The Apple iPad Pro Review
by Ryan Smith, Joshua Ho & Brandon Chester on January 22, 2016 8:10 AM ESTCamera
While it’s pretty much a universally terrible idea to use a tablet as your primary camera, for something like video chat or in an emergency it’s better to have one than not. In the case of the iPad Pro, the camera is essentially identical to what we saw with the iPad Air 2, which is to say an 8MP 1.1 micron 1/4” sensor, with an F/2.4 aperture and 3.3mm focal length, which translates to a 35mm equivalent focal length of 31mm. There’s no PDAF or anything fancy going on here, so it’s pretty much a guarantee that the camera is the exact same module that we saw with the iPad Air 2. The front facing camera is still a 1.3MP F/2.2 2.65mm focal length module, which leads me to believe that it too is shared with the iPad Air 2. I honestly don’t see any difference between the iPad Air 2 and iPad Pro cameras, so rather than spending time dwelling on those this comparison will be focused upon how it compares to popular smartphones and the tablet competition. As I don’t have a tripod mount that can actually fit the iPad Pro, I’ve elected to forgo some of our standard latency tests to avoid presenting data with confounding variables.
| Daytime Photography Scene 1 |
In our first daytime scene the iPad Pro is actually not that far off from the iPhone 6s. If you look closely it’s obvious that there is less detail to be seen, but it’s honestly quite difficult to see the difference. Relative to the iPhone 6, detail is almost identical. For a camera that should basically be never used for the kinds of photos I’m taking for this review, the camera will work well in a pinch. By comparison the Pixel C is rather disappointing. Even in this ideal condition, detail is visibly worse when compared to the iPad Pro. I’m not sure whether this poor showing is caused by camera shake or AF issues but in general the AF system for the Pixel C had some pretty noticeable issues in general. There are also some obvious problems with color noise despite base ISO, which is shocking.
| Daytime Photography Scene 2 |
In the interest of trying to collect more than one data point for presentation in the review, I tried another scene. Once again, the iPhone 6s shows a minor resolution lead and the iPad Pro is pretty close to the iPhone 6 here. By comparison while there isn’t any obvious weirdness going on the Pixel C clearly has less detail and a noticeable amount of color noise, which is surprising even for a tablet camera. Color noise is one of the most distracting things in any photo, so I’m always concerned when any mobile device has a camera where the JPEG output shows color noise.
| Low Light Photography Scene 1 |
| Low Light Photography Scene 2 |
Moving on to the low light testing, we clearly see the disadvantage that comes with smaller pixel sizes. The iPad Pro is just clearly worse than the iPhone 6 and 6s here. The 6s Plus is the clear winner of this test. While the iPad Pro has dark output, it’s miles better than the Pixel C and Nexus 9, both of which show enormous amounts of color noise. The Tegra X1 and K1 ISP for whatever reason is struggles with doing things like hot pixel compensation in low light, as in the dark areas of the photo there are obvious bright speckles of pixel noise.
| Low Light Photography Scene 3 |
In another low light scene we see the same sort of ordering that was in the previous scene. The iPad Pro is acceptable here, but the iPhone 6, 6s, and 6s Plus are all clearly superior. However, the iPad Pro is clearly superior to the Pixel C and Nexus 9 on the basis of better detail and noise reduction. Unlike most smartphones I don’t really see a huge difference in how well everything freezes motion here, but I suspect this might just be because the entire image for the Pixel C and Nexus 9 is so lacking in detail.
Video
| 1080p30 Video |
Looking at video performance, the iPad Pro noticeably lags behind the iPhone in feature set, which isn't entirely unsurprising given that the camera on any tablet should be strictly reserved as a fallback for when you can’t get to a smartphone or literally anything else. 1080p30 is encoded with H.264 high profile at 17 Mbps, with around 82 Kbps single channel AAC audio. For the most part, quality here is actually comparable to the iPhone 6 and 6s in daytime, with a noticeably tighter crop due to the longer 35mm equivalent focal length. The iPhone 6s Plus is again the obvious winner here though, due to its use of OIS in video. By comparison, the Pixel C shows clearly less detail, and the higher contrast leads to worse detail in areas like the road and in shadows.
| Slow-Motion Video |
In 720p120, the iPad Pro is clearly worse than the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus just by virtue of not supporting 1080p here. That's not exactly surprising, but as a result the quality looks to be roughly comparable to the iPhone 6. Given that both are using H.264 high profile at 30 Mbps it’s not exactly a surprise though. The Pixel C and Nexus 9 are both unable to participate in this test at all as they don’t support slow motion video, which might be an ISP limitation of some sort as we’ve seen Nexus devices on the smartphone side with support for slow motion video.
