Is a Cellular iPad Right for You? By Billy Kyle

What's going on guys, Billy here and during the past eight years that I've been a student from the beginning of high school now to the end of college, I've used a few different versions of the iPad from the mini to the air. All the way up to the pro and all of them have been great from a hardware and a software perspective. I really do believe that Apple is on top of the tablet game with their iPad lineup, but that new Microsoft Surface Pro X has really got me tempted to make the switch anyway. The thing that holds true about all the iPads I've owned is that they've been the Wi-Fi version. So if I wanted to connect to the Internet I needed an external Wi-Fi connection, whether it be here and my home, whether it be at a coffee shop or if I was at school, I needed a Wi-Fi network to connect to in order to actually access the Internet. This time around with my brand new iPad Mini 5 I opted for the LTE version, just because I wanted to try something a little different, and ultimately I wanted to see if it's something that would benefit me.

So what I want to do in this video is not go over the specs and not really even discuss the hardware but discuss whether the iPad is cellular or the iPad. LTE version is right for you, depending on what you do with your iPad on a daily basis. Alright, so I actually already jumped the gun. Here. There are two Hardware differences that separate the LTE version of the iPad from the standard wireless version.

The first is the antenna band usually placed on the back of the device towards the top, and then also you get a SIM card tray to pop in a SIM from whatever carrier. You end up putting the iPad on just note that if you purchase a wireless version of the iPad you're not going to be able to just miraculously add cellular at the end, you're going to have to spend the extra money to purchase the cellular version of the iPad, and that leaves me into the first comparison that I want to make between these two different devices and that's the price. So right now, Apple sells four different iPads. These are the iPad Pro the iPad Air, the entry-level iPad and the iPad Mini fifth generation. The iPad Pro has a different screen sizes, and each of these iPad versions have different storage options.

But the only thing that we'll be looking at for the sake of this video is how much more expensive a cellular version would be the iPad Pro. No matter what size you get will run you an extra 150 dollars, while the rest of tablet lineup will cost you an extra 130 dollars right out of the gate right on top of the price you already pay for. The tablet now to include the cost of data is kind of hard, because there are so many providers to choose from and so many plans that those providers offer. So it will be impossible for me to say what the extra cost will be for you. But for me, it's an extra $20 a month on my fully unlimited data plan with Verizon.

That means that I'll be spending an extra two hundred and forty dollars a year to have an LTE connection wherever I go on my iPad. This means that for me personally, with my data plan and with the amount that I paid for the iPad that I purchased I'll be spending an extra three hundred and seventy dollars in my first year of owning this iPad and that's just to have a dedicated LTE connection associated with the device. I've got to say that so far it has been worth every single penny and I certainly don't regret my decision of purchasing this iPad and spending the extra money, but before I go any further and tell you guys the benefits of having this connection on the iPad I do want to bring up probably the biggest argument against spending the extra money and that's the fact that pretty much any smartphone that you can buy on the market is going to give you the option to share the data through the personal hotspot feature with any device that you want. So I could use it with my Mac behind me. I could use it with the iPad.

If I didn't purchase the cellular version, I could still use it if I wanted to and anything else that needs a Wi-Fi connection. I can just connect to my personal hotspot. Apple actually even makes this easier with their devices, with the ability to go into the settings and connect to the devices linked with your iCloud account. That means that I don't even have to pull out my phone I can just go into the settings right from my iPad and turn it on now. I have certainly gotten my fair share of use out of the personal hotspot feature with my pixel and with my iPhone in fact, every single month, I pretty much burned through the amount of data that I have associated with the personal hotspot feature to share with other devices, which is incredibly frustrating now.

This brings me to two of the main counterarguments. I have against just using that personal hotspot feature. The first is convenience, and the second is data cap and data speed limits now in terms of convenience right. What could be more convenient than going into the settings of your iPad, acting to your iPhone right there, without even having to touch your phone and boom you're connected to the Internet? Here's the thing if you've got a dedicated, LTE connection on your iPad, always running as soon as you leave a Wi-Fi connection, whether it's from say here in my house or whether it's from my school I go, and I throw my backpack in the back of my car. My iPad is always receiving text messages.

