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2018 iPad long term review
- Thread starter 1BadManVan
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Honestly I would not call it a beast. It's a regular tablet. Sometimes there are hiccups and you need to restart it. Sometimes you need to kill apps. And sometimes you realize that multi tasking is not that good because it reloaded the app and you lost all of your changes.
It is not the worst tablet out there, but don't expect wonders from it either. For media consumption I assume would be OK. For other cases it depends on the app you use and how you use it.
In all honesty, even the Pro models are not immune from hiccups. Just software glitches, I reckon.
Maybe just my idea of a beast is different
. When I hear a beast I imagine a really powerful machine. You know the ones that NASA is using .I have not used tablets before purchasing this one so I have nothing to compare it to. I do think that it's quite a good one as long as you don't leave too many apps open and don't open many tabs in Safari/Chrome. I just would not call it a beast.
For Pros it might be about software glitches, but for this one in my opinion it's about memory management and RAM. 2 GB are just not enough I guess for my workflow. It's not surprising as I am used to open lots of apps and tabs in Safari.
Btw do you know iOS app where I can see RAM usage by apps? I tend to do this on my Android phone and this is how I decide which apps to close and which not. Is there such thing for iOS?
It’s a beast compared to my other tablets. iPad 2, Samsung tab a, lg g pad 3
For the price, yes it’s a beast. Considering the discount cost of this makes it on par with cheaper Samsung tablets, it’s a great value for my usage there is zero hiccups. Got Facebook and safari going back and fourth with Netflix running in picture in picture. If I was doing anything more intensive then I would have just gone the pro model. But for browsing and media and gaming, this runs perfect, pub g max settings no issue.
Still miss the speakers for the pro but they aren’t worth that much lol
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You must be running some more intensive apps to be experiencing something like this, or maybe it needs to be wiped clean and reinstall iOS. I’ve done lots of reading up on this model and haven’t come across anyone else having these kind of hiccups you describe either.
I don’t expect it to compete neck and neck with a pro by any means, but for using it as a tablet? So far it’s ran great and is generally the number one recommended tablet to buy when reading up on most review sites.
For the price, yes it’s a beast. Considering the discount cost of this makes it on par with cheaper Samsung tablets, it’s a great value for my usage there is zero hiccups. Got Facebook and safari going back and fourth with Netflix running in picture in picture. If I was doing anything more intensive then I would have just gone the pro model. But for browsing and media and gaming, this runs perfect, pub g max settings no issue.
Still miss the speakers for the pro but they aren’t worth that much lol
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I am a little surprised by your experience, but maybe it’s the programs you run, the iPhone 8 only uses 2 go of ram as well and I never hear people complaining of app crashes and needing to restart.
You must be running some more intensive apps to be experiencing something like this, or maybe it needs to be wiped clean and reinstall iOS. I’ve done lots of reading up on this model and haven’t come across anyone else having these kind of hiccups you describe either.
I don’t expect it to compete neck and neck with a pro by any means, but for using it as a tablet? So far it’s ran great and is generally the number one recommended tablet to buy when reading up on most review sites.
So you bought it? It seems that it is providing you with all you need! That's awesome! Yeah not surprised that you would like the speakers of the Pro a little bit more. But hey if you have Bluetooth speakers you might use them to boost the audio. I have portable ones and they can get paired up together to provide stereo sound. I do use them to compensate for the devices.
The app that crashes the most is the Apple native Notes app. That thing crashes every 2/3 days if I use it. Killing the app does not help. You have to restart the iPad. If you restart the iPad, you have to pair again the pencil. This is basically why I am so annoyed. Just me having to go through this process every 2 or 3 days annoys me big time. I just stopped using the Notes app, but then it's really difficult for me to find an app replacement. The biggest reason I bought this iPad was to take notes and being able store all of them digitally. The fact that the Apple app is not working properly and the fact that I cannot find good replacement and thus change my Notes app every week does not make me happy. Like not at all.
The iPad was bought just a month ago so I won't be happy if I have to reinstall the iOS. I am sorry but that's unacceptable to me. The device is new and should work as expected.
As for intensive apps I don't use that many. I do use ibispaint x which is a drawing app with lots of layers and I do have Sketchbook Pro that I use from time to time. I just open lots of tabs in both Safari and Chrome which leads to a lot of tabs reloading. Overall my biggest issue is the Notes app because that was one of the biggest reasons I bought the iPad in the first place.
Most probably I am hard on it because I come from using laptop. I have never had a tablet before so my expectations might be too high. For now it does hold up for the most part, but I am worried that it won't be long term device because of the ram. I feel that in an year 2 GB would just not be enough for it to work properly. However I will think about this once I have reached that point.