Overall, camera performance on the iPad Pro is probably as good as it gets for tablets, but it's obviously not competitive with the best smartphones. No one should really be surprised that this is the case though, as tablets are basically cameras of last resort, while smartphones are often primary cameras now.
Misc.
On the WiFi side unfortunately I have reason to doubt the validity of our current testing methodology, especially on iOS. As a result for this review we won’t be running any particular benchmarks for the iPad Pro but I never saw any particular issues with WiFi performance on the iPad Pro, which uses Broadcom’s BCM4355 WiFi/BT combo chipsets.
I also don’t have any particular equipment to really test speaker quality to its full extent, but subjectively the speakers are some of the best I’ve ever experienced on a mobile device in terms of sheer volume and frequency response. The speaker amps are shared with the iPad Air 2, which is Maxim Integrated’s MAX98721 IC. The audio codec/DAC is Cirrus Logic’s CS42L81, which isn’t entirely unsurprising given how most every Apple mobile device seems to use a Cirrus Logic codec of some sort.
I also found a number of interesting design wins, which include TI’s BQ27540 for the battery fuel gauge, and an MCU related to the Orion dock that seems to handle accessories like the Smart Keyboard. This MCU is connected over i2c, with some suggestion that this connector can act as a USB port, but I haven’t been able to figure out much else about this system.
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xerandin - Saturday, January 23, 2016 - link
In what way did Microsoft saw Surface Pro parts off of other products? You know what's better than that "most stable, secure, and highest quality mobile OS?" For most people, that would be Microsoft Windows--even if they love to complain about it, you can't deny Microsoft's ubiquity in the Professional space (and home userspace, too, but we're trying to keep this in the professional sector, right?)I've heard a few people at work say that the sysadmins love Macs (it was a Director obsessed with his Macbook telling me this), but I can't seem to find any of these supposed Mac-lovers. It could have something to do that they're a nightmare to administer for most sysadmins running a domain (which covers the vast majority of sysadmins), or the fact that Mac users tend to be just as inept and incapable as Windows users, so you get to have another pain-in-the-ass group of users to deal with on a system that just isn't very nice to administer.
If you take off your hipster glasses for a moment and actually use computers in the world we live in, there's no way around the reality that Microsoft wins in the Professional space--including their beautifully made, super-powerful Surface Pro.
And no, I'm not a Microsoft shill, I just can't stand Apple fanboys with more money than sense.
gistya - Sunday, January 24, 2016 - link
Xerandin, you have no idea what you are talking about. 90% of the professional software development studios I work with are almost solely Mac based, for the simple reason that they barely need an IT department at all, in that case.Windows is technical debt, plain and simple. It's legacy cruft stuck to the face of the world. The only IT guys that hate Macs are the idiot ones who don't know bash from tsch and couldn't sudo themselves out of a wet paper box. Then there are the smart ones who know that a shift to such a low maintenance platform would mean their department would get downsized.
But so many companies are stuck on crap like SAP, NovellNetware, etc., that Microsoft could literally do nothing right for 10 years and still be a powerhouse. Oh wait.
Apple hardware is worth every extra cent it costs, and then some; if you make such little money that $500 more on a tool that you'll professionally use 8-12 hours a day for three years is a deal-breaker, then I feel very sorry for you.
But personally I think it's more than worth it to have the (by far) best screen, trackpad, keyboard, case, input drivers, and selection of operating systems. I have five different OS's installed right now including three different versions of windows (the good one, and then the most recent one, and the one that my last job still uses, which does not receive security patches and gets infected with viruses after being on a website for 10 seconds).
