given I've opted for PC hardware and Androids, but you can easily buy a backlit bluetooth keyboard and changing the angle of a tablet is a trivial task. Those two factors are weak disqualifications at absolute best.Socius - Wednesday, December 5, 2018 - link
It is actually a big issue if you're someone who's used a Surface Pro. The Surface Pro keyboard/trackpad, along with its kickstand, is an absolute wonder to use. I think I was able to hit about 110 words per minute on the Surface Pro keyboard. So if you're comparing the iPad to the Surface Pro in that area, you're looking at no trackpad, far worse/slower/bad feeling keyboard, no backlight, and yet a higher price.PeachNCream - Thursday, December 6, 2018 - link
There are bluetooth keyboards that include trackpads. I used a model from Jelly Comb (or some random company of similar name) with my phone to work on my novels when I travel. It cost $30 from Amazon and the point is that anything with bluetooth can pair up with a different interface device so that is simply a non-issue.melgross - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
Big deal. I hope you were kidding.KPOM - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
I mostly use an iPad in my hand, with the software keyboard, though I do have the folio. The iPad forces you to think outside the notebook metaphor, in a good way. You can revert to that in a pinch, but it isn’t meant to be the primary way of interacting with the device.skavi - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
I understand Apple wants to obfuscate the computer out of productivity (hence the lack of a truly accessible file system), but in doing so they ignore workloads that need access to the "computery stuff" like software development. I mean, even Chromebooks have a real terminal.Star_Hunter - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
I wish you would have included the previous iPad Pro in the benchmarks for comparison (A10X vs A12X).Ryan Smith - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
Unfortunately we don't have that one. These go back to Apple when we're done.MonkeyPaw - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
I have the 2017 12.9” 64GB model, though I’m not on staff and don’t have your benchmarking suite.MonkeyPaw - Wednesday, December 5, 2018 - link
Not sure how this will for,at on this comment system, but here is what I got on my 2017 iPad Pro 64GB;TabletMark 2017
Overall: 1404
Web-Email: 1438
Photos-Video: 1372
Speedometer 2.0: 89.0
WebXPRT 3.0: 131
Kraken 1.1: 856ms
Slingshot 3.1 Extreme:
Graphics: 6,514
Physics: 2,602
Ice Storm Unlimited
Base: 55,609
Graphics: 118,335
Physics: 19,482
GFXbench Aztec Offscreen
High: 21.5
Normal: 59.3
melgross - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
They supply a 1 meter USB C cable because the usb 3.1 gen 2 spec for data transfer is 10Gbs for 1 meter, but 5Gbs for anything longer to about 3 meters, where it then peters off to about 3G s to about 4 meters.I imagine they’re concerned that people will complain that they’re not getting the 10Gbs speeds, and blame Apple and the iPad for that if they give a longer cable. Apple has difficulty communicating these problems for some reason. They should just state the data transfer speeds with different cable lengths so that people understand what they’re doing. I have a few USB 3 to USB C charging cables, and none are usb 3 anything. They’re all usb 2 cables with a 480Mbs transfer rate. Most people don’t understand the totally screwed up spec that usb is.
tipoo - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
They only use USB 3.0 anyways, so not that.melgross - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
What? It’s 3.1 gen 2. Just go to their site and read the speed spec for yourself..tipoo - Monday, December 10, 2018 - link
I don't see 3.1 gen 2 anywhere on their specs sheethttps://www.apple.com/ca/ipad-pro/specs/
Last news I heard was the iPad Pros were the first to move to 3.0 while the phones were still on 2.0, I don't see anything corroborating 3.1 gen 2 on a quick google for the new ones.
https://www.cultofmac.com/397412/ipad-pros-sneaky-...
gailthesnail - Thursday, December 20, 2018 - link
The iPad pro's USB 3.0 functionality is heavily restricted and is only enabled for the lightning to SD card dongle. Anything else like connecting to iTunes to transfer media is limited to USB 2.0 speeds. This is what I've experienced so far on my 2017 iPad pro 10.5. I'm not 100% sure but I think it's the same for the new iPad pros as welltipoo - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
I hope iOS13 does remove most of the hurdles with working off iOS. The power is clearly there, if you chart out Apple device performance per dollar the 11 inch Pro is way ahead of the Macbooks, but you just can't do as much on it.Something as simple as working off of media off an external hard drive which you take for granted on any traditional OS you just can't do here. External hard drives aren't natively supported at all. Then there's lack of a trackpad and a cursor for fine text selection, Xcode, etc etc.
