Drive to Apple Store to test the iPad Pro 10.5 today. I was planned to buy a Magic Touchpad 2 from Apple store, but it’s out of stock 🙂
I just got my new iMac middle 2017, so I don’t need to test that out in Apple Store. The iPad pro 10.5 brings my attention because couple of podcasts The Talk Show, ATP, Connected, Under the Radar and Upgrade. They all mentioned the iPad pro’s promotion (I mean “Pro Motion”), which is like retina for animation. That sounds really interesting. It’s not a easy engineering topic, and seems apple did it and make it seems “easy”.
I just did like 10 minutes of test in the apple store with a lots of kids enjoying their summer vocation. Here is what I found:
- The screen is astonishing bright and colorful. It’s not a surprise that apple bring the picture on the very surface, you feel it’s just underneath your finger tip. That’s magical. The ture-tone make the color looks bright and white-balance-correct, the brightness and color a astonishing even compare to my iPad air 2.
- The Pro-Motion is nice. It’s not something noticeable for everyone, say my mom and dad won’t notice. But for a nerds, the home page scroll animation is super snappy. And I enjoy it, it’s a feature feels very premium quality. But it’s more noticeable on iOS springboard than Safari’s web page. I guess the webpage’s animation is good enough at 60hz.
- The thin bezel on the iPad Pro 10.5 is great. It give a better immerse feeling on your iPad’s screen.
- The iPad Pro’s cover is good, but not great. It’s very clicky, which is good for a super thin cover keyboard. But it’s pretty expensive, which make me fee that I should use other bluetooh keyboard instead. The keyboard size is just better, but not good enough to replace your laptop or desktop keyboard.
- It’s a bit heavier than I imagined. But it’s relatively lightweight.
- I’m pretty stupid on the Apple Pencil. Because I see it works on video before but it never works in my hand. I guess it’s out of battery when I test it out in apple store last year. This time I try to move beyond my comfort zone. OK, the apple pencil is OK in drawing app like Procreate, it’s not super snappy (as 120hz) but almost work 100% time. But the note taking app blows my mind. The thin line the apple pencil can draw and super responsive screen make it superior than my [traveler’s notebook](http://www.travelers-company.com/) plus real ink-pen. And the overall carrying size is not dramatically bigger than my [traveller’s notebook](http://www.travelers-company.com/), it also combine the functionality of movie player + Kindle. So this is seriously a gadget I want to buy to improves portable productivity.
- So the iPad Pro 10.5 is great! As every podcast discussed. It seems worth the investment. And 10.5 is more universal than the 12.9 one. The iPad cover is very optional, you should consider the leather cover for touch and a standalone bluetooth keyboard for input. The apple pencil is a must have for iPad Pro purchase. The feeling of use pencil as real pen and lay your palm on the screen feels very premium.