iPad Air 4 vs iPad Pro 11 vs iPad 8 — Buy This One! By Rene Ritchie

- Okay, so just this week, Apple released a brand new iPad eight, they also announced an upcoming brand new iPad Air. And just last spring, they released a brand new iPad Pro. and choosing between them can be a little bit complicated, especially if you wanna make sure you get the best value for your dollar. So I'm gonna go through all the differences and help you pick the perfect iPad for you. And I'm gonna do it right now. The iPad Pro comes in silver and Space Gray, because professionals, pros are just way too serious for colors, I guess.

the iPad Air though, that seems to be taking a page from the iPhone 11 playbook, where Apple is offering it for the first time in a range of very pastel but very prominent colors. You can get it in silver, Space Gray, rose gold, which is really way more rose than gold, this time, also a sky blue, and a really minty, minty green. For the iPad eight, that's still in sort of classic consumer iPad colors. Silver and Space Gray, of course, those are the classics, that's what everybody buys, but also Apple's latest sort of blush colored gold. When we're talking purely about size.

Even though all of these iPads have different screens, and we'll get to the screens in a hot minute, the sizes for the 11 inch iPad Pro, the 10.5 inch iPad Air and the 10.2 inch iPad eight are almost exactly the same. The thicknesses vary slightly, but the overall footprint is still that classic iPad tablet sized footprint. The differences are super important though. displays are where things start to get really, really interesting. So even though all these iPads are roughly the same size, the screen sizes are actually different.

The iPad Pro has an 11 inch screen. So Apple literally thano snapped those bezels in half compared to previous models, no home button, just a thin frame all the way around. The iPad Air got like one quarter thano snapped, which is why the display isn't quite 11 inches, it's only 10.8 inches, and the iPad eight that has the classic design where the side bezels are still small, but it's got hefty, hefty top and bottom bezels, including enough room for the Touch ID button, which we'll get to in a second. The display technology is also slightly different. You get 600 nits of brightness on the iPad Pro, we only get 500 nits on the iPad Air and iPad eight.

So especially if you're using it outside, or you're looking at content and you want something as close to extended dynamic range, not quite high dynamic range, but extended dynamic range as possible. You're gonna want the iPad Pro, the iPad Pro and the iPad Air are also laminated displays and that means there's no air gap between the various layers where the iPad eight is not laminated. So there is a bit more of an air gap. And that means you will see more glare more reflections than you would with the other two panels. But conversely, if you're using this for students, or for kids, the cost of repairing a non laminated panel is way less significantly less than a laminated panel.

So if you think there's a chance it's gonna be broken, especially more than once, you can save quite a bit by going with the non laminated display. The iPad Pro is the only one with promotion, which is Apple's name for their adaptive 120 hertz display technology. And it just means that the panel can ramp up to 120 hertz for things like buttery smooth scrolling, and action games that take advantage of it and Apple Pencil for the least amount of latency possible, but also ramped down to 48 hertz. So it can show Hollywood movies at the proper 24 frames per second and all the way down to 24 hertz so it can save and recoup battery life from those high framerate bursts that is doing as well. The iPad Air and the iPad eight are instead just locked into a rock solid 60 hertz, like all iPads have been forever basically.

In terms of color gamut, which just means the amount of different colors that the display can show. Both the iPad Pro and iPad Air can do the entire DCI-P3 gamut, which means richer reds and deeper greens, while the iPad eight is restricted to the older, narrower sRGB gamut. Also, the iPad Pro and iPad Air have True Tone which is Apple's ambient, color temperature matching technologies. So if you're in a room with fluorescent light versus incandescent light, it can register that and adjust the white point of the display so that it doesn't look too yellow or too blue, but keeps looking as paper white as possible. So if you want the best display on an iPad, you want the iPad Pro, and if you want the cheapest display to repair, you want the iPad eight.

