2019 iPad Air vs 2018 iPad Pro - Ultimate Comparison By Max Tech

Apple’s 2018 iPad Pro is revolutionary in the iPad world, but it also came with a few drawbacks like the $800 price tag, no headphone jack, bendgate issues, and worst of all, the incredibly powerful A12X processor and the new USB-C port are way ahead of what the current iOS software allows you to do with it. But what if there was an iPad that maybe wasn’t as nice as the Pro, but solved a lot of these problems? Could it be Apple’s brand new 2019 iPad Air? Let’s find out! For starters, it comes with a headphone jack, you won’t have any bending issues, it’s packing the same new 7nm A12 processor from the iPhone XS, and it’s priced at a whopping $300 cheaper than the Pro. Even better, you don’t have a buy a new Apple Pencil if you already have the old one. So that’s it, right? People should obviously just by the new Air? Well, not quite. The Pro’s got some tricks up its sleeve. The new square-edged design makes it look futuristic and modern compared to the Air, but it’s not as comfortable to hold compared to the old design.

The Pro gets Face ID instead of Touch ID, which works great by the way since there’s no visible notch and it works in literally any orientation, even upside down. Thanks to Face ID, there’s even bezels, all around, with rounded corners on the display, which really makes it stand out from the crowd and it actually makes it easier to play games in landscape mode. Now the display tech is extremely similar, there are literally only 2 differences. The Pro is brighter and it gets ProMotion technology. Testing the brightness, you can see the difference, but does it actually matter much in the real world? Honestly, not that much.

Now ProMotion, on the other hand, is huge in my book. It allows the screen to refresh at up to 120hz for buttery smooth navigation, and you truly can feel the difference. Now what people don’t mention about ProMotion is that it automatically brings down the refresh rate to match the content you’re viewing to help save battery life. So let’s say you’re watching a video that’s shot at 24 frames per second, like this one, the Pro will run at 24hz while the Air runs at 60hz, wasting battery life without giving any visible benefit at all. Another benefit of ProMotion is reduced Apple Pencil lag, and as you can see in this slow-mo clip, drawing on the Pro is almost instant, and it’s a difference you can feel.

Speaking of the Pencil, the Pro supports the new one, which is better in basically every way, especially in the way it magnetically connects to the side, instantly pairs and wirelessly charges. The matte design feels better in the hand and it’s got a new double-tap to switch tools feature which is incredibly useful. Something that’s a much bigger deal than people make it out to be is that the Pro gets 4 speakers instead of 2 on the Air. It truly makes a world of a difference. You get true stereo sound in landscape mode, which makes a huge difference for gaming.

Let’s listen to a quick speaker comparison, and make sure you put in some headphones so you can hear the difference. Yep, the speakers are many times better on the Pro. The interesting thing about the new Air is that it’s the only non-Pro iPad that has a smart connector and supports the smart keyboard. Before we get into performance, let’s quickly mention the camera differences, even though cameras don’t matter much on iPads. The Pro gets more megapixels on the rear for better photos with Smart HDR and 4K video recording at 60 frames per second.

Unlike the Air, it gets quad-LED flash. The front-facing camera isn’t much different, but thanks to it having Face ID, you can take portrait selfies which really does make a big difference. The Pro also packs 5 microphones instead of only 2 on the Air, so let’s compare them. Getting into performance, the Pro gets the A12X chip while the Air gets the A12. And yes, you can play Fortnite and other titles at 60 frames per second on both of these iPads.

The Pro gets 4GB of RAM compared to 3 on the Air. Yes, you can get 6GB on the Pro if you buy the 1TB model but it’s definitely not worth the price for almost everyone. In Geekbench 4, the Pro is only 4.5% faster in single core, and a much higher 59% faster in multi-core, which is what really matters. In the metal graphics test, the Pro scored over twice as high as the Air, which is gonna be huge for things like gaming, rendering and augmented reality. The more realistic Antutu test that takes the processor, graphics, RAM and user experience into account only shows a 47% improvement for the Pro.

For an even more realistic test, we exported the same 4K HEVC 60p video file on both iPads, and the Pro was finished in less than half the time, now that’s a significant difference for video editings. So as we can see, there’s a pretty big difference in performance, but will you notice that difference in day-to-day use? Let’s play Fortnite, which is one of the most graphically intensive games on iOS, and see if there are any differences. Playing Fortnite, the iPad Air runs the game perfectly at 60 frames per second on high settings. After playing for a while, it’s incredibly smooth with no dropped frames at all. I honestly couldn’t tell the difference between it and the Pro in terms of game smoothness and graphics quality.

The biggest noticeable difference was only having 2 speakers on the Air. So for gaming, the iPad Air can handle basically any popular game currently available on iOS, so the extra power of the iPad Pro isn’t really being used unless you’re one of the few people who is actually going to do something like video editing. In basic navigation and just using the iPads daily, you’ll definitely notice a difference with the Pro, but it’s not due to performance, it’s due to the ProMotion tech. You can easily feel the difference in display smoothness with the iPad Pro, and that’s what you’ll feel every day. The quad-speaker setup is also a difference you’ll feel every day, maybe even more so than ProMotion.

So what’s the rundown? Which iPad is the better value? Well, the iPad Pro is obviously ahead of its time, since the hardware is all there but it’s limited by iOS. If you’re planning to keep it for many years, the software will eventually catch up and you might actually be able to use all of that power. Some people will buy the iPad Pro just for new modern design alone. It’s definitely a much better iPad, but it’s also quite a bit more expensive. Now the new iPad Air honestly has enough performance for almost everyone and the display quality is outstanding.

It supports the Apple pencil, the smart keyboard, and it has a headphone jack. It’s basically the best all-around iPad currently available if you’re not looking to spend close to a thousand dollars, but it’s got a couple of compromises, no ProMotion, and only 2 speakers. Now what if you could spend that same $500, or even less, and get basically everything the iPad Air gets, but with 4 speakers and ProMotion technology as well? That’s basically what you get with the 2017 10.5” iPad Pro, which is currently on sale on Amazon brand-new for $500. The A10X chip is not much slower in processor performance and it’s actually almost 50% faster in graphics performance. It even supports 60 fps on Fortnite and runs it just as smooth as on the new iPad Air.

People say the A10X will stop being supported sooner, but the iPad Mini 2 from 2013 still supports iOS 12, so the 2017 iPad Pro should still be supported for at least another 5 years, and by the time it loses support, you’ll honestly be okay with it, since you enjoyed the much better speakers, ProMotion technology and better graphics performance for all of those years. If you enjoyed this comparison video, make sure to hit that subscribe button because we’ve got a lot more video comparisons like this one coming, including videos on the new 2019 iMac. This has been Vadim from Max Tech, thanks for watching, and we’ll see you in the next one.

Source : Max Tech