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It's a no-brainer to get the 10.5" unless money is a major obstacle.

The difference between the 10.5" and 9.7" is less than 1 cubic inch in volume and 30 grams in weight.

The processor, memory, refresh rate, and battery specs have all been improved. Not to mention you will be getting an extra year of iOS updates.
If money is a major obstacle, the best option is likely the 2017 9.7" iPad at almost half-price. $100-200 savings on a 9.7 Pro? Probably not so much.
 
He just has to decide if those things are worth paying potentially 300 dollars more

Oh yea absolutely. Only he can decide what is worth the money to him. I just can't really see a reason to go with the 9.7 currently. Even if you planned on buying and reselling in a year, definite more in return for the 10.5. If you planned to keep it for a long time, the 4GB will help it's longevity a ton.
 
Processor/graphics upgrade, 120 refresh rate, 4GB ram, increased screen size/resolution, front facing camera.

Yes all of this, but also with an extra weight and increased size sadfully ! Which I don't want !
 
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Yes all of this, but also with an extra weight and increased size sadfully ! Which I don't want !
Quite honestly, the size and weight increase is negligible.

Specifically for the weight, I have the Air (around 10.5 Pro weight) and 9.7 Pro. The only way I'm able to tell them apart is by the lack of TouchID or the presence of mute/rotation lock switch on the Air. Even the 0.5mm difference in thickness, it's hard to tell unless you actually have both devices sitting on a flat surface and you're comparing them side by side.

A 30g difference (20-30%) when it comes to iPhones is noticeable. On the 10-inch class iPads? Not so much. That's less than 10%.
 
Yes all of this, but also with an extra weight and increased size sadfully ! Which I don't want !

Well then you have your answer, but you won't notice the very small difference in size/weight (you'll manage, promise). 4GB alone is worth it.

IPAD PRO (10.5-INCH) / IPAD PRO (9.7-INCH)
Dimensions 9.8 x 6.8 x 0.24 inches / 9.45 x 6.67 x 0.24 inches
Weight 1.03 pounds / 0.96 pounds
 
Quite honestly, the size and weight increase is negligible.

Specifically for the weight, I have the Air (around 10.5 Pro weight) and 9.7 Pro. The only way I'm able to tell them apart is by the lack of TouchID or the presence of mute/rotation lock switch on the Air. Even the 0.5mm difference in thickness, it's hard to tell unless you actually have both devices sitting on a flat surface and you're comparing them side by side.

Yeah read your comment the other day but frankly I am so much smitten with the entire size, weight and form of the 9.7" iPad Pro that it is becoming unimaginable for me to think of any increase in size and weight even if it is marginal so am in confusion !
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4GB alone is worth it.


So alone for 4GB RAM I should go with the 10.5" is it ?
 
Yeah read your comment the other day but frankly I am so much smitten with the entire size, weight and form of the 9.7" iPad Pro that it is becoming unimaginable for me to think of any increase in size and weight even if it is marginal so am in confusion !
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So alone for 4GB RAM I should go with the 10.5" is it ?

Yes. You'll regret 2GB come iOS 12, maybe even iOS 11.
 
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You call 9.7" vs 10.5" breaking the sweet spot? A iPhone at 4.7" vs 5.5" is breaking the sweet spot. That's like comparing a 50" TV to a 55" TV in relationship to the iPad size difference; not a huge difference. For the 2 iPhone sizes it's like comparing a 40" to a 50"; big difference.

Are you complaining just to mess with us?
 
You call 9.7" vs 10.5" breaking the sweet spot? A iPhone at 4.7" vs 5.5" is breaking the sweet spot. That's like comparing a 50" TV to a 55" TV in relationship to the iPad size difference; not a huge difference. For the 2 iPhone sizes it's like comparing a 40" to a 50"; big difference.

Are you complaining just to mess with us?

Seems like it. The size/weight difference is the last thing on my mind when comparing.
 
Yeah read your comment the other day but frankly I am so much smitten with the entire size, weight and form of the 9.7" iPad Pro that it is becoming unimaginable for me to think of any increase in size and weight even if it is marginal so am in confusion !

You've already made your decision. You clearly value the weight and form factor very highly. You should get the iPad Pro 9.7", regardless of price.
 
Yeah read your comment the other day but frankly I am so much smitten with the entire size, weight and form of the 9.7" iPad Pro that it is becoming unimaginable for me to think of any increase in size and weight even if it is marginal so am in confusion !

Here's the thing. The 10.5" iPad is the same weight as the iPad Air. It's a noticeable, but small difference. The size is a bit bigger, but it's still a smaller volume than the iPad 4. I think they honestly did as good a job as they are going to do balancing:

- Size of the screen
- Weight
- Size of the body
- Tablet grip (bezels)

I'm at least willing to give it a chance.
 
Although it's not getting nearly as much attention as the size of the screen, I'd say 120hz is FAR more important than the extra real estate. If you've ever scrolled a website using a 144hz monitor, you know what I'm talking about.

Make sure to keep an eye on motion smoothing when comparing the two models, as the difference should be quite drastic.
 
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You've already made your decision. You clearly value the weight and form factor very highly. You should get the iPad Pro 9.7", regardless of price.

No frankly speaking I have still not made my decision but the 9.7" iPP is such a beautiful device that it is me pulling me towards it, mind you I am yet to see the 10.5" iPP in person ! So I am also neutral and can look into either ones's if they genuinely mean attention.
 
