The 9.7" iPad Pro Review
by Brandon Chester on June 1, 2016 9:00 AM ESTDisplay Uniformity
With Apple billing the 9.7" iPad Pro as a professional device with individually calibrated displays, I felt it was relevant to bring our uniformity test over to mobile. While we usually just measure errors at the center of a display, there are also errors across the panel itself due to inconsistencies in the panel and the backlighting array. This means that a display can be accurate at the center, but the edges can have significant luminance dropoff or gain that makes the display unsuitable for any sort of image work due to the fact that there are visible color differences across the display itself. For this test we use an array of 25 points on the display and measure the accuracy of colors in the GretagMacbeth ColorChecker test, as well as the uniformity of the white and black levels at each spot.
While I don't have any other mobile devices for reference, if I were evaluating the 9.7" iPad Pro as a professional monitor I would say that the white uniformity is decent, but not amazing in any regard. The central area of the display is fairly uniform, but there's noticeable dropoff on the left, right, and bottom edges. This is something I see on a number of phones and tablets, and maintaining uniformity probably hasn't been a concern for vendors until this point, but I'm hoping that a larger focus on it will make companies put more focus on it as a selling point for professional devices.
Black uniformity on the 9.7" iPad Pro isn't great. If you divide the display along its diagonal from the top right to bottom left corners you see that the in general the bottom section has higher black levels, while the top has lower black levels. In general, the black level isn't as dark at the edges as it is in the center. Black levels and contrast are the areas where Apple's LCDs really can't compete with Samsung's AMOLEDs, and with the 9.7" iPad Pro falling pretty far behind its bigger brother with black levels Apple should put more focus on at least keeping their blacks consistent across the display.
While the black uniformity isn't great on the 9.7" iPad Pro, and the white uniformity is just okay, the uniformity for colors is outstanding. There are a few hot spots on the edges, but in general the error relative to the center is well under two, and often near or even below one. I'm surprised that Apple has such uniform color rendition, as an uneven luminance level will usually throw off colors much more severely. Whatever the case may be, you can at least depend on even color rendering across the 9.7" iPad Pro's display.
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UtilityMax - Friday, June 3, 2016 - link
Wrong. Those are not tablets. Those are ultrabooks, but with a removable keyboard, and very lousy as "tablet".NonSequitor - Friday, June 3, 2016 - link
You have stated this several times in the comments. What is your definition of tablet? Is it size? The Surface Pro 4 is smaller than the iPad Pro 12.9 in two dimensions, though it is thicker. Is it weight? It's about 10% heavier than the iPad Pro 12.9. If you add in the keyboards and pens for each the weight difference drops to under 3% (1074g vs 1098g). So what makes these a lousy tablet?UtilityMax - Friday, June 3, 2016 - link
Tablet, something I can comfortably hold and use without a keyboard. The iPad Pro 12 is also a pretty lousy as a tablet.Amandtec - Thursday, June 2, 2016 - link
Without ability to plug in a mouse I can't use it for office work. Therefore I need a laptop as well. Therefore I am not buying an iPad Pro.phexac - Thursday, June 2, 2016 - link
"Without ability to plug in a mouse I can't use it for office work. Therefore I need a laptop as well. Therefore I am not buying an iPad Pro."Well, this is called a "tablet." Welcome to 2016.
nikon133 - Thursday, June 2, 2016 - link
It is called iPad Pro. Pro, by default, advertises usage within professionals' needs, a.k.a. work related scenarios. I think the whole naming is wrong. These devices should have been named just "iPad", as opposite to iPad Air. I think "Pro" was added only to try steal show from likes of Surface Pro and other x86 tablets. Pure marketing, very little footing in reality. Classic Phil Schiller.blackcrayon - Monday, June 6, 2016 - link
The footing in reality was probably the massively faster A9X, smart connector, and the Pencil support, which pros can and do use for their jobs.It's a silly argument anyway, I can do "pro" tasks on an iPad 1 if I want, as my job requires plenty of ssh and command line administration. But leave it to the Apple whiners to complain about Apple's name for a product they wouldn't buy no matter the name.
Galatian - Thursday, June 2, 2016 - link
Still completely puzzled how nobody calls out Apple on the price gauging. This is essentially what the iPad Air 3 should have been, when you look at past evolutions, so they essentially just pushed the price up. This coupled with the fact, that they eliminated the probably most bought storage size (64 GB), means that anybody who wanted to get an 64 GB Air 3 now has to pay 300€ more.Luckily they decreased the price of the iPad Air 2, so that is now a very strong contender for a good tablet, that is merely meant as a consumption device.
I understand that there are people out there who need a pencil or perhaps even a good camera (although I would think that most people owning an iPad Pro would also have a iPhone), but the amount seems to be so small, that it feels like Apple just needed to add a few things to differentiate this "half" Pro (as in: not even the big chip) from the iPad Air 2.
trewtrew - Monday, June 6, 2016 - link
I think Apple has realized that people only upgrade their iPad's every 5 years or so. A bunch of people still rock the original iPad and I think the most common iPad is still the iPad 2. So they raised the price $100 but the way I look at it that includes at least 5 years of software updates.Genxxx - Thursday, June 2, 2016 - link
Have use this for a couple of weeks, if u wan an 'IPAD', yes this is the best u can get.But if u r thinking to do something more like the 'pro' name suggests, don't buy this. It can't even group some photos and PDFs together without 3rd party app and with lots of restrictions.
U have to work around this or that on simple functions, namely no folder system is the biggest let down.
Excels, word, autocad, PDFs, bmp, they think separate all files are the best way to manage ur iPad.
For the screen, the left top corner is dimmer than the rest. Since my first purchase have faulty charger and error on charge, they changed a new one by waiting for a week. Then the second unit camera has a fur inside the lens, so they made me wait for a week and give me a new one. All three unit has this dimmer corner, so I don't think this is the best screen around. Open a blank white app and u can notice this clearly.