When it comes to biometrics now we're living in a really, really interesting time. The iPad Pro has face ID, which is Apple's most advanced form of biometrics, it basically registers the 3d geometry of your face, and compares that using a neural network. So even if your look changes slightly over time, it'll still recognize you as you and just as you pick up your iPad, unlock often before you even think about it. But in this era, where We're all wearing masks, you know, doing our part to try to get public health and the economy back on track as fast as possible. Face ID can either not work or just be really challenging.

So you have to either take the mask down, or you have to enter your passcode or password. The iPad Air uses Touch ID. But since there's no home button, the Touch ID has moved to the top button, the sleep wake button. And it works just the same as classic Touch ID. It's a little bit faster because of the faster secure enclave on the a 14 chip and the iPad eight just has classic Touch ID.

It's way better if you're wearing masks, but it's not as good if your hand moisture is changing a lot because you're washing them constantly. Or if you just have to wear gloves a lot. So you sort of get to pick which biometric is best for you right now. And all of them support things like Apple Pay, and voice activated Siri just exactly the same. The iPad Pro has the A12Z, which is a better binned version of the A12X from the previous generation iPad Pro.

And what that means specifically in this case, is that instead of seven graphics cores, it has all eight graphics cores, like the desktop, fully operational. The iPad Air has the next generation A14 chip, not an X version, the regular version, which is widely anticipated to be going into the next generation iPhone 12. And the iPad eight has the A12, which is the non extra version of the A12Z. So where does this leave us? Well, the iPad Pro is still the best choice for really heavy workloads. It has more CPUs and more GPUs and that means that it can just crush multi threaded workloads.

So anything that's really intensive when it comes especially to graphics, you're still gonna wanna go with the iPad Pro. The iPad Air, though, is just a beast now an absolute beast when it comes to single threaded applications. So if you just want you know, your apps to launch faster your UI to scroll faster, just every basic task you do on an iPad to be just a little bit snappier than the iPad Air is absolutely fine for you. And the iPad eight has the chip that last year's iPad Air had an it. That the iPhone Xs had in it.

So it is by no means a slouch. And also with a system on a chip with the SOC, you're getting Ram. The iPad Pro comes with six gigabytes, partially because it has to access up to one terabyte of storage. The iPad Air we don't know an exact number for yet, but it's probably gonna be around four gigabytes, and the iPad eight that only has three gigabytes. So if ram if memory is important to you just factor that into your decision.

Overall, it just comes down to how heavy are your workloads, I think Apple has made it clear that pro really means Pr now. You can get amazing performance on the iPad Air. But still, for those heavier, much heavier graphical workloads, you're gonna wanna stick with the iPad Pro. Battery life across these iPads is all consistent is all the same. It's 10 hours for sort of general purpose use.

And I think that just comes down to Apple drawing that line in the sand and saying in order to be an iPad, it has to have 10 hours of general purpose use, and all the other design considerations are just targeted on that. So instead of increasing battery life, they just increase feature sets every time and sort of hold the line at that battery. One of the biggest differences is storage capacity. The iPad Pro starts at 128 gigabytes, but goes all the way up to one terabyte, one terabyte on a tablet. The iPad era starts at 64 gigabytes, but only goes as far as 256 gigabytes.

The iPad eight starts at 32 gigabytes has no 64 gigabyte option and tops out at 128 gigabytes. So if you're doing a lot of big projects, if you're trying to store a lot of files locally on your iPad, especially if those files are large, if they're really big scale photographs, if they're large video files, especially 4k video, if you're doing a lot of 3d work, anything, anything that requires a ton of storage, you're gonna wanna go with the iPad Pro, the iPad Air being the mid range iPad has sort of mid range storage. So you can get away with doing a fair amount of video work, quite a bit of photo work, but you're not gonna get anywhere near the storage you would get with a pro. Then when you go down to the iPad eight, unless you're really using it as a thin client. If it's in education, and it's just for classwork and it gets blasted clean every night.