Emails are always coming through, and photos and files are always being sunk being sunk to the device. So, if I have to pick up my iPad and start using it, I can hit the ground running. I don't have to connect to the Wi-Fi hotspot. I, don't have to sit there and wait for all the files to sync and all the messages and emails to come through. That's like one of my biggest pet peeves of turning my phone on airplane mode when I get on the plane because when I land, and I get all those notifications.

It feels like it. Just bogs down my phone now I understand that this is like a first world problem, but for me, time is money, and so, if I can save any time anywhere and being able to just use my iPad immediately, it definitely is a big help, also not to mention using that personal hotspot feature is a little clumsy. For example, if I walk out of range, then I've got to walk back near my phone I've got to reconnect, bring my phone with me also. Sometimes, when I connect to the personal hotspot from my phone, it fails the first time, and then I've got a way to reconnect again also I feel like sometimes when you tether over Bluetooth, the speeds are slower rather than just having a dedicated LTE signal, so there are a couple of trade-offs, but in my opinion it is way more convenient just to have that dedicated LTE line or that dedicated LTE connection on your iPad. Now.

Moving on to my second point- and this is probably the main reason why I spent the extra money on the cellular version of the iPad- it's the data cap and the data throttling that comes associated with that personal hotspot feature on your phone for me on my Verizon plan. I get fully unlimited data on all of my devices, but when it comes to shared data through that personal hotspot feature, I can only use 15 gigs of high-speed data and then, after that, I'm limited to 600 kilo bits per second, which it's okay for sending email. It's okay for sending I message, but streaming video, sending photos, downloading photos or any files of any sort is pretty much nearly impossible. Now. Just to give you guys a quick frame of reference.

Last month, I used and the 8 gigs of data. On my iPhone on my iPad, I used 319 gigs. Now, there's some of you out there that are probably saying I use much more data than you, and I'm sure you'll. Let me know down in the comment section, but there's also probably a lot of you out there that are wondering. How can you even possibly use that much data I know that it doesn't really have all that much to do with this video, but I provide aerial services to clients, so I provide like aerial photography, aerial, videography, drone mapping, drone inspections, and I'm always dealing with huge amounts of data.

I mean I'm, shooting 4k video I'm, juggling hundreds of raw photo files, some of which need to be uploaded immediately for collaborators to access through the Google, Drive or Dropbox, some of which I might need to edit really quickly on my iPad and deliver to a client, because time is of the essence and then also I might be on a really important shoot where I don't have access to go and reshoot, and I want to upload those files to the cloud as like, a third backup just in case now. This is where we get to the conclusion of the video where we begin to talk about whom the cellular version of the iPad is for. Hopefully, I already answered your question throughout this video, and you might be thinking yourself. Alright, I definitely do need it or I. Definitely don't need the cellular version, but let me lay it out for you guys, if you're a power user, a photographer, a videographer, and you're dealing with a bunch of video files and photo files.

It really is helpful to have an LTE connection on your iPad, because you're never limited you're never being held behind, because you've got to connect your smartphone and then, if you hit the 15 gigs, you've got to deal with the slower data. To me, speed is king. I feel like the iPad is a really smart device and once you take away its Wi-Fi connection, it turns into a dumb device like you can only do a certain amount of things you can't share files. You can't text, you can't do this. You can't do that.

It really just turns into you're able to do whatever is already on the iPad. You can't connect to the outside world and that's something that I hate being limited by now. Here's the thing, if you don't think you're going to use 15 gigs of data this, where it becomes tricky because you can get by with just using the personal hotspot if you like to tweet, if you like to check Instagram, if you want to send emails and send AI messages, the only thing is remembered that convenience factor that I spoke about everything is being synced. In the background you can leave your house pull out your iPad and just start using. It has to go over and connect to the Wi-Fi hotspot and wait for everything to come through and sync.

So that's kind of where the decision is on you. If you don't think you're going to exceed 15 gigs, you can go either way, but remember the convenience factor that I brought up anyway. Guys I think that pretty much wraps up everything that I've got to say I know that it's a little tough to exactly tell you whether you should or shouldn't get the cellular version just because sorry, but plans are different. Chances are if you've already got a smartphone, and you're already on a data plan, and you know you're. Just looking to add another line, it should be pretty inexpensive, so maybe that's something that persuades you to get the LTE version, but yeah it's been a pretty long night shooting this video anyway guys hope to enjoy the video.

Let me know if you have any questions it down in the comment section below and as always, I'll talk to you later Oh.

Source : Billy Kyle