iPad (6th gen) 32GB vs 128GB

[arda.kizilkaya]

Hi everyone,

I’m planning on buying a new iPad which I will be using mainly for college. I won’t be playing games, downloading videos or movies, or taking photos with the iPad. I might download my music library which is about 1.7 GB right now. Mostly will use iWork apps (particularly Pages with Smart Annotation) with some additional apps such as Gmail and YouTube, and store PDF files and e-books in it.

Which storage size would be enough for me during my 4 years at college?

Thanks in advance.

 

[aakshey]

128 GB
[doublepost=1525628885][/doublepost]The 6th gen iPad won’t last 4 years with an A10 and just 2 GB RAM though. Max 2 more years and it will slow down to a crawl.

 

[sparksd]

One of the problems with going with such minimal storage its that if you do want to change your usage of the device you're really limited.

 

[arda.kizilkaya]

Thank you for the reply. The thing is I will be using it as a supplement to my MBP. Why it won’t last 4 years?

128 GB
[doublepost=1525628885][/doublepost]The 6th gen iPad won’t last 4 years with an A10 and just 2 GB RAM though. Max 2 more years and it will slow down to a crawl.

 

[NoBoMac]

One of the problems with going with such minimal storage its that if you do want to change your usage of the device you're really limited.

This.

I replaced my iPad gen 3 (6yo) with the new one and went with 128GB. Currently, the new iPad is at 18+GB space used (of 28GB-ish usable if it were 32GB), but can butt up to the 32GB limit when I travel and download lots of issues of magazines I read and books. In a student environment, can see really butting up to the limit with class papers, text books, any non-school related media.

The iPad should work well for the four years in school. iOS devices, at worst, will have three good years, the fourth might see a performance dip due to OS bloat, but as I mentioned, I hung onto my underpowered from day one iPad for 6yrs and was happy with it: got the job done.

 

[arda.kizilkaya]

This.

I replaced my iPad gen 3 (6yo) with the new one and went with 128GB. Currently, the new iPad is at 18+GB space used (of 28GB-ish usable if it were 32GB), but can butt up to the 32GB limit when I travel and download lots of issues of magazines I read. In a student environment, can see really butting up to the limit with class papers, text books, any non-school related media.

The iPad should work well for the four years in school. iOS devices, at worst, will have three good years, the fourth might see a performance dip due to OS bloat, but as I mentioned, I hung onto my underpowered from day one iPad for 6yrs and was happy with it: got the job done.

Thans for the answer. I have the iPad 4th gen (16 gb) since 2013 summer and because of the fact that it doesn’t get supported by Apple anymore and its low storage capacity pushed me to upgrade to the new one. I may consider getting the 128gb because of the reason mentioned by sparksd.

 

[aakshey]

If 16 GB is too little then don’t buy less than 64-128 GB.

 

[Freakonomics101]

I made 32 work but would rather do 128. It's better to have too much vs too little or not enough.

 

[mofunk]

I don't know how you will predict the future. When you finish college, you might want to download videos or books, etc. Its best to have more storage plus we don't know how big iOS 12 will be. If you have a iPhone or MacBook, a lot of that data will be on your iPad, unless you're not planning to use it, like Messenger or Mail will be stored there too.

Get the 128GB and not worry.

 

[rui no onna]

I made 32 work but would rather do 128. It's better to have too much vs too little or not enough.

Agreed particularly given the difference is just $100. I remember back when upgrading from 16GB to 128GB used to cost $300 (iPad 4 & Air).

 

[sparksd]

Agreed particularly given the difference is just $100. I remember back when upgrading from 16GB to 128GB used to cost $300 (iPad 4 & Air).

Yeah, and if you run out of memory, that $100 starts to look like a heck of a deal.

 

[Shirasaki]

Thank you for the reply. The thing is I will be using it as a supplement to my MBP. Why it won’t last 4 years?

It only has 2GB of RAM, meaning it will probably not receive many new features from iOS 13, which is rumoured as a huge upgrade for iPad. A10 is also not too fast. This new cheap iPad also does not have good enough hardware, meaning there will be more new features missing down the road. Hence it cannot last more than 2 years unless your usage is a bit limited.

 

[sracer]

128 GB
[doublepost=1525628885][/doublepost]The 6th gen iPad won’t last 4 years with an A10 and just 2 GB RAM though. Max 2 more years and it will slow down to a crawl.

That is your opinion. Please don’t masquerade it as if it were a fact.

 

[Cigsm]

Lol it doesn’t use the A10 it uses an upgraded version of the A10 which nests or matches benchmarks with last years iPad Pro. Stop with the fear mongering. This is a very capable iPad and he’ll get years out of it. Apple will support it for at least four years with software.

It only has 2GB of RAM, meaning it will probably not receive many new features from iOS 13, which is rumoured as a huge upgrade for iPad. A10 is also not too fast. This new cheap iPad also does not have good enough hardware, meaning there will be more new features missing down the road. Hence it cannot last more than 2 years unless your usage is a bit limited.

 

[rui no onna]

Lol it doesn’t use the A10 it uses an upgraded version of the A10 which nests or matches benchmarks with last years iPad Pro. Stop with the fear mongering. This is a very capable iPad and he’ll get years out of it. Apple will support it for at least four years with software.

Last year's iPad Pros feature A10X so no, the 2018 iPad doesn't best or match their benchmarks. It does fairly well compared to the 2015/2016 iPad Pros with A9X, though.

That said, the iPad 6th gen is also nearly half the price of last year's Pro models and we're at the point where processing performance is good enough for typical tasks. The A9 was released with iOS 9. Personally, it feels almost as fast on iOS 11 as it did on iOS 9. Based on current performance, I expect at least a couple good years more from it. The A10 on the 2018 iPad should do even better.

Granted, the 2GB RAM iPads are already missing certain multitasking features now. I expect the same going forward (limitations on multitasking). However, it's also very much possible that new features will be based on chipset generation (e.g. needs A11 Bionic or A12) so even if one buys an A10X-based Pro now, it might not fare much better compared to an iPad with A10.