iPad Pro 12.9" user review

I have been an iPad user right since the first iPad came out in 2009. I got an iPad 2 in 2010 and then iPad 3 in 2011. The iPad 3 that I got in 2011 served me really well and never really felt the need of moving to a newer version right until the past few months.

After iOS 9 update the iPad 3 became really slow and was quite unusable. I finally jumped in, sold my iPad 3 and got an iPad Air 2 last month. I fell in love with how much iPad evolved over the years so eventually I wanted to try and see how well iPad can work as a laptop alternative so got an iPad Pro 12.9 few days ago and here is my short review.

Model: So here is my initial view of the Apple iPad Pro 12.9". Got a 128GB Cellular + WiFi model as my work demands me travelling a lot and having data connection is quite helpful for me. Using it along with Logitech K380 bluetooth keyboard and a simple multi angle plastic stand at office.

Pros:
It’s a great device for media consumption, thanks to the crisp, bright and super large screen.

The audio output is loud and crisp, you can actually feel little air blows out of the tweeters at full volume. With four speakers all around the iPad the sound clarity is something unheard of in portable devices.

Battery life is quite good but I personally felt iPad Air 2 had better battery life or may be I am using this iPad Pro lot more. It takes around 4 hours to charge fully which is quite annoying. Apple should have given a more powerful adapter if this iPad were to handle it.

For productivity tools such as document creation and presentations this is too damn good. You have loads of image editing tools and desktop class office suite apps making it lot more user friendly than does a Mac or Windows PC. I think it’s lot lesser investment for apps too as OSX apps are lot more expensive to do similar work.

Drawing was so much fun. I didn’t get an Apple Pencil yet but tried sketching with my fingers. The response and accuracy is way better than it was on any other Apple device till date. I am actually planning to get an Apple Pencil just for fun.

Cons:
Few apps and games are not optimised yet so gives you a little bit pixelated view and bad refresh rate, especially in a few high paced games.

The super large size is a pain if you use apps that need you to input text or reach out to many buttons on various parts of the screen.
If you spend most of your day on a web browser than you won’t love the experience much. We are quite used to having keypad and trackpad quite close by on a laptop so it feels awkward to tap on screen and then get back to keyboard for similar activity.

Conclusion:
To conclude, if you use iPad for media consumption and to use productivity tools a lot then this is the best device you can aim for, provided you are ready to invest a bit on accessories such a keyboard. At the high price it is not a laptop replacement and not everyone’s cup of tea for sure! I would recommend to list out your priorities and then invest into it.

If you don’t want to use it as a laptop alternative then avoid this and get an iPad Pro 9.7" or iPad Air 2.

For me, this seems to be a good combination of tablet and laptop as it handles most of my day to day activities quite well. Seems like a decent experiment of converging mobile devices.

If you have any specific questions do ask so that I can answer them. I will be travelling for the next one week and will be using this iPad as my primary work device, guess it will be a good experiment.