Apple iPad Pro 10.5-inch.
Apple iPad Pro 10.5-inch.
At WWDC 2017, Apple announced that the 9.7-inch iPad Pro will be no more.
In its place will be a new 10.5-inch model. On the outside, you would be hard-pressed to tell the difference between the new 10.5-inch iPad Pro and the older 9.7-inch one. The new 10.5-inch model, despite its larger screen, is imperceptibly larger than the 9.7-inch one.
Though the 10.5-inch display sounds like a modest increase in screen size, the effects are quite profound. If you do the math, it actually translates to 17% more pixels and display real estate. This means you can see more Split View and that the on-screen keys of the virtual keyboard are larger, making it a little easier to type. Pixel density has been kept the same at 264ppi, so images and text continue to look super sharp and crisp
The new 10.5-inch display also features ProMotion technology, which allows the display to alter its refresh rate to suit whatever content it is showing. It can go up to as high as 120Hz when web browsing and gaming, and go down to as low as 30Hz when watching videos. The results are quite stunning.
Scrolling through web pages is noticeably more fluid, and games look incredibly smooth.
The high refresh rate has other implications. It also makes inputs more responsive. As a result, your inputs, as well as the Apple Pencil’s, feel more immediate. Apple claims input lag has been reduced to a scant 20 milliseconds.
The display is also brighter at 600 nits. This, coupled with a less refiective coating, makes the new 10.5-inch iPad Pro more suitable for outdoor use. And like the old 9.7-inch iPad Pro, this new model also has features like TrueTone display technology and support for the more vibrant DCI-P3 color space. In short, its colors are vibrant and tantalizing, and the response of the display to both touch and pen inputs is unrivaled.
The other major upgrade is the processor.
Inside, the 10.5-inch iPad Pro is powered by Apple’s newest A10X Fusion processor, which is a turbocharged version of the A10 chip that can be found on the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7s Plus.
As you would expect, it is remarkably powerful.
It is a hexa-core beast with 3 high-performance cores, 3 high-efficiency cores, and 12 graphics-processing cores.
It is also paired with 4GB of LPDDR4 RAM.
Apple claims the A10X offers 30% faster CPU performance and 40% faster graphics performance than the A9X chip found in last generation 9.7-inch and 12.9-inch iPad Pro tablets.
As for storage, Apple has doubled all the storage options. So the most basic model will come with 64GB. For those who want more, there’s a 256GB and 512GB option.
The other major improvement in the 10.5-inch iPad Pro is the camera system, which comes straight from the iPhone 7.
This means a 12-megapixel rear-facing camera with optical image stabilization and quad-LED True Tone flash. It can also take 4K video and shoot slow motion videos of up to 240fps. Similarly, the front-facing camera comes from the iPhone 7. It shoots at 7-megapixels and features Retina flash with True Tone for more natural-looking photos in dimly lit environments.
The iPhone 7 was a capable shooter and the 10.5-inch iPad Pro was no different.
Images have natural-looking colors and are relatively sharp and crisp.
It’s a little soft near the edges of the frame, but it’s definitely not something that most people would notice unless they are looking out for it.
In terms of performance, the 10.5-inch iPad Pro easily outpaced every tablet we’ve ever tested. On SunSpider JavaScript, it was about 20% faster than the first generation of iPad Pro tablets. Its 3D Mark score of 53,536 was also the highest we’ve ever seen, a whopping 58% better than its predecessors.
And that’s not all, when iOS 11 drops later this year, the 10.5-inch iPad Pro will get even more useful features like a customizable dock to quickly launch apps; a File app to organize data; and Multi-touch Drag and Drop, which allows users to drag text, photos, and files from one app to another, very much like what you can do on a Mac.
