Apple has started a new marketing campaign for their new 2018 iPad Pro mentioning how can the iPad Pro replace your PC. We saw these kind of ads since 2016 aiming at the portable PC space, emphasizing the advantages of the iPad over a standard laptop. But can the iPad Pro replace your PC?
To answer this question we must look at several things. First the specs, what you can actually do with the new 2018 iPad Pro, how it can handle your productivity on a day by day basis, and last but not least the price over a standard laptop.
Let’s start with the specs. The iPad Pro comes with the new Apple A12X Bionic CPU (Apple new flagship CPU for mobile devices), an 11-inch or 12.9-inch ProMotion display with a refresh rate of 120Hz for sharp looking visual effects, 4/6 GB of Ram, allot of storage sizes starting from 64GB up to 1TB, Apple Pencil and Smart Keyboard Folio support for transforming it into something close to a laptop and USB type C for charging and adding extension devices. All these starting from $799 for the 11-inch version 4GB ram and 64GB storage, and $999 for the 12.9 inch version with the same memory and storage capacity as the 11-inch iPad Pro version.
Now that we saw the specs, let’s see what Apple says about the iPad. The first thing they mention is that it is “more powerful than most computers”. Recent Geekbench benchmarks do show the iPad Pro with Apple’s new A12X chip does have comparable single- and multi-core performance to the 15-inch 2018 MacBook Pro with Intel’s six-core Core i7 chips so this seems to be true in terms of raw CPU performance.
The second thing Apple mentions is that the new 2018 iPad Pro is many more things than a laptop. They say it’s a camera, a cinema, an editing suite, a music studio, a book, and — with the keyboard — a computer.
Third argument, the iPad Pro “goes anywhere” and “stays connected everywhere”, if you buy the LTE model.
The fourth argument is that “It’s as easy as this”, with graphics suggesting the convenience of Face ID unlock, gestures, and split window for moving files around.
Finally, the fifth argument is that it’s “even better with Apple Pencil”.
Sounds great so far doesn’t it? Well now let’s look at productivity. The iPad is great if all you do with it is just browse the web, take pictures, play mobile games and maybe write a few documents and presentations. If you want more than these basic day by day operations then a laptop is your thing. Sure the iPad has enough raw power but it lacks a few things that a laptop might come more handy. If you are a graphic designer, a coder, or a video editor, the iPad won’t help you at all. I just lacks the apps, optimizations and raw power that a laptop has. Why? Well 4GB of ram or even 6GB of ram are not even close to what a graphic designer or programmer needs. 64GB of storage? Not even close.
Now the price: for $799 you can get a very powerful laptop that can easily surpass the iPad in productivity. Here are a few examples:
1. A Dell Inspiron 5770 i5770 featuring a core i7 8’th Gen 8550, 8GB of memory and 2TB of storage with a 1080p screen at the price of exactly $799 at newegg.com
2. Dell inspiron 5000 15.6″ Full HD 1080P Touchscreen Laptop, 8th Generation Intel Core i5-8250U, 8GB DDR4, 512GB SSD for the same price again
3. ASUS VivoBook F510UF Thin and Light Premium Laptop (Intel 8th Gen i7-8550U Quad Core, 8GB RAM, 1TB HDD, 15.6″ FHD 1920 x 1080 NanoEdge bezel, NVIDIA GeForce MX130 for again the same price.
These are just the first 3 results on newegg.com, I’m sure you can find even better hardware if you dig dipper. And this is just the $799 price point, if you go over $999 which will be the price for the better iPad Pro, then I am sure you will find even better hardware.
So will the iPad Pro replace your PC? I say not yet. Maybe sometime in the distant future, but right now, the iPad remains as in the past a nice shiny accessory to have and nothing more than that.