All this power seems like it was meant for an OS that was pushed back in favor of polish, and hopefully 13 really unleashes it.
HStewart - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
IOS and Mac OS ( or Windows ) are different OS - iOS is app centric OS while Mac OS and Windows is desktop centric OS. Apple is unfortunately in delusion that iOS and iPad Pro can replace the desktop / laptop devices.Even with Photoshop Creative Cloud on it - it nothing like the Photoshop CS5 ( which I owner ) and in my opinion it just and over larger iPhone.
Hyper72 - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
There are definitely lots of use cases where it can't beat laptops but saying it's just a large iPhone is disingenuous at best. It's all about use cases and what the individual person needs.MonkeyPaw - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
I think we may find out soon enough if/when Apple migrates to its own SOCs for MacOS hardware.tipoo - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
Can't wait.Look what it trounces with barely any cooling. Now give it a less constraining OS and heatpipes and fans and let's see what it can do.
Spunjji - Wednesday, December 5, 2018 - link
I disagree with you only in that I don't think Apple will ever want to add fans to this. Heatpipes, perhaps, but even then they've been tending on a "slimmer and lighter is better" trajectory for a long time. I imagine the first MacBook to run from a descendant of this SoC will be fanless and trumpeted as the lightest ever, silent, no dust issues, etc.tipoo - Monday, December 10, 2018 - link
Macbook and Macbook air, sure, go for it, but I hope the Pros retain active cooling, no matter how efficient the chip it still allows higher performance, plus with how GPUs scale with wattage for the 15". I hope they retain the 35W+35W chip setup and that should still mean fans.ChrisH362 - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
In the article you mentioned “A more telling test, perhaps, will be once Adobe has ported over the full-fat version of Photoshop to the iPad, which is expected next year.” Instead of waiting on Adobe why not use Affinity Photo from Serif to perform some benchmark tests? The have working versions for Mac, Windows, and IPad. Their application works just as well, if not better in some areas as Adobe. https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/MonkeyPaw - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
Affinity runs far better on my 2017 iPad Pro than my 2017 5K iMac. I can develop RAW on each, and the sliders are near instantaneous on iPad, but seriously slow on MacOS. Side by side, you’d swear two different developers made these apps, despite looking very similar.tipoo - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
Sounds like a port thing, as this article demonstrates when going the other way things aren't perfect either. Affinity is mobile first.thunng8 - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
That's incorrect Affinity photo was developed for mac and windows before the ipadSpunjji - Wednesday, December 5, 2018 - link
Which GPU does your iMac have? It's worth knowing as this may primarily be a function of performance scaling. You're asking the iMac to render 4x as many pixels as the iPad, and depending on your GPU it may be much less efficient than the iPad at moving that much information through its memory.Not arguing that performance is impressive here, just that the iMac may not be doing as badly as all that in comparison.
melgross - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
I find Affinity Photo to be clumsy. It’s pretty buggy in some areas too. There are a number of pretty good photo apps for iOS though, in addition to Photo. I like Enlight and Lightroom CC as well.The Garden Variety - Wednesday, December 5, 2018 - link
I've never understood all the obsequious praise for Affinity Photo, and all the Affinity apps, really. They're unbelievably buggy, the company that produces them, Serif, is constantly on the edge of financial failure, they've missed every single one of their publicly stated development deadlines, and their tech/customer support is basically non-existent. Their user forums are this uncomfortable mix of people praising them like the second coming of their lord and savior, or complaining bitterly about the most ridiculously basic features for these classes of software being missing or broken.This is the "Adobe killer" everyone keeps crowing about? Please. They'll be dead and buried inside of five years. Meanwhile, Adobe will hum along printing money.