Or you're using it just as a streaming tablets, you're gonna be using all your services on that, whether they're Apple services or Netflix or Spotify, or, I was gonna say streaming games but not quite yet. If you're doing anything that doesn't require a lot of streaming storage, especially if it's a secondary iPad, and especially if it's for you know the family and you're just not gonna put a lot of your photos, your videos, your data on it. You can get away with 32 gigabytes. And I kinda wish there was a 64 gigabytes here because I think that would be the real sweet spot for this style of tablet. But as it is, if you think you're gonna be doing anything, anything that requires any more local storage, you're gonna wanna go with 128.

For connectors, both the iPad Pro and the new iPad Air use USB-C. So you can connect them to just the same wide range of PC style peripherals, including things like 4k displays, and microphones and sound equipment, all of those things, the iPad eight uses the classic Lightning connector. So if you're heavily invested in more of those PC style peripherals, or you need to use them for the type of work that you do, the iPad Pro and iPad Air are just much better choices for you. But if you have just a ton of lightning cables and accessories and adapters already then you might just wanna stick with the port they bring you. Both the iPad Pro and the iPad Air have the same 12 megapixel wide angle cameras.

The only subtle difference is that on the iPad Pro you're getting the image signal processor from the a 12 chipset, where on the brand new iPad Air, you're getting the image signal processor from the a 14 chipset, they both also shoot 4k video up to 60 frames per second. Now the iPad eight is only eight megapixels and only goes up to 1080p, 30 frames per second video. So it's not even in the same league as the other two. Now to add to that the iPad Pro also has a wide angle camera and a LIDAR sensor. And LIDAR works on the back of the iPad Pro, similarly to how TrueDepth works on the front of modern iPhones.

And that is it can project out and sort of scan in three dimensions and bring that data back into the iPad. And apps use it for example to figure out what is in the room for lightning fast augmented reality, and probably in the near future for much better and faster photography. So if you're doing a lot of video work or you wanna do augmented reality work, you're gonna wanna go with the iPad Pro. If you care about photography, but you don't need all the extras, the iPad Air will be perfectly fine. If you only wanna scan documents and do art projects, you can get by with the iPad eight camera.

It's just not what I'd recommend for anyone who really cares about photography. For the front facing camera, you're getting seven megapixels on the iPad Pro, and it's a TrueDepth seven megapixels, which means it'll do things like portrait mode, and let you superimpose Animoji or Memoji on top of your face. Or, you know, AR stickers if that's your bag baby. The iPad Air is similar but it's not a TrueDepth camera. So it will only give you that seven megapixel look and feel.

On the iPad eight you're only getting 1.2 megapixels and 720P. So again, it's fine for like classroom selfies. But it might not be what you want to highlight your Instagram game, especially if it's tight. For audio, the iPad Pro is still just absolutely best in class. It has a four speaker system and is tuned so that as you rotate it, it'll switch the side that is playing the audio out of making sure that, you don't get top and bottom audio by mistake, you're always getting the left channel left, the right channel, right, just exactly the sort of wide audio experience you want when you're watching movies, playing games, all of those things.

The iPad Air has four grills so it can look outwardly the same, but there's still only two speakers there. So it's really only suitable for landscape audio, it'll still give you a really good audio experience. It's just not adaptable the way the iPad Pro is. And for the iPad eight you're getting that really classic two speakers on the bottom iPad setup. So nowhere nearly the same as the cinematic experience on the other two.

When it comes to microphones, only the iPad Pro has what Apple calls studio quality mics. So if you are podcasting or doing interviews or recording voiceover or anything like that and you forget your proper microphone, you can get fairly close to USB quality microphone just right off the iPad Pro. On the flip side, the iPad eight is the only iPad left that still has a 3.5 millimeter headphone jack. So if you need that jack, that's the iPad you're gonna need for Wi Fi and cellular the iPad Pro and the iPad Air have pretty much the same capabilities. Up to Wi-Fi six, up to Bluetooth 5.0 and up to LTE networking. The iPad eight though tops out at 802.11ac Wi Fi, Bluetooth 4.2 but it does go to LTE only 27 bands, not 30 like the other two. The iPad Pro and the iPad Air both use Apple second generation Apple Pencil two.

