The Apple iPad Pro Review
by Ryan Smith, Joshua Ho & Brandon Chester on January 22, 2016 8:10 AM ESTSystem Performance
While the iPad Pro is important for some of its tertiary features, without the performance to back it up the user experience will inevitably suffer. In order to try and get an idea for how the iPad Pro performs as a whole we turn to our suite of performance benchmarks that stress a number of different areas including the CPU, GPU, memory, and internal storage.
In the browser benchmarks, it's quite evident that the iPad Pro is far and away superior for browser performance compared to almost anything else on the market today, save the latest Surface Pros. This can be attributed to a few factors. One factor is that Safari has a number of optimizations that most Android browsers don't. The other factor is that the Twister CPU in A9X is just better suited for dealing with intense JavaScript, which is heavily reliant on single-thread performance. As the A9X only has two CPU cores that mostly rely on ILP to get acceptable levels of performance, the iPad Pro ends up doing impressively well in these benchmarks. I've found that this is also reflected in real world browsing performance, as the iPad Pro is less likely to choke on some popular JS-heavy tech websites than other devices with Chrome or an OEM-optimized browser. Quickly checking EmberJS performance tells pretty much the same story here as well.
In Basemark OS II 2.0, the iPad Pro pretty handily sets the record for performance by virtue of its GPU and CPU performance. For whatever reason there's some sort of hang-up in web browsing performance, which could be due to some sort of code path that doesn't respond very well to additional ILP. Whatever the case, performance isn't too far behind the iPad Air 2 here by virtue of higher IPC and clock speeds. Overall, the iPad Pro seems to be quite performant for everyday tasks.
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Alecgold - Sunday, March 13, 2016 - link
Funny you know so well what Apple should(n't) do.Did you look at the tear-down from iFixit on the Pencil? It has some nice, even wonderful, technology inside. It's not a "dumb" pencil that costs 50-65 bucks on a Wacom board and only holds a copper coil. (I know, yes, I'm exaggerating.)
I bought a power- adapter and it came with 4 different wall-plug-prong-thing-adapters. I just needed one, lots of companies do ship region/country specific these days. Did I pay extra for them? No. Did I pay for them? You bet. Even if it was just 15ct. But it's not just the 15ct, it's also the waste that was generated.
Could Apple include everything to the iPad Pro, complete with kitchen sink? Yes. Would I appreciate it? Most likely not, don’t you think? I think most people wouldn’t appreciate it, they already have a kitchen sink.
As I wrote before, it is expensive. But it's not like it is a Louis Vuiton bag, Bugatti Veyron or golden Mont Blanc pen. And even if it is in the same category for you, why don't you buy an Android or Windows tablet?
If you don't want the iPad Pro, don't buy it. If you can't buy it, I'm sorry for that, but it's not something that is going to be solved by grumbling on Anandtech.
One other thing. Am I a professional? Well, according to the Oxford dictionary:
1 Relating to or belonging to a profession: young professional people
1.1 Worthy of or appropriate to a professional person; competent, skilful, or assured:
- his professional expertise
- their music is both memorable and professional
2 Engaged in a specified activity as one’s main paid occupation rather than as an amateur
I pretty sure both 1.1 and 2 apply to me, so I guess I’m a professional.
Being a professional I do have another life and while my professional life might keep me busy burning the midnight oil every now and then, I prefer to do so in a well lit environment.
And at a desk or at the diner table or… It’s much better for your posture to sit upright and not slouch about. Try it!
If I need to read large amounts of text, I snap the keyboard off and sit relaxed with just the tablet.
ams0129 - Wednesday, February 17, 2016 - link
I do not think it is fair to compare and iPad pro with a Surface. The Surface has a full operating system while the iPad pro does not. To me a true iPad pro would pack a core processor and OSX. However, this would create a problem for Apple as it would take away sales from the MacBook Air line.darwiniandude - Monday, February 29, 2016 - link
iPad already far outsells Mac line. And iPhone even more so. There are a billion active iOS devices in use. OS X and iOS share the same kernel and much of the same API's and frameworks. Except one is designed for touch, and the other for classic computing duties. This "full operating system" phrase I hear thrown about makes me laugh because Windows is still a pain to maintain and has no proper audio support, and requires constant hand holding. A secure, reliable, sandboxed Unox application platform (iOS) is far more productive for me.Delton Esteves - Wednesday, March 9, 2016 - link
That's a joke, right?s.yu - Tuesday, March 1, 2016 - link
Very informative review as usual! The performance of the A9X was certainly lower than what the initial hype indicated. Other aspects can basically be summed up by reading a dozen other not-so-informative reviews;)One thing is that AdobeRGB was not tested for, but from the looks of it the screen certainly doesn't cover it either, another aspect that's not as "pro" as Apple made it seem. That said, SP4 as well as MSB are too "consumer" too, in terms of color coverage.
SL1990 - Wednesday, March 9, 2016 - link
Anyone notice while charging Ipad Pro back metal area can feel the vibration. It's that normal??Constructor - Friday, March 11, 2016 - link
Yes, pretty much, for any devices which have a metal case and no grounding lead on the mains power plug.It depends on the circumstances, but basically it has to do with some very small residual capacitive coupling of the supply AC through the charger. Depending on your electrical installation it may go away when you just plug the charger in the other way.
But it's not dangerous (there is no actual connection to the power grid), just a minor inconvenience. It's not Apple-specific, though.
ifrpilot - Friday, April 29, 2016 - link
Funny comments here. If you like iOS and iPad, buy one. If you like Android or a Windows device, buy one of those. As for people making comments about less professional software for iOS - that's just crap. Just the medical industry alone has hundreds of pro apps, let alone aviation, product management, delivery, management services and more. If someone is so anti Apple, why are you wasting your time reading this article, go read about someone else's hardware.