ChrisH362 - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
In the article, you mentioned “A more telling test, perhaps, will be once Adobe has ported over the full-fat version of Photoshop to the iPad, which is expected next year.” Instead of waiting on Adobe, why not use Affinity Photo from Serif? They have working versions for iPad, Mac, and Windows and works just as well if not better than Photoshop.id4andrei - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
Since APIs and shader precision are different or obfuscated at times, how is this an apples to apples comparison? The same game might run different resources on ios compared to its windows versions. FP16 will always be faster than FP32 especially on custom built hardware for it.tipoo - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
I think it's still a worthy comparison, because the MX150 and 1060 can't use double rate FP16, so it's tailoring to the strenghts of what all of them can do.Landing so close to the 1060 is eye popping with almost no cooling. I can't wait to see these in clamshells with fans.
KPOM - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
Could you post charging times using a standard 60W USB-PD charger, to take chargers out of the equation? That would be helpful to know.tipoo - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
I'm not sure how to read the "peak" box in the corner of the GPU charts - are only the grey bar devices measured at peak?Brett Howse - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
No it just means the scores are peak results and not sustained.darkich - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
Well at this point I guess I can safely say I am disappointed by Andrei's methodology and conclusions regarding performance comparisons.He's missing the FACT that iPad Pro is shown to be FAR faster than any laptop shown here in the actual real life performance (4K video editing).
It will render the same material in the same way, much faster.
How is that not a legit and clear absolute performance metric??
darkich - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
..on a side note, NONE of this ultimately matters for one simple reason - the build quality, I.e. structural integrity.The iPad Pro is a POS that should be recalled.
A tablet that one can *easily* snap in half with bare hands, is not a legitimate product.
tipoo - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
You can snap a lot of tablets in half with your bare hands, the longer a device is the easier it is to get that leverage.Solution: Probably don't snap your tablet in half with your bare hands
darkich - Wednesday, December 5, 2018 - link
..even if you put it in a bag it is likely to bend over time.Getting it now?
blackcrayon - Wednesday, December 5, 2018 - link
If you put it in a bag and stand or stomp on the bag, yes...melgross - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
Oh, sheesh, just go away!blackcrayon - Wednesday, December 5, 2018 - link
Ha, and just think there are $3000 laptops where you can snap the screen hinge just by strongly bending it back or twisting it. Better dodge that falling sky!WasHopingForAnHonestReview - Wednesday, December 5, 2018 - link
Please end it.SSTANIC - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
How are SPEC results same if A12X has 4 big cores instead of 2 in A12, I don't geddit.. Is it a single core benchmark?thunng8 - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
Yes, single core only. There is a spec_rate benchmarks, but that wasn't testedGC2:CS - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
I saw the teardown of this thing. Actually I saw this detail on the Apple promo video itself...Doesn’t the RAM package look sort of like HBM sitting on an interposer to you ?
The RAM chips are siting right next to the A12X heatspreader, nothing like that in previous iPads and if anything they at least saved some space this way.
Needs some chip analysis ASAP.
tipoo - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
It's a DRAM chip, but it certainly looks like it could be getting ready for a future like Intels EMIB where they have HBM2 or something else on-package.MonkeyPaw - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
For what it’s worth, Affinity Photo on my 2017 iPad Pro performs much better than Affinity Photo on my 2017 5K iMac. Perfectly usable on iOS, not good at all on an i5-7500 with Radeon Pro 570.tipoo - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
That sounds specific to that program.As this article shows, a port going either way doesn't always go great for the secondary platform, and Affinity is mobile first.
thunng8 - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
incorrect, Affinity Photo for ipad is a port of the mac version.Spunjji - Wednesday, December 5, 2018 - link
Just checked this out after responding another comment of yours - the results are interesting! The GPU in your iMac has something like 3x the resources of a Vega 10, which itself seems to be in the same performance ballpark as this Apple chip. Your iMac requires that the GPU do 4x the pixel-processing work your iPad needs to. It sounds like the performance difference is greater than just that, though - but we've already established that the iPad GPU is running at a lower precision. The GPU in A12X can also discard a lot of data before rendering that the Polaris GPU can't, so with those factors taken into account the performance difference isn't so shocking. Still impressive what Apple can do with solid optimisation, good design and a process shrink, though!vFunct - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
Apple should have really led the way in converting pro-apps to iPad pro.It really needs a pro video editor, like Final Cut Pro X, and not the cut-down iMovies editor, for location YouTube videographers.
