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What's the point of the 9.7" iPad Pro?
- Thread starter uptownnyc
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The iPad Pro line is the continuation of the iPad Air line. Currently, the iPad Air 2 is attractive, but that will change with time as the hardware will remain the same while the iPad Pro line will (hopefully) continue with hardware improvements.
*rubs eyes* What's the date of this post? Wasn't this beaten to death earlier this year? Search for those older threads. In short, the progress beat goes on..iPad Pro over Air 2 in because:
-Pencil, or smart cover with keyboard through physical connector
-Better screen - True Tone display
-Better sound
-Better processor
-Better camera - 4K video
-M9 chip "hey siri", if you are into that feature
If you don't need all that, then the Air 2 (or heck, a used Air) is an option.
Those quad-speakers. Apple wasn't playing around 
For me, it was primarily for the Apple Pencil. I use my ipad to teach in the classroom and the pencil makes all the difference when it comes to annotating on pdfs. You will never go back to a normal stylus after using the Apple Pencil.
It's pricey, but it's a really, really nice tablet by any measure. I've had mine for a while and am still awed by it at times. It's silky smooth and lightning fast at any task. In fact it's frequently faster than my Core i5 laptop for things like loading web pages and complex PDFs. The display is drop-dead gorgeous. True tone color combined with that incredibly low glare glass gets closer to digital paper than anything I've seen before. And the pencil is a terrific writing experience.
You listed a lot of the features that are great, but not compelling that much Over the Air 2. I will say the quad speakers is awesome. In terms of speed, the 9.7 Pro is incremental.
As, @Abazigal mentioned, if you really appreciate the uses for the Apple Pencil, then it would be another huge benefit.
I love the speakers, but for me it's the pencil. It's completely changed my work life.
Lighter better battery life. More portable. I sold my 12.9 Pro and got a 9.7, because I ended up with a Wacom mobile studio Pro 16 tablet for heavy duty work. The big iPad could never do that stuff anyway so the small iPad Pro one fits my light duty work flow better. Nice little sketchbook.
Incremental when 2 Cores are besting a 3 Core A8X. The simple fact is only 1 device ever made use of the A8X the Air 2. Apps use either 2 Cores or 1 Core. I don't know of any Apps that use the A8X besides iOS to its full potential. And at this point it's unlikely there ever will. The A9X will likely start to shine once older devices with slow DDR3 RAM as the Air 2 and older CPUs stop being Updated. Let's face it we are 1 week away from 2017 who'd be dumb enough to buy a 3+ year old iPad Air 2.
The 9.7 Pro is only 19% faster then the Air 2. The Air 2 is plenty capable of tasking the same elements as the 9.7 Pro. The A11x likely will be the next big jump.
And respectively, labeling anything dumb to purchase a three old iPad is really irrelevant. The real factor is when March 2017 arrives, that's when the debut of possibly three iPads may arrive. So in any case your theory being "Dumb", doesn't hold a candle when purchasing a 9.7 Pro over the current price points.
ASide from that, it really comes down to one thing when you're talking about power. It's about the user takes advantage of the power And what they use it for. I don't care how much faster the Pro is over the Air, it really depends on how you use the power.
the point is this - it's the only 'current' 9.7 ipad on the market. anything else this size is outdated and non-current tech.
The $200 difference between the Air 2 and the Pro is too much for what you get, in my opinion, unless you need the pencil. If the difference was only $100, I think the discussions here would be a lot different.
$275 for a 32GB Air 2 on Black Friday will keep me happily browsing for a few years. But I guess I'm just dumb that way
$275 for a 32GB Air 2 on Black Friday will keep me happily browsing for a few years. But I guess I'm just dumb that way
You are not alone in your "dumbness".The $200 difference between the Air 2 and the Pro is too much for what you get, in my opinion, unless you need the pencil. If the difference was only $100, I think the discussions here would be a lot different.
$275 for a 32GB Air 2 on Black Friday will keep me happily browsing for a few years. But I guess I'm just dumb that way
Back-in-the-day it was easier to justify moving up to the next generation as they were produced... today, not so much.
I really don't know . Processor is slightly faster . , The Air 2 is a huge upgrade over the original Air .
