+1. I’ve upgraded some iPads purely for more storage and cellular.
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iPad Pro Is it worth to spend extra $$ on iPad Pro with cellular?
- Thread starter maverick786us
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+1. I’ve upgraded some iPads purely for more storage and cellular.
Definitely if you want to use GPS, and if you use it a lot on the go, to not drain your iPhone battery.
Yeah, on a previous iPad I did an "upgrade" with a Bluetooth GPS receiver. Works great but the cost was the same as add-on cellular and it was an extra device. I bought cellular with my Mini 6.
It doesn't matter if it's worth it or not, it's a feature you need.
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I definitely find it worthwhile having cellular data on my iPads. The iPad mini 5 often goes out with me and sometimes I've been in locations where there is no WiFi and so definitely appreciate being able to use cellular. At home, occasionally we will have a power outage and I really am happy to simply pick up my 3rd Gen iPad Pro 12.9 and use it for emails, browsing my forums, etc., even when there is no electrical power available. For me, it definitely has been well worth it for cellular, and when I get around to replacing each of these iPads I again will buy the cellular versions.
For my use case, no need for cellular in any of my iPads. I use CarPlay for this so it's all running on my iPhone. The iPad is just a bigger screen, mostly for when I am playing music and need my lead sheets. If you need GPS on your iPad, then getting the cellular model is the way to go. I might try one eventually, but for now my MBP tethered to my iPhone works fine when I'm on the go and need a larger screen with an internet connection.
I use and iPad min with ForeFlight to aid in flight planing. For that use case the GPS us required. I have not found any other time when it would be necessary. My iPad pro doesn't have cellular/GPS and i have not missed it at all.
I think it will really depend on your use cases and how much of an inconvenience it is for you to turn on mobile hotspot from your phone when away from WiFi.
I think it will really depend on your use cases and how much of an inconvenience it is for you to turn on mobile hotspot from your phone when away from WiFi.
Something to consider - if you upgrade your iPhone frequently and your iPad not so often - you will always have the newest cellular tech in the iPhone
Don‘t you have GPS on your iPhone? Can‘t you use maps on your iPhone instead? Is way more portable.
People even use GPS maps on their watch, so an iPhone is big enough.
People even use GPS maps on their watch, so an iPhone is big enough.
I bought my iPad Pro 2018 as an Apple refurb - and got cellular (and 256GB) at a reasonable price.
Two reasons - first, it gives me the option to use GPS. Second, it provides an alternative carrier in case of emergency.
Added a very low bandwidth, long-life (five year) SIM on a different carrier to my phone.
Happy.
Two reasons - first, it gives me the option to use GPS. Second, it provides an alternative carrier in case of emergency.
Added a very low bandwidth, long-life (five year) SIM on a different carrier to my phone.
Happy.
I do, but there are rare occasions, when I am trying to explain certain route to my friends and colleagues, for which I need a bigger map, iPhone is too small to I need something big like this 11 inch iPad in which using GPS locations I can show that this is where we are and this is the route you need to follow to reach your destination.
You might be thinking that my purpose of buying an iPad Pro is Maps and GPS navigation. No, my real purpose of buying the iPad has been explained in this thread.
I would not use iPad for turn by turn Navigation, while driving, unless, I have some doubt with the rout, on such occasions I can ask the second person sitting in my car to take out the iPad, and check the whole route on bigger screen with higher resolution. But such occasions are rare.
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I see. Tesla’s have tablets in their car too, so maybe you can try to replicate that setup with some sort of mount.
The tablets in Tesla’s have a 17-inch screen, so maybe a 12.9 iPad Pro or the rumored 12.9 iPad Air could be interesting to function as a “car tablet” instead of the 11” iPad?
I can consider that option, its good. But my iPad won't remain in the car forever. I have several other uses of it.
Cellular option worth the extra money. On the other hand iPad Pro not so much…
Better speakers. Which is important to me. Not so much whether they are technically, or in hi-fi terms, better. But better suited to my personal hearing.
Ironically, this is most important when the source is something like a podcast or online session where the source microphone is not very good.
I will not even if I can afford. U can tether and wifi is almost available everywhere.
I rather suspect that wifi availability is highly variable.
Yes, there is a lot better availability than there used to be. But a considerable percentage of my time out of the house has no accessible wifi. (Despite having a BT piggy-back option.)
Cellular Data Service iPad. iPads enabled with cellular data service work in a similar way to cell/mobile phones. There is a fee to purchase the iPad device and also a monthly fee for the cellular data service with a monthly data transfer limit. The higher your data transfer limit, the higher the monthly fee.
I travel a lot to places where WiFi and Internet access are poor or totally nonexistent. And that doesn’t address the GPS question.
Not necessarily a monthly fee. How about 5 years?
this varies a lot depending on the country, all my cellular plans have unlimited data and some even include roaming data and the all cost $10 or less per month
It's funny because, to me, the ProMotion display is the one thing that makes the Pro worth it. I never use the speakers on the iPad.
It's frustrating because I really don't care about getting the M-series chip. The A-series in the Air would be just fine with me. Everything else with the Air is "good enough" for my needs. Honestly, it feels like most of the differences between the Air and Pro now are artificial or unnecessary upgrades that they only hold back to upsell, and then justify the extreme price of the Pro.
But Apple got me with their upselling scheme. The buttery smoothness of that 120 Hz refresh rate is something that you just can't get away from once you've experienced it.
Do you really need a bigger screen for that though? Do you notice that your friends explain things like this using their phones and it's just fine? Not as convenient perhaps, but fine? What routes are we talking about anyway? Can they not just navigate themselves with Maps/Google Maps on their own phones? I'm not understanding the scenario.
I am strongly considering cancelling my cellular plan on my iPad Pro. I used to try to use the iPad as my main device, and when I was doing that it was absolutely worth having cellular. But these days I need to use a MacBook Pro for my work, and that has become the main device most of the time, so it doesn't seem worth paying this monthly fee for something I am barely using. If you are using the iPad Pro as your main device, then cellular would be worth it.
I sometimes use the iPad as a main device when travelling, but even then it hasn't really been worth it. When overseas, the tablet plan can't piggyback on my roaming plan, so I have to use the phone hotspot anyway. And when I was travelling around in my own country, a lot of the time the carrier I'm with (Vodafone) wasn't getting any signal anyway and I had to tether to my work phone to use that carrier (Telstra) which has a lot more rural coverage.
So given that I don't use the iPad much these days, and I've had to hotspot a lot of the times I did travel with it, the monthly fee just ain't worth it anymore.
Well, good news. You answered your own question several times over. Cellular iPad Plan isn’t needed for your use cases any longer.
Have always had cellular variants for my iPad. Both my Air 2 and 2020 11" Pro are cellular. One can easily connect to a hotspot but the added convenience is nice along with the availability of GPS on cellular variants.