It could also use some pro-level audio software like full Logic, and not GarageBand.
pvdw - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
I'd really like to see some comparisons to Chromebooks. There's a number of recent ones that are aiming for the same premium portable productivity category, e.g Pixel Slate, HP x2, etc.FrankGu - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
GRID™ Autosport is another choice of cross-platform game on iOS, which may be used for comparison. This game seems to require more performance than Civilization VI on graphics and it needs iOS 11 which looks like based on Metal 2. Although the game's graphic settings are not open to users now, but they should be similar to MEDIUM level on PC.Brett Howse - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
If you have that game on iOS does it have the benchmarking mode that is part of the PC install? The nice thing about Civ is that it does have the debug mode ported over.FrankGu - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
It doesn't have a benchmark mode on iOS version :(tipoo - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
". And the color accuracy is pretty much second to none. Really the only thing missing is HDR – and the battery life hit that would entail in such a portable device would probably not be worth it."Curiously the last gen iPad Pros did advertise HDR, but this year they stopped doing that, probably because the LCD doesn't have the 1000 nits to cover it (nor is it an OLED which could do it with 600). But, it does play HDR content as best it can, for a decent enhancement over not having it at all
melgross - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
Eh, OLEDs don’t do it either. Last year I went to an audio trade show I go to every year, and Sony was demo’ing among other things, two large TVs. One was an OLED, and the other and LCD. Both were expensive at $9,000.I asked the engineer which he would recommend for HDR and he said the LCD. The truth is that OLEDs simply don’t get bright enough. Black levels aren’t as important.
Spunjji - Wednesday, December 5, 2018 - link
I'm not sure that's entirely accurate, except for from a strict ""adherence to specifications" view. In reality, past a certain level of brightness, a TV with better contrast will look superior in an environment with controlled lighting than a brighter display that has visibly worse contrast.mlambert890 - Wednesday, December 5, 2018 - link
These reviews all seem to ignore that the iPad Pro 10.5 ever existed.This is weird because for all the talk of “this is the iPad Apple always wanted to make!” its largely the iPad they made last year, but for a fair bit more money and with more marketing hype.
Sure the CPU/GPU is even faster than the A10X, and there is now ML acceleration, but hardware hasn’t mattered on the iPad since the Air 2. There is literally nothing that runs poorly on the 10.5 at all. It even has the same 120hz “Liquid Retina” screen. Unless you are in the tiny niche of people who edit 4K video *on the iPad* (or pretend to need to), there is really no benefit from the extra CPU power.
The “revolutionary design” looks exactly the same to 99.9% of people. Especially once in a case. And in exchange for this design, you get .5” of screen, but lose the home button, fingerprint reader and headphone jack. You also lose accessory compatibility in both directions. So there is real drawback there.
For someone wanting to jump on an iPad Pro now, the new one obviously makes sense. But this is always true. Pretending that this latest iPad is more than just iterative is really disingenuous, yet every single article is treating it like we’ve gone from Air 2 -> Pro 11”
markiz - Wednesday, December 5, 2018 - link
I don't get it why do you think it's so hard to compare performance between OSes and devices?Who cares what are the absolute scores for the SoC itself, what matters is real life performance.
Is there no such benchmark, that would measure some common (or less common) scenarios, like:
- take a camera where you have some video
- transfer it to a pc
- do whatever editing you need to do
Or, like, loading and scrolling through 100 most popular webpages?
Paying your bills in online banking?
Buying a thing on amazon?
The Garden Variety - Wednesday, December 5, 2018 - link
Well thank goodness you so clearly defined the methodologies—"do whatever editing you need to do"—so it should be a totally clear and reproducible set of results within your comparison. Oh wait. What are we measuring using your system, again? Time? Against what scale? What if one task requires a different set of procedures on one operating systems than the other, which is your baseline?I don't mean to be a complete prick, but I don't think I'm too far out of bounds here to call your entire message one of the stupidest fucking things I've read yet today. But the day is young, so you've got that going for you.
