iPad Pro Is tethering at 5G the same as a built-in cellular chip?

[Kyle76]

What am I giving up by tethering at 5G rather than spending the money for built-in cellular? Tethering works fine for me now.

 

[rui no onna]

In my experience, tethering gets throttled more than native connection does. Of course, I'm often connected to a congested tower.

 

[redscull]

By "tethering" you mean hotspot from your phone?

Apple has made using hotspot so seemless and easy that I think the only real advantage of the built-in cellular these days is that your iPad can go online without adding more drain to your iPhone's battery. This is of course assuming that your carrier's plan doesn't put weird restrictions on your hotspot usage.

I actually use my LTE 10.5 Pro as my hotspot for my children's iPads so that they drain its much bigger battery instead of my iPhone's battery. But I might forgo the cellular model the next time I upgrade my iPad just because it's become such a big upcharge (+$200!) and hotspot really is much simpler to use than it used to be.

 

[jmgregory1]

Most carrier plans have limits on how much data you can use for tethering, so if you know you’re going to burn through a lot of data, getting a cellular model is probably the way to go. It’s what I’ve done for my last couple of iPads and will do again with the new iPad Pro, just so it isn’t an issue to even think about.

 

[Apple_Robert]

Tethering will be much, much slower.

 

[AutomaticApple]

What am I giving up by tethering at 5G rather than spending the money for built-in cellular? Tethering works fine for me now.

Spending the money for built-in cellular is going to be miles better than tethering.