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iPad Air 2 owners who upgraded to 10.5" Pro

dukee101

dukee101

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jan 17, 2009
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If you recently made the leap from the Air 2 to the 10.5" Pro, what are your thoughts? Are you happy with your purchase? I use my Air 2 mostly for watching video, reading, and light gaming. It's more than enough for all that, but the chorus of reviews is making it hard to say no to the new 10.5", even if it's overkill. If you're a light user as well, what's it been like to use the Pro? Is it money still well spent, given the incredible new display, speakers, and boosted performance?
 
I went from an Air 2 to the 10.5 pro. I consider myself to be a light user, not a whole lot of games (if any). The A10X is neat but I don't feel like there's a lot of noticeable performance over the A8X. Double the RAM is also nice but again, it's not something you notice but perhaps the only reason it's not noticed is because it's doing a good job and nothing stutters.

Everything they say about the display is true; it's the main reason I upgraded. Even true tone has amazed me and I really didn't think it would. It's put me off purchasing anything that doesn't have a higher display refresh rate. I do like the quad speakers, much nicer than only one sided firing speakers. I do quite a lot of YouTube/Safari split view and on the Air 2, scrolling up and down was terrible on safari (not sure if this was a performance issue or design limitation), but the pro has smooth scrolling on safari while YouTube is playing on the other half of the screen.

I would say I'm happy with the upgrade.
 
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Agreed. Same here and it's worth the upgrade. Extra screen real estate, brighter sceeen outdoors, higher refresh rate, and once iOS 11 rolls in this will be a great upgrade. Take the plunge bro.
 
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Air 2 for me was the best upgrade of all the iPads I have owned including the 10.5". This 10.5" iPad is just icing on the cake so to speak. If Apple made something in between this and the iPad 2017 I probably would have gotten that instead.
 
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Even with light use, the Pro offering a warmer, clearer screen and the sound upgrade is enough for me to remain satisfied with my purchase (kept the iPad Air 2 though as a travel iPad).
 
I think the upgrade from an Air 2 to the 10.5 iPad is justifiable in almost every way if someone can appreciate the latest features. Aside from the performance and increased capabilities, the reduction with the bezels and increased display size makes this new iPad entirely different over the Air 2. Which ultimately translates into a better viewing experience, then add the Promotion display and wide color P3 Gamut.
 
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dukee101 said:
If you recently made the leap from the Air 2 to the 10.5" Pro, what are your thoughts? Are you happy with your purchase? I use my Air 2 mostly for watching video, reading, and light gaming. It's more than enough for all that, but the chorus of reviews is making it hard to say no to the new 10.5", even if it's overkill. If you're a light user as well, what's it been like to use the Pro? Is it money still well spent, given the incredible new display, speakers, and boosted performance?
Click to expand...
NOT Happy! Returned the tab pro within a week.
 
I made the jump less than a month ago and I am really happy with the 10.5". The display and performance are better and I like the increase in display size with reduced bezel. The speakers are substantially better. I also went from 128BG to 256GB.
 
I upgraded this past November from Air2 64gb ( which I used for 3 years) to IPP 10.5 64 gb with Pencil and ASK. I got the IPP because I fell in love with Pencil after playing around with it for 10 minutes at Apple Store. I sold my Air2 for $285 on swappa. I’m very satisfied that I had upgraded as I really enjoy the Pro’s bigger screen , true-tone and pro-motion display, faster performance. I’ve since hardly use my iMac and MacBook Pro (both are running OS High Sierra)., so money was well spent for the iPP.

The Pro has become a terrific productivity tool for my mobile use because of the pencil and ASK. I once thought that keyboards for tablets were gimmicky, but the ASK has proven me wrong. The main keys feel normal sized and I quickly got used to the touch-type tactile clicks. The unexpected bonus feature was the 4 speakers—wow, awesome sound. I had used the Air2 mostly at home and during long trips. But I use the Pro everyday and even during my lunch breaks at work (sketching with Pencil). IOS has made the Pro even better with split view multitasking.

And I’m looking forward to upgrading to the next Pro that’s rumored to come out later this year with slimmer bezels all around, Face ID, and no home button.
 
I'm waiting for the upgrade with face recognition. It's so great on my iPhone since I can't use the fingerprint feature. I have no fingerprints. My iPad Air 2 has lost the ability to utilize both WiFi and going on the net. I am using it for reading books only, downloaded from iTunes on my MacBook Pro. I can't wait for the new upgrade!
 
Air 2 is still a worthy tablet which can play most games at full graphical effects. It also doesn't stutter like Air 1 did on iOS 8.
Even though I upgraded to 10.5", my mom still uses Air 2 without any issues. When compared side by side, there is not any obvious performance difference with daily apps and browsing.

The only place where difference is noticeable is in Antutu and Geekbench.
 
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AFEPPL said:
I run both too, not really much between the two unless you want a pencil or better sound....
I still like the mini 4 the best out of all the ipads.
Click to expand...

The mini is the most versatile iPad.
Great for general use.
Great for portability
Great for watching a movie
And makes for an awesome remote weather for directvnow or applets.
Let’s not forget for home automation hub.

If apple does away with it I will surely snag another one
 
mateo124 said:
I’m not convinced that in its day the iPad Air 2 wasn’t as fast as the Pro 10.5 is now.
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Avoid double negatives in same sentence. I literally had to read your sentence twice.
/GrammarNazi

I remember reading comments by reviewers that iPad Air 2 was ridiculously overpowered as a tablet. This was in fall 2014.
 
d5aqoëp said:
I remember reading comments by reviewers that iPad Air 2 was ridiculously overpowered as a tablet. This was in fall 2014.
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Quite frankly, I felt that performance was just needed.

One of my benchmarks/point of comparison is web browsing versus my PC (i5-2500, 16GB RAM, 2x Samsung 830 256GB). The iPad Air and older fell woefully short of that. Sure, they're usable but webpage rendering took notably longer on the older iPads. Lack of performance and limited software were part of the reason why my transition from laptop to iPad was fairly gradual.

Mind, nowadays the iPad Pro is just as fast (or faster) at web browsing compared to the aforementioned system.
 
Matz said:
I’ll hang on to my Air 2 128GB until the pro comes with Face ID.
In the meantime, the Air 2 does everything I want, quite well.
Click to expand...

Ya you’ll be fine to hold out. Just don’t use an iPP that way you won’t know what you’re missing. My Air 2 did everything quite well until I upgraded and then I thought wow, I can’t believe how fast I thought my Air 2 was
 
BenTrovato said:
Ya you’ll be fine to hold out. Just don’t use an iPP that way you won’t know what you’re missing. My Air 2 did everything quite well until I upgraded and then I thought wow, I can’t believe how fast I thought my Air 2 was
Click to expand...
Oh I have no doubt the IPP is sweet. I just don’t want to upgrade twice. And you’re right, I don’t know what I’m missing ;)
 
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