At this point time it did not make sense for me to buy something more expensive because I was not sure how much I will use it. So I will use this now to test my needs and usage and once it is no longer working properly I will evaluate my options.
It's a great iPad and fits the consumer needs of pretty much most people that aren't using it as an intense workstation. You made a good purchase that fits your use cases. Glad you are happy with it!
You won’t have any longevity issues. I have a 4-year old iPad Air 2 and a 3-year old gen 1iPad Pro 12.9”. I use them a lot. The Air 2 battery is failing, $99 to repair but everything else is fine. I had the 12.9” Pro replaced under Applecare for a screen backlight problem, and now the replacement also shows some minor backlight issues that are only visible with an even light background. Like this forum.
As far as performance, both are fine and the Pro still handles everything that I throw at it, but I’m not doing hi-res video or 50 GB Photoshop files. Of the new models, I’d get a Pro and it should be powerful enough for a long time to come. A couple of decades ago when I started building PCs, a friend told me that when you buy extra RAM and faster, more powerful processors, you’re really buying added useful life to a good degree.
So it would appear that iPads will outlast their batteries at least.
As far as performance, both are fine and the Pro still handles everything that I throw at it, but I’m not doing hi-res video or 50 GB Photoshop files. Of the new models, I’d get a Pro and it should be powerful enough for a long time to come. A couple of decades ago when I started building PCs, a friend told me that when you buy extra RAM and faster, more powerful processors, you’re really buying added useful life to a good degree.
So it would appear that iPads will outlast their batteries at least.
You’re right, compared to your previous devices, it is a beast. A great big hairy one, with huge fangs and claws that could rip a man asunder.
The A10 Fusion is a great SOC. There’s plenty of power there to cope with the next several years.
Even 2GB of RAM isn’t an issue with iOS, likely at least a couple of years before we start to see a little bit of slowdown creep into the OS, in a few places. But general use shouldn’t be an issue.
Hell, I’m even using the wife’s old iPad Mini 4 as one of my debugging devices, it’s only got a paltry dual-core A8 and it copes very well with, well, basically everything.
The iPad Pros, especially this years have power to spare and then some, yes they’re more powerful than any other iPad, and apparently most laptops out there.
What’s going to stress them and use all of that power? Absolutely sod all for quite a while.
The A10 Fusion, even when I push it hard in Xcode and monitor it in Instruments performs more than admirably. I too am surprised that people experience extreme issues with these devices, they should easily cope with anything in their category iOS can throw at them.
You’ve got your new iPad, you’re happy with it and that’s all that really matters at the end of the day.
You’ll likely still be enjoying it in half a decade, that can’t be bad by any means.
Yup, I purchased it 2 days ago, was hard to find because of the sale lol.
Honestly with the issues you’re having, maybe there is a defect with yours? Have you spoke to apple about these issues? Especially when you’re using the stock apple app for note taking, that really makes me wonder if something isn’t right on it.
The 2 gb of ram of all things about this has been my only worry about this tablet, only because they have stuck using 2 gb of ram now for a few years on their iPads, so if they are coming up to getting long in the tooth soon, hopefully it’s not the ram that’s going to slow them down or this model is going to fall with them. But I am fairly confident apple wouldn’t release a 2018 model that would go obsolete in another year or 2.
And so far my usage on this has been very smooth with no hiccups. Had dual safari browsers open with a few tabs in the background while watching Netflix picture in picture without a hitch.
Maybe I set my expectations on this too low but most bigger review sites are very positive about this tablets performance, very few recommend getting the pro over this unless you have very specific uses to take advantage of the extra power.
Btw how come you use chrome?
Congrats!
I have not but I plan to ask them next weekend maybe. It's starting to annoy me so I will go and ask them about it.
I hope so too but we will see. I guess of course it depends on how much we use them.
One of my issues is that I forget to close tabs in the browsers. In the end I end up with more than 10/20 tabs in the browser and this is where I have to wait for them to be reloaded as the device does not have enough RAM to keep them loaded.
I think that it will work out great for you. You knew what you wanted it for and it does seem that it meets your needs.
I am used to use Chrome. I have Android phone, Windows computer and iPad. Using Chrome is easy for me to sync everything between my devices. Plus I have extensions added to Chrome - like send to OneNote (which I use on my iPad too) and stuff like that. Safari sometimes does not want to load the whole page that I need so it kind of bothers me.
I do use it though when I want to have two open tabs in split view. Chrome does not support this so I am left with Safari for that.