sonny73n - Wednesday, December 5, 2018 - link
Many fanboys here are praising A12x which is faster than A11 but considering the price of the iPad, is it faster than the mobile Ryzen 5 or the Core i5? And for an additional 936GB of storage, you have to pay $750 more. I thought 1TB of NAND flash cost about $130 now. What a ripoff! This is straight up robbery and I refuse to be the victim.WasHopingForAnHonestReview - Wednesday, December 5, 2018 - link
Comments are filled with paid social media posters. This thing is absolutely overpriced and you STILL dant do everything you want on it. (Ios)Oyeve - Wednesday, December 5, 2018 - link
At the end of the day it's still an ipad. ios is so limited. Why doesnt apple just make a MBP in an ipad sized format?blackcrayon - Wednesday, December 5, 2018 - link
With an A12X chip? I think they're working on that.With intel chips, you're basically asking for a 12" Macbook - iPad sized, but hampered by what intel is able to give us in that form factor.
Also at the end of the day a MBP is just a MacBook Pro, so I'd still prefer they offer what the iPad can do as a separate product for now.
isthisavailable - Wednesday, December 5, 2018 - link
Please compare this to the Core M series fanless chips from intel. Apple is probably already ahead of core M.thunng8 - Wednesday, December 5, 2018 - link
Yes, way ahead of Core M, especially for graphics. Something like 5-6X faster in gfxbench.Brett Howse - Wednesday, December 5, 2018 - link
There's a few results in there already from the MacBook Air with Y Series.name99 - Wednesday, December 5, 2018 - link
The most interesting thing, to me, is the cache topology.While everyone else at the high end has been retreating to private L2 caches, and a large shared L3, Apple has doubled down on a
- LARGE L2 that's
- shared by at least 4 clients
with L3 acting more as the communications/sharing space between different blocks like CPU, GPU, ISP, NPU.
Clearly it's working for them! It also suggests that when they scale even larger (the inevitable ARM Macs and [internal use] servers) they'll likely ship something that looks very different from not just Intel's high end (private L2, distributed L3 slice per core) but perhaps also the current ARM servers?
Do we know anything at all about the NoC that's in use on Apple SoCs, and, second best, on other ARM SoCs (eg QC, Samsung)? A ring? A crossbar? Point to point with direct links from each block to L3, but no block-to-block communication?
Railgun - Wednesday, December 5, 2018 - link
These reviews lately are killing me. Zero consistency from chart to chart. Why in one metric are we comparing a tablet to phones, and others to other tablets...and nada against its predecessor? There are so many reviews like this.Brett Howse - Wednesday, December 5, 2018 - link
Some of the tests are mobile only.Some of the tests are not.
This device bridges both so why would we not compare it to both?
Socius - Wednesday, December 5, 2018 - link
Charging time with a proper adapter is insanely fast on the iPad pro. Using a 20,000mah battery pack, I was able to charge it up from 3% to 45% in about 30-35 minutes. That is absolutely incredible.Also, you can change the tip on the Apple Pencil as it is a simple screw off design. Apple itself doesn't sell different tips but I'm sure 3rd party would step in pretty soon.
One thing you didn't cover is the disk read/write performance. And it differs greatly based on which model iPad you get. The 12.9" 1TB WiFi model is substantially faster than other capacities. And the extra ram has helped keep apps/games in memory far longer than they would on my XS Max with its 4GB ram.
We'll be able to better compare the productivity performance of the iPad Pro once the full Photoshop CC port is released in 2019. But in the mean time, I'm editing through 4K videos using LumaFusion like it's nothing. This isn't a desktop. But with the right apps, it can come pretty close to being able to handle 90% of your workflow. In such a small and portable package. I find myself designing websites on it while sitting on the couch. The drag-and-drop feature between application windows in split view is such a big help as well.
Overall, I picked the iPad Pro over the Surface Pro due to the 120Hz display. And once Photoshop is ported over in a few months, I'll be able to do so much more of my work on it. I think my only gripe is that Microsoft Office is so weak on the iPad Pro. If only I had access to the full desktop version.
lilo777 - Wednesday, December 5, 2018 - link
1. Don't work on your couch.2. iPad does not have 120Hz display
darklight69 - Thursday, December 6, 2018 - link
1. He/She can work wherever they feel like. What kind of control freak are you to demand otherwise from complete strangers.2. Yes it does, says so in the review's display section - https://www.anandtech.com/show/13661/the-2018-appl...
