iPad Pro 9.7-inch Review: A Jewel Of The Crown, But Not One To Rule Them All

Like the king that pleases the citizens of its kingdom when something is asked by critical acclaim, Apple designed a more compact version of its 12.9-inch iPad Pro without losing its most desired features in the process: the blazing-fast A9X processor, Apple Pencil support and a very refined screen. It also added improvements on its own to make it a product able to compete in the laptop market, is it up to those expectations? Keep reading to find out:

A jewel of the crown

It’s easy to compare what’s happening now in the iPad family to what happened with the introduction of the 15-inch MacBook Pro Retina a few years ago. People wanted the Macbook family to take part in the retina screen revolution, the one that made the iPhone 4 and the iPad 3/4 lead the first steps of the inclusion of high DPI on mobile devices that came later.

Apple, as usual, took its time to get it right, and when the Macbook Retina came out with everything that was needed to comply with the desires of their most loyal users, people were shocked with the price it launched: $1999. It wasn’t meant for everyone to buy them on waves, but it helped Apple to develop a strategy that has been propagated to their other products. Leading-edge products are produced with most-desired features for those who want to make long-term investments, and then most attractive features are added to other members of the line to make them appealing to wider consumer markets.

That way, the 13-inch Macbook Pro Retina showed up later with $700 less in the markup price, which was more appealing to wider consumer markets and helped freshen up the Macbook Pro line, a model that had years without getting actual updates.

The iPad Pro 9.7-inch can be seen that way as well. The iPad Pro 12.9-inch paved the way for long-awaited features, such as the inclusion of the Apple Pencil, Smart Keyboard and Split View support, but a tablet of that size wasn’t up to the desires of most users. Then, Apple proceeded to implement the most attractive features of its flagship and added them to create something alike to the blazing-fast iPad Air 2 to be able to give it the Pro signature.

Starting with the screen, it sports the same 2048×1536 pixels resolution from the iPad Air 2. Apple learned from the improvements made in the iPad Pro 12.9-inch model and the 4K iMacs and added leading-edge technologies to it to be able to do professional work while keeping standards on top. Apple added the DCI P3 color gamut to the screen for it to be able to display shades of green and red in a more accurate way. iPad screens have been stellar since the retina movement took flight, but the number of improvements Apple added to such high-standard is always welcome.

True Tone may sound familiar to users of software like f.lux or Twilight to reduce eye-strain while working in dimly lit environments. This technology uses integrated sensors to feel both brightness and color of ambient light in order to adjust the display’s white point, to be able to have more granular control over displayed colors. It’s an impressive way to implement it compared to the one used by other iOS devices which rely on a filtering process similar to what f.lux does.

Apple also improved a double-combo of improving brightness to around 500 nits while reducing the reflectiveness of the screen by 40%. This combo is meant to improve usability in open spaces when the sunlight makes most devices’ screen difficult to read. All these changes are welcome for a device whose screen will be the part you’ll be interacting the most.

Other overall positive specifications include the incorporation of the A9X processor of its bigger brother, which allows 4K video editing using Siri much as we imagined it from when it was conceived: always-on and ready to help. Apple incorporated four speakers with a surprisingly good quality, 10 hours of battery life on normal usage (much like the iPad Air 2), Touch ID, while not the improved model included in the iPhone 65, and the 12 Mpx camera from the right-out-of-the-oven iPhone SE. It is easily the best camera ever added to a tablet, but it’s yet to see if someone is going to use it as much as they do on the iPhone line. It also includes a good-performing 5mpx front camera for video conferencing via Facetime/Skype or your favorite service and the occasional selfie photo with your friends and family.

But not one to rule them all

The iPad Pro line has touted something since it’s apparition: we want to start competing with laptops on productive environments. But for Apple to lead the way for that to happen in the near future, they will have to change the way they market two standard specs that are vital for that to become a reality: internal storage and RAM.

The starting $599 model includes 32GB of internal storage and 2GB of RAM, does that sound Pro to you? Not to me, not in a moment in time when the competition has offerings like the Asus Zenpad S, that offers 64GB of internal storage, also expandable via a micro SD slot and 4GB of RAM for a half of that price.

The iPad Pro 12.9 inch offers 4GB of RAM, which is a game-changer for productivity and no processor speed is going to compensate that, and there’s no way to upgrade it either, you choose it from the moment you select the screen size. Apple offers storage upgrades to 128GB for $150 more, and 256GB for $300 more, this kind of selling scheme can’t be justified anymore.

Right now, you can get a 128GB Sandisk Ultra micro SD card for $45 and the 200GB version for $130. Flash storage is very cheap nowadays, and it is way cheaper than when the storage price tier model started . Touting a device as the best of the line and a laptop-killer should address issues like these since its conception, giving it a 64GB minimal internal storage, or even better, starting from 128GB, which is likely the starting point if you consider editing 4K video on it, would’ve been a wiser choice.

That scheme works for the iPhone and the standard iPad line because apps and media consumption content will be what’s filling the internal space and there’s cloud storage and streaming to compensate lacking space. But being marketed to compete with laptops, it should feature things that help it compete in that field, like being able to multitask without limiting the amount of applications open at once. Implementing something like Mission Control from the latest Mac OSX would be great to organize different workflows while preserving Apple design guidelines.

The veredict

In conclusion, we can easily say that the iPad Pro 9.7 is the best tablet available in the market, with an amazing screen, great battery life, a blazing-fast processor and leading-edge technologies that encase the best of Apple improvements of the last year without taking the spotlights of their other flagship products.

However, the minimal storage starting point makes it an uphill battle regarding costs if you’re considering spending on all the specs and peripherals needed to have the Pro experience, such as the Apple Pencil and the Smart Keyboard, you may quickly reach the price point of a Macbook Air. This issue doesn’t help its purpose to compete in the laptop market when there are so many capable offers in that field, even from Apple itself. In the future, it may be a chance if Apple plays their cards right, but critical issues have to change if they want the iPad Pro line considered as a serious proposal.