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I think the A10X will be the next big jump
The Pencil is a pretty powerful difference - I would ONLY recommend an Air 2 over a Pro IF you can GUARENTEE that you will NEVER want ANY KIND of stylus. If there's even a CHANCE that you MIGHT want a stylus, the iPad Pro is absolutely necessary.
I initially bought the 12.9" Pro and the advantages the Pencil afforded were immediate. After about 3/4 of a year, I bought the 9.7" Pro to compliment the larger Pro (basically the 9.7" is the one I take with me everywhere).
I initially bought the 12.9" Pro and the advantages the Pencil afforded were immediate. After about 3/4 of a year, I bought the 9.7" Pro to compliment the larger Pro (basically the 9.7" is the one I take with me everywhere).
It has already been said, but the quad speakers on the iPad Pro 9.7 are amazing... iPad Air 2 has this vibration when playing audio but the Pro does not. The screen is nicer on iPad 9.7 and while many disagree, I personally like true tone.
Smart Keyboard and Pencil support are also nice features.
I own an iPad Pro 9.7" and think it is very nice and worth the extra money for its features. When purchasing earlier in the year I compared it to the Air 2 in the Apple Store and I preferred the Pro.
I just bought my wife an iPad Pro 9.7 for Xmas over the iPad Air 2 is because there is no Rose Gold in the Air 2!!! I don't want to go through the next few years with her periodically bringing up how she sure wish she had Rose Gold to match her iPhone 7 Plus and Apple Watch.
Smart Keyboard and Pencil support are also nice features.
I own an iPad Pro 9.7" and think it is very nice and worth the extra money for its features. When purchasing earlier in the year I compared it to the Air 2 in the Apple Store and I preferred the Pro.
I just bought my wife an iPad Pro 9.7 for Xmas over the iPad Air 2 is because there is no Rose Gold in the Air 2!!! I don't want to go through the next few years with her periodically bringing up how she sure wish she had Rose Gold to match her iPhone 7 Plus and Apple Watch.
Just gonna quote my reply to another thread. As for the how you use that power, most apps aren't optimized beyond dual core. JavaScript is limited by single-core performance.
That said, Air 2 still performs quite well and unless iOS suddenly morphs into OS X, should do well enough for the next couple years for most. If you don't want or need the features and processing power of the Pro 9.7, then the Air 2 is still a good buy particularly given all the generous discounts.
I have done with 9.7 screen size for many years now I wanted some different experience with iPP 12.9
There is a lot more than that, as others have listed. The truth is the Pro 9.7" isn't a significant upgrade over the Air 2 for a lot of people, which is why they still sell the Air 2 as if it's the latest of a different line of iPads.
What's the point of the iPhone 7 when you can get an iPhone 6s for less money?
I'm the same way. I started with the 12.9 but in a round about way ended up with the 9.7 Pro. It was good for being compact and light, but I really couldn't get near as much accomplished on it due to the limitations of the screen size. It's excellent for focusing on one task, but when you work on split view or multitasking, it was just too small to me. The 12.9 is a big large, but I like the bigger display. I think an 11.5 inch iPad Pro would be just about perfect but of course in true Apple fashion (see iPhone) they make two sizes, neither of which are ideal. I'm back on the 12.9 now and so far so good.
We just bought a 6s+ for my wife to replace her elderly Nexus 5. For us, the savings trumped the tech gains in the 7, and the 6s is still a great phone by any standard.
Yeah I'm not saying older devices are still bad. I still recommend most people buy the iPad Air 2 over the iPad Pro. But it's silly to ask what's the point in a new device.
I was in the market for a new ipad recently as my ipad 3 was showing it's age.
The black friday sales were coming up and i saw that best buy had $125 off of ipads.
I had to decide if i wanted to spend $475 for an ipad pro or $275 for and ipad air 2.
I looked at the specs and decided the air 2 was the best value. Keep in mind I have no use for the pencil.
The black friday sales were coming up and i saw that best buy had $125 off of ipads.
I had to decide if i wanted to spend $475 for an ipad pro or $275 for and ipad air 2.
I looked at the specs and decided the air 2 was the best value. Keep in mind I have no use for the pencil.