"In addition, Apple’s iPad Pro offers their ProMotion technology, which means it is a 120 Hz display, but one that supports variable refresh rates in order to lower the display's refresh rate for power management purposes."
WasHopingForAnHonestReview - Wednesday, December 5, 2018 - link
Nonsense. How much are you paid for this co?mmentSocius - Thursday, December 6, 2018 - link
Which part of what I said do you disagree with or find questionable?WasHopingForAnHonestReview - Thursday, December 6, 2018 - link
The foundation of your entire at point is questionable at BEST. A tablet is bought for a few major reasons, without which, there would be no tablet.1) a portable device that requires no extra components to do its primary function which is..
2) browse net, absorb entertainment and read on while being ultra portable and low effort to accomplish.
3) Ease of use. Simplicity above all else. "So easy a child can use it".
The iPad can do all of these, but where it begins to fail is in the uses youve laid out. If you render a video for your youtube channel you better have your charger nearby. (Hurts #1 above).
If you plan on doing ANY EDITING, you better have a mouse and keyboard nearby. (Hurts all 3 above.)
If you plan on playing graphic intensive games on it, you better have a controller laying around or in your bag.( kill all 3)
The point is what Apple is trying to do with this device defeats the PRIMARY PURPOSES of a tablet. Therefor I would suggest you simply go buy a laptop to accomplish all the feats you just mentioned.
I find the roundation of our point to be ludicrious. So ludicrious I cannot believe youre that silly to get a tablet to show your buddies how fast Apples new cpu is (which it is) then post here how you love it. Your comment reads like a paid shill post which I see here all the time. Or you have Apple stock.
Either way, this tablet from apple has an impressive cpu/gpu that is completely squandered for 99% of the people who would buy it. Its a development misstep by Apple. Writing this I wonder if they will do some data recon to see whos actually using their cpu/gpu to decide on the future path of the line.
My bets for the future would be low power cpu/gpu thag give you days of 1,2,3 before having to charge again. Thats the proper path.
thunng8 - Thursday, December 6, 2018 - link
Your reasons are for refuting are dubious.1. Do not need to bring charger as iPad hardly uses any power when rendering videos.
2. Can edit fine with the Apple pencil for precise adjustments
3. Not all games need a controller. Some like civ vi, are even better with touch.
thunng8 - Thursday, December 6, 2018 - link
Although I do not edit a lot of videos, I do edit lots of photos using Lightroom CC. Compared to a traditional laptop.1. Battery life is tremendous. Can get around 8 hours of usage compared to 4 in the 2017 13” MacBook Pro. Also in complete silence compared to fans blaring half the time on the Mac.
2. Using the pencil has been great when needing to be more precise. In some cases even better tan mouse when selecting areas of an image.
Socius - Friday, December 7, 2018 - link
1) You should try working with 4K video in LumaFusion before you talk. It doesn’t skip a beat. And the device doesn’t get hot. Nor does it drain a lot of battery.2) That’s your usage for the tablet. Not mine. If that’s all I wanted to do, my iPad Air 2 is more than sufficient for the task.
Also why do you need a keyboard for editing video or photos? Have you seen how amazing it is using your hand and the pencil together? It works like a Wacom device. Touch input is used for image size/position manipulation, as well as tool selection/adjustment. It doesn’t interfere with the work the pencil does. And yes. I do have 2 Wacom devices as well.
Regarding gaming, it depends what you’re playing. I love playing racing games like Grid Autosport, rpg games like final fantasy, or simulation games like civilization. If I want to play hardcore games, I do it at 4K 144Hz with HDR on my desktop.
You talk about needing a mouse and keyboard to be productive. But here’s the thing. I have an i7 surface pro with keyboard and pen. And I honestly find it harder to use. While there is more flexibility in apps and what you can do, it can’t do it as easily as iOS can. The surface pro is a portable desktop. iPad Pro is a different type of device. If you can find the right apps to cover your usage needs, it’ll be far easier to use than the surface pro. I even do my server management on the iPad Pro.
But I appreciate your personal attacks and insults towards me. They say far more about you as a person than they do about me. Also, it’s ludicrous. Not ludicrious, as you misspelled twice. Maybe if you had an iPad Pro, you could take advantage of auto-correct.