As for the iPad Pro, all of you fools just don't understand what it is, or why the pencil is always sold out everywhere, or what the difference is. As a software developer I can tell you that there is the most extreme difference; and that more development for iOS is being done now than ever before, and is being done at an accelerating pace. This is just version 1.0 of the large-size, pro type model for Apple, and those of us who did not buy it yet and who are still waiting for that killer app, are basically saying that well, once that app comes out, then heck yes we'll buy it. Do you seriously believe that no company will rise up to capitalize on that obviously large market? Someone will, and frankly lets hope it's not Adobe.
I regularly see iPad pros now in the hands of the professional musicians and producers I work with, and they are most certainly using them for professional applications. That's a niche to be sure, but everyone who thinks that the surface pro 4 (a mildly crappy laptop with a touchscreen that makes a bad, thick tablet and an underpowered, overheated laptop) is even remotely in the same category of device, is utterly smoking crack.
doggface - Sunday, January 24, 2016 - link
I think it might be you smoking the crack there mate. Cor, what a rant. Microsoft are pretty safe in enterprise and it has everything to do with managing large networks(1000s not 10s of computers.. Please, direct me to Apple's answer to sccm, please show me Apple's answer to exchange. Please show me an Apple only environment running 1000 different apps outside ofGoogle and Apple HQ. Just aint haopening.Constructor - Sunday, January 24, 2016 - link
IBM (yes, the IBM!) has just announced that they will switch over to Macs a while ago. And they're neither the first nor the last. Springer (a major german media company) had done that a while ago already for similar reasons (removing unproductive friction and cutting the actual cost of ownership due to less needed user support).I know that many people had imagined that Windows would be the only platform anyone would ever need to know, but that has always just been an illusion.
damianrobertjones - Monday, January 25, 2016 - link
Link to the article please! They're THINKING of using Apple for mobile use... .Constructor - Monday, January 25, 2016 - link
Nope. They're massively ramping up Mac purchases as well, with a target of 50-75% Macs at IBM. They are already full steam ahead with it:http://www.i4u.com/2015/08/93776/ibm-purchase-2000...
(Okay: The official announcements don't have that aspect, but an internal video interview with IBM's CIO leaked to YouTube makes it rather explicit even so.)
One of the motivators is apparently that despite higher sticker prices the total cost of ownership is lower for Macs (which is not news any more, but having IBM arriving at that conclusion still says something).
Oxford Guy - Wednesday, January 27, 2016 - link
Gartner said in 1999 that Macs were substantially cheaper in TCO.mcrispin - Tuesday, January 26, 2016 - link
doggface, you speak with confidence where that confidence isn't deserved. I've managed deployments of OS X way over 10k, there are plenty of places with deployments this high. JAMF Casper Suite is the "SCCM of Apple", I don't need an "Apple" replacement for Exchange, 0365 and Google are just fine for email. There are plenty of non-Apple/Google Apps for OS X and iOS. You are seriously misinformed about the reality of the OS X marketplace. Shame that.Ratman6161 - Wednesday, January 27, 2016 - link
mcrispin...sure you can find individual shops that have done big MAC deployments. but its anecdotal evidence. Its like looking at one neigborhood in my city and from that conclude that trailer parks are the norm in my city of 15,000.Take a look at this Oct 2015 article on Mac market share (I'm assuming you dont consider Apple Insider to be a bunch of Microsoft shills?) http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/10/08/mac-gain...
While touting how Mac is gaining market share they show a chart where in Q32015 they were at 7.6%. The chart is by company and even smaller Windows PC vendors Asus and Acer are at 7.1 and 7.4 respectively. Throw in Lenovo, HP and Dell at 20.3%, 18.5%, 13.8% and the 25.3% "others" (and others are not MAC's because Apple is the only company with those).
So IBM is doing 50 - 75% Mac's? OK Ill take your word for that but so what? In the larger scheme of things Apple still has only 7.6% and selling some computers to IBM isn't going to siginificantly change that number. Also, don't forgot that some companies (that compete with Microsoft in various areas) will not use a Microsoft product no mater how good it was.
No matter how you look at it, Windows is the main stream OS for busineses world wide. Touting the exceptions to that doesn't cange the truth of it.
Constructor - Wednesday, January 27, 2016 - link
Of course most workplace computers now are PCs. The thing is just that Macs are making major inroads there as well.$25 billion in Apple's corporate sales are already very far removed from your theory (and that's even without all the smaller shops who are buing retail!).