This one just attaches magnetically to the side of your iPad and charges inductively. So it automatically pairs, automatically stays charged to the degree that you kind of forget you ever need to charge it. And it also has a capacitive button that you can tap on to switch it from drawing mode to erasing mode for example. The iPad eight uses the first generation Apple Pencil. So you do have to remove that cap, you do have to plug it into that lightning port or use the adapter to plug it into a lightning cable.

And if you wanna store it anywhere it doesn't attach so you need to get a pencil case for keyboards, both the iPad Pro and the iPad Air can connect to Apple's Second generation Folio Keyboard, or their new Magic Keyboard. And the Magic Keyboard is the one that has the trackpad on it, and turns it into sort of a quasi MacBook. Again at the same basic chassis, so they both fit equally as well, both work equally as well. The iPad eight can only use the original keyboard, which doesn't have a trackpad. But you can connect an external trackpad or an external mouse separately if you wanna use one.

So if you wanna use your iPad just as a typewriter, then all of them work the same. If you wanna really have that integrated, next generation laptop style convertible style experience, you're gonna wanna stick with the iPad Pro or the iPad Air. When it comes to pricing, maybe the most important consideration for most people, the iPad Pro starts off at 799 for 128 gigabytes Wi Fi and goes all the way up to 1449 for one terabyte with cellular. The iPad Air starts at 599 for 64 gigabytes, and goes all the way up to 879, for 256 gigabytes with cellular. The iPad eight starts at 329, and tops out at 559 for 128 gigabytes with cellular.

So you really just wanna stop and think how the iPad is gonna fit into your lifestyle. If you're just looking for the most inexpensive way possible to add an iPad to your gear, just an extra one for you or for your family or for your school or business, and you really don't want much in terms of hardware, you just wanna be able to use you won't be able to get access to everything that's on the App Store, to all of Apple's software and services. And you're gonna be doing a lot of streaming or a lot of sort of light activities, or a lot of educational activities. You don't need to pay a lot, you can get in on that 329 iPad, or you can upgrade the storage or get cellular if you really need it and not pay anything more than you have to, but still get what is the best tablet experience on the market. And on the complete opposite end of that spectrum.

If you are a pro, if it is gonna be your primary computer, especially if you're gonna be doing a lot of intensive, graphically intensive work like video editing or 3D, even coding, things where time is very literally money for you, then you probably aren't gonna wanna step it up, maybe all the way to that one terabyte iPad Pro with cellular so that you can do anything you wanna do and just never have to worry about any artificial constraints to your workflow ever. And if you fall somewhere in between those two, then the iPad Air is still a terrific choice. It is a little bit more than the classic iPad price. But it's delivering more value than any sort of classic iPad ever, especially with the new design, the new camera system, and certainly with the new processor. Now I've already done a review of the latest iPad Pro, link in the description.

I'm working on my review of the iPad eight right now, so make sure you hit the subscribe button and bell so you see it as soon as it goes live. And I'll have an iPad Air review just as soon as I can right after Apple releases it. In the meantime, if you have any specific questions, or you just wanna chat, check out the members only discord where we talk about iPads, watches, iPhones, Apple silicon, gear, workflows, and much much more. You can find that on my Patreon. And yeah I have Patreon now, patreon.

com/renerichie, I set it up right after I quit my big media job in March. Right before all of this happened. And I started this new indie channel. I just needed a way and I needed a community to make these videos better. And this is a great way to do it, because there's a whole preview section where I share ideas and outlines for videos before they're even shot, behind the scenes, backstage stories, sometimes early versions of the videos before they go live, longer versions of interviews when they're available, like 45 minutes with iJustine, Walt Mossberg and more.

And there are even ways to get your name in the description of every video and the credits to be more involved in this community and contribute directly to the creation of these videos and future projects. Some of those coming up, check out patreon. com/renerichie or just click the link in the description and clicking on that link really helps out the channel. For more, much more on everything Apple's announcing this month, click the playlist above software, hardware services, all of it, just click the link and I'll see you in the next video.

Source : Rene Ritchie