Calista - Thursday, December 6, 2018 - link
In many ways an amazing product, packing so many outstanding features in such a small package. At the same time I can't shake the feeling it's a product looking for a real use-case for all its power. What can be properly done on the Pro which can't be done with far less power? Read pdf files? Play the light games the app store offer, watch some media etc. I could easily be doing all of it with a 100 dollar tablet with a Snapdragon 400. And when talking "real work" Windows or OS X is far more versatile compared to iOS.Sailor23M - Friday, December 7, 2018 - link
Agree with Calista and others earlier. I have an ipad 4, a ipad mini, an ipad Air2 and the new education ipad+pencil in my family. I frequently use the iPad Air 2 to take notes and send emails but do not use it for core productivity like ppt/excel - primary reason is lack of a defined local file storage structure and inability to connect to a usb drive - cloud storage is clunky at best for people on the move in trains/public transport.Socius - Friday, December 7, 2018 - link
Why don’t you use a locally synced cloud service like iCloud, google drive, Microsoft OneDrive, Dropbox, etc? The “files” application on the iPad Pro is really lacking on some very fundamental features such as file compression and decompression. But...it does give full access to browse all apps folders. Even across apps. So you can use apps like iZip or Documents by readlle, to extract, compress, move around, manipulate, edit text, look at pictures/videos etc. etc. you can access all those files in your other apps. It’s definitely flawed and limited, but usable. You also can use usb drives. But not directly in the files app. Has to be imported from a 3rd party app.heywally12 - Friday, December 7, 2018 - link
Back in the day, used to be a tech guy (well, sysmanager/dba anyway) and a lot of the stuff on this site is over my head now. But at the risk of wasting space, let me thank you for a thorough and excellent review that is understandable to me.DaQi - Friday, December 7, 2018 - link
Been a user of the original iPad Pro since it came out. I use it for taking notes and have completely eliminated paper note taking in my life. Was very interested in this new version but two things make it a non-starter and they are very subtle. The physical width of it is slightly wider and thus I can't comfortably hold it in my hand while writing on it. The second thing is that the keyboard when folded has the keys sticking out instead of tucked in like the original. Don't get me wrong the original has a lot of problems. It is a bit of a love hate relationship I have with it but I do use it all the time every day with the pencil and I was looking forward to a new version but this very small and simple change makes it totally a no go - so sad!peevee - Monday, December 10, 2018 - link
"Due to the fact that the bezels required for a tablet"Required by whom?
peevee - Monday, December 10, 2018 - link
Ok, a tablet for $1800, a keyboard for $180... Apple is just trolling now.Socius - Tuesday, December 11, 2018 - link
Don’t forget $130 for the pencil. Lol. And the keyboard is just absolute trash. All I want is the surface pro keyboard on the iPad. Cheaper too.peevee - Monday, December 10, 2018 - link
"But iOS is certainly less RAM hungry compared to the PC, thanks to the more limited applications available"The statement makes no sense. If you need RAM for something, say, precessing of a photo from a raw format, IOS or Windows - it does not matter.
For code ARM64 actually requires more RAM than x64, but that pales in comparison to photo/video requirements.
blackcrayon - Monday, December 10, 2018 - link
Well in your example it doesn't matter, but in many other examples it does. The desktop versions of Word for Windows or Mac for that matter are a lot more powerful than Word for iOS, thus iOS needs less memory to run its "more limited" version of Word...Socius - Tuesday, December 11, 2018 - link
Word on iOS is a joke. And there’s no reason for it. Word is not a heavy application. If they’re forcing you to buy a monthly subscription to use it, they could at least make it more like the desktop version.Socius - Tuesday, December 11, 2018 - link
Between memory compression and 1GB/s nvme ssd it becomes far more manageable than many expect. Guaranteed once photoshop comes out, the 6GB iPad Pro 1tb will outperform the 8gb surface pro 6 at handling large multi layer files.peevee - Monday, December 10, 2018 - link
Macbook Air is a software feature (recompilation from x64 to ARM8, likely better done in App Store once with full optimization) away from switching to Apple's own SOCs.Is there a x64 to LLVM compiler?