I think chrome is more resource heavy as well, could be contributing to the ram management issue. Even on my android tablets I can’t use chrome because it bogs them down too much so I end up using Brave browser
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My wife was surprised I actually purposely chose the cheaper model, I generally like to aim towards the higher end of the spectrum on things, I have the money but it just didn’t add up to me with the $250 off factored in, making a $700+ price difference.
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That’s the hope! lol. iPad 2 is finally basically unusable now besides a back up Netflix machine. But it had a good run, shouldn’t have let it get iOS 9, that was its demise
My wife was surprised I actually purposely chose the cheaper model, I generally like to aim towards the higher end of the spectrum on things, I have the money but it just didn’t add up to me with the $250 off factored in, making a $700+ price difference.
You might be right about this. I guess I could test and see if it will be better if I use mostly Safari.
I don't work on the railroad but I am a frequent traveler on the Amtrak northeast corridor. Also considering upgrading to a cellular for the same reason.
I got a $79 Amazon fire and find it surprisingly smooth to use. Smoother than some more expensive Samsung tablets.
I have a iPad2 an iPad4 bought years ago, they might have been pretty slow many
Times but they never crashed.
My new 2017 PadPro is quick and a joy to use as a tablet, it’s not a laptop replacement I never thought it would be.
Times but they never crashed.
My new 2017 PadPro is quick and a joy to use as a tablet, it’s not a laptop replacement I never thought it would be.
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I've had it since launch week. No complaints. I think that only a handful of costumers actually need an iPad Pro. The 2018 iPad is probably the best tablet on the market for 90% of people. Some have expressed concerns over it "only" having 2 GB of RAM, but I've never found that to be limiting.
I won't lie, I paid 1500 dollars for my ipad pro with tax...and I felt......dirty.
In Canada the 10.5 iPad Pro LTE with 256gb is over $1200 before taxes. iPad 6th gen LTE with 128gb $469
I know!!! I felt that way about my max. Like for me guilty. I swear to hold on to this phone for three years.
So far no regrets, first new iPad since the iPad 2 and fully replaced my lg g pad III. Miss the fact i could torrent on the android tablet but still worth moving over to this tablet
It’s a been a great experience so far. I’m still trying to see if i truly need the 12.9 inch over the 11 inch. But the reduction in bezels makes me absorbed in the tablet. So that’s a great feeling. I’m definitely keeping one of the two.
Now i’m Doing a usage model check to see if I truly need 256GB, my iPhone, i’m At only 56GB used at 256GB Memory. My iPad is current at 12.6 gigs used with no videos so maybe I can deal with just 64GB. That would at least save me some money.
Now i’m Doing a usage model check to see if I truly need 256GB, my iPhone, i’m At only 56GB used at 256GB Memory. My iPad is current at 12.6 gigs used with no videos so maybe I can deal with just 64GB. That would at least save me some money.
Still loving this iPad, no slow downs or crashes, ordered a nice backlight keyboard to go with it that works awesome, even has a bunch of short cut keys.
Honestly I’m glad I went with this over the pro, because for my usage, besides the nicer speakers and slightly larger screen, this checks all the boxes for what I wanted. Plays all my games great, can still multi task between a handful of apps without reloading them and the battery life is very good. Even the camera is still fairly decent if I happen to be on it when a moment pops up to capture
I think apple really did a great job on this tablet for the price range, price has been the number one thing holding me back and why i kept experimenting with cheaper android tablets that never quite kept me satisfied for what I needed from them
Moko case and a Sparin screen protector along with AppleCare + should definitely ensure that this tablet will be around for a long time in this household. I still won’t let the kids near it lol
Honestly I’m glad I went with this over the pro, because for my usage, besides the nicer speakers and slightly larger screen, this checks all the boxes for what I wanted. Plays all my games great, can still multi task between a handful of apps without reloading them and the battery life is very good. Even the camera is still fairly decent if I happen to be on it when a moment pops up to capture
I think apple really did a great job on this tablet for the price range, price has been the number one thing holding me back and why i kept experimenting with cheaper android tablets that never quite kept me satisfied for what I needed from them
Moko case and a Sparin screen protector along with AppleCare + should definitely ensure that this tablet will be around for a long time in this household. I still won’t let the kids near it lol
Which keyboard did you go with? I have been looking around for a decent portable bluetooth keyboard that's not a case
I went with this arteck one, lots of good reviews and very thin and portable.
Arteck HB030B Universal Slim Portable Wireless Bluetooth 3.0 7-Colors Backlit Keyboard with Built in Rechargeable Battery, Black
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00X5P8BJO/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_uyh7BbG403HH2
Arteck HB030B Universal Slim Portable Wireless Bluetooth 3.0 7-Colors Backlit Keyboard with Built in Rechargeable Battery, Black
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00X5P8BJO/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_uyh7BbG403HH2
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