No frankly speaking I have still not made my decision but the 9.7" iPP is such a beautiful device that it is me pulling me towards it, mind you I am yet to see the 10.5" iPP in person ! So I am also neutral and can look into either ones's if they genuinely mean attention.

Then @Krevnik's advice is spot on. See it in store first. The price of the iPad Pro 9.7" can only go down anyway.
 
If money is even a slight concern issue I'd really list out how you use an iPad majority of your time.

For me, the ipad is a complimentary device to my macbook(web browsing, content consumption, sketchpad) which is slowly becoming more and more of an actual tool for productivity(visual design, production ready artwork, light video editing). With Affinity photo(Photoshop) and hopefully Affinity Design(Illustrator) IOS apps slowly catching up to being able to produce production ready files it seems the 10.5, with more ram, wouldn't be a bad investment for my use case.

That being said I'm seeing 128gb ipad pro's go for close to $500 and below. If the prices keep dropping I'd have to take a hard look at the 9.7 pro options for a couple hundred dollars less than the base model 10.7 at $649 plus tax.
 
No frankly speaking I have still not made my decision but the 9.7" iPP is such a beautiful device that it is me pulling me towards it, mind you I am yet to see the 10.5" iPP in person ! So I am also neutral and can look into either ones's if they genuinely mean attention.

Such a beautiful device? You realize the 9.7 and 10.5 look exactly the same aside from the slightly smaller bezels on the side, right? They essentially look exactly the same.
 
Bear in mind that the 10.5 will likely have a slightly heavier Smart Keyboard, and slightly heavier cases, in the event that either of those things are on your shopping list. As such the total weight difference in daily use will almost certainly be more than 30g.

Having said that, I would still go for the 10.5 (and this is coming from someone who loves their 9.7 IPP). The trade off of a small increase in weight and dimensions seem more than worth it to me for my typical IPP use case (though I can't personally justify the upgrade having splurged far far too much on Apple gear in the past 12 months :rolleyes:).
 
Here's the thing. The 10.5" iPad is the same weight as the iPad Air. It's a noticeable, but small difference. The size is a bit bigger, but it's still a smaller volume than the iPad 4.

For me the ideal benchmark device is the 9.7" iPad Pro it was one of the finest device ever created by Apple. Except for the lack of 4GB RAM for its form factor, size and weight and the display. It was truly a engineering marvel accomplished in such a sleek, thin and compact size.
 
For me the ideal benchmark device is the 9.7" iPad Pro it was one of the finest device ever created by Apple. Except for the lack of 4GB RAM for its form factor, size and weight and the display. It was truly a engineering marvel accomplished in such a sleek, thin and compact size.

I mentioned in another thread, that's unfortunate the 9.7 iPad Pro is already discontinued after just one year. But I understand with the 2017 9.7 iPad and the debut of the 10.5/12.9 iPad Pro, that it wouldn't make sense to allow it in the lineup. But it really is a great device and within the next month, there will be a lot of sale prices on new units and used units alike.
 
Yes I am waiting to see it in person but looking at the dimensions the 10.5" iPP is taller, wider and bulkier than the 9.7" iPad Pro the weight of the 9.7" iPP was (Wifi+Cellular) 444 grams where as the weight of the 10.5" iPP is 477 grams.

Are you American by any chance and not used to metric weights? I don't mean that to sound condescending but a small packet of crisps (chips) is about 28 grams. I wouldn't worry about that increase at all.
 
Do you guys see Apple is now going to keep the 10.5" screen size in future for the entry level iPad Pro ? Or maybe somewhere down the future it might again come up with some new screen size ? And the 120 Hz refresh rates that the 10.5" iPP has, it will slow down with new and new iOS updates getting installed on the device right ? As new iOS updates generally make the device slower.
 
Do you guys see Apple is now going to keep the 10.5" screen size in future for the entry level iPad Pro ? Or maybe somewhere down the future it might again come up with some new screen size ? And the 120 Hz refresh rates that the 10.5" iPP has, it will slow down with new and new iOS updates getting installed on the device right ? As new iOS updates generally make the device slower.
Given the 10.5 iPP has faster CPU, faster GPU, more memory bandwidth and 4GB RAM, updates that slow down the 10.5 iPP are likely to slow down the 9.7 iPP even further.
 
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When I read rumours that Apple would kill 9.7 with the 10.5, I immediately bought a second hand 9.7 for 550. I am nervous 10.5 will have same app compatibility issues as 12.9. Few apps support iPad Pro 12.9 resolution versus 9.7. And, as you stated, it is larger and heavier. I've been debating if I made the right choice with 9.7 and I think I did.
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I have a 9.7 and rarely multi task. I don't get how people are multi tasking on a screen smaller than 11 inches... I barely like to do that on 13" rMBP

You had the same issue with the mini 7.9 screen which is a moot issue for a while now....
 
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Consider that the 9.7 pro, after just one year, has already a limitation with iOS11:
it can only run 2 active apps at the same time, due to RAM limitations.
both the 12.9" (2015 and 2017) iPad Pro and the new 10.5" can run 3 (2 in split view, one floating)

Oh but people have been telling me for months that 2GB of ram will last forever, that I was stupid not to buy the 9.7 pro due to concerns over ram. Glad I listened to myself!

But yeah OP, I. would go with the 10.5. The 9.7 will age a lot faster with that 2GB of ram.
 
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