McD - Sunday, December 16, 2018 - link
Good write up as ever but still some niggling general commentary;1) we don’t need Adobe Photoshop to provide real-world productivity validation when we already have Affinity Photo. We already know the integrated CPU/GPU architecture provide a huge boost over discrete components.
2) no GUI PC provides full file-system access either. On my iPad provides the same local system that has PC users running round in circles with Admins in hot pursuit. Cloud Drive (take your pick) and file localisation has been a way better prospect for the last few years.
techgadgetgeek - Monday, December 17, 2018 - link
There is one thing I did not see done in this test which would have been great to see. Previously when syncing an iPad or iPhone with a MacBook Pro via iTunes a sync would take ages to sync depending on how much you had to backup to MacBook first before syncing. The new iPad Pro uses a USB type C cable and is supposed to have faster transfer speeds. I would like to know how fast data transfer for syncing is on the new iPad Pro compared to the last generation iPad. There are different cables out there these days. Would be nice to see the stock iPad Pro cable used for a sync compared to previous cable on last generation iPad. Also would be nice to see it tested with a USB C 3.1 and 3.2 Type C cable along with a Thunderbolt 3 Cable to see if transfer speeds for syncing make a big difference or not. Surprised this was not tested[email protected] - Tuesday, January 29, 2019 - link
The charts need to include the iPad Pro 10.5” which is the more relevant comparison. Can you update and repost?I expect most people would be intersted in this comparison.
[email protected] - Friday, February 1, 2019 - link
There’s no comparison of storage (SSD) performance with 10.5” iPad Pro. Seems faster to me, but I would like to see real measurements.Also, all the charts always need to include the “replaced” product so we can better see how much of an improvement upgrading would imply. That is the principal interest of most iPad Pro Review readers.
calden - Saturday, April 13, 2019 - link
First and foremost, the iPad Pro is still just a tablet and cannot replace a laptop. Even for those seeking the bare minimum, web, office and communications, I would take my Google Pixel Slate over it any day of the week. However, for music creation, photo management and light video editing work, the iPad Pro is fantastic. In fact, those who create music, it's a must have piece of equipment, for my needs it's the brain for a two of my midi keyboards.iOS still needs a lot of work before it can replace OSX, Windows and Linux. Some of the most important features it's lacking is; a file-system that can be accessed directly from every single app installed and a decent file-manager that can not only manage local files but remote as well, let it be a personal or work NAS, another computer on the network or server. It needs support for an external monitor at native resolution, along with extending the workspace instead of just mirroring. It needs support for a mouse, USB printer, 3D Printer, Wacom boards, etc. True multitasking as in the ability to run multiple apps in the background while using another in the foreground. For example, right now, I'm typing this comment through the Citrix app, streaming Word
calden - Saturday, April 13, 2019 - link
, while downloading and uploading a 400GB file to my NAS, while compiling the new version of Blender for my new Nvidia Xavier Jetson via a remote SSH session, while streaming a video to my TV, all in the background, with zero lag, using my Samsung Tab S4. Also, everything I listed above, I can also do on this wonderful tablet. In fact, except for those wonderful music creation apps, video and photo work, the Tab S4 is the better tablet for actual office work.I'm connected to a 24" Dell touch monitor (resolution is fully supported), a mouse, a USB Printer, I have Citrix streaming ever Windows 10 application that need, including Photoshop. I can mount my NAS, all of my firms servers that I need access to as local folders on the file-system using simple Linux commands. I have every single scripting language that I could possibly want, PHP, Perl, Javascript, Ruby, SQL, etc. I'm running a LAMP server so I can develop web sites as well as custom apps using PHP/MySQL, HTML 5 wrapper for my S4 and Note 9. The list just goes on and one.
All I'm saying is, the iPad Pro isn't the best tablet, there are many, many, tasks in which I could I never do on it. It's why I own multiple devices.
rdr2 - Sunday, April 21, 2019 - link
how many GFlops is the A12 x capable of?why don’t i see phone performance measured in Tflops or Gflops but mostly transistor counts and clock speeds
shaonian - Wednesday, June 3, 2020 - link
I’m more of a designer than artist, I've used a few XP-Pen drawing tablets, including Artist monitors .I've been looking for portable device that works well for sketching and illustration as well as media consumption and fun.
iPad Pro combined with the pencil looks quite promising so far.