The 10.5-inch iPad Pro is Apple’s newest and most powerful tablet yet. Not only does it bring a brand new display size but it packs a ton of power under the hood and it comes equipped with many useful software features. We’ll see that Apple did not skimp out on the ink with this packaging. You’ll see a beautiful image of the iPad Pro showing off its TrueTone ProMotion display in all of its glory. The model I have selected is the base Wi-Fi model and it comes with 64GB of internal storage.
We can start the unboxing process by slicing into the plastic wrap keeping this box together. After we remove the plastic wrap and slide off the top of the box ever so carefully, we’ll find the 10.5-inch iPad Pro sitting right on top. I can already notice the change in display size over the 9.7-inch iPad as well as its portability. This is a razor thin device. I can tell without taking it out of its plastic blanket. If we dive deeper into the box, we’ll find a packet containing some paperwork, a wall wart used for charging, and a lightning cable also used for charging the new iPad.
So now we can take a look back at the iPad Pro and unwrap it from its protective plastic. We’ll start to really appreciate its build quality. It’s consistent with Apple’s previous tablets as it features an aluminum unibody housing and glass front. The tablet itself only measures in at 6.1mm thick so yes, this thing is ridiculously thin as I mentioned earlier. Some other noteworthy hardware related features include the 3-pin connector on the left hand side of the tablet that will be used to attach a Smart keyboard or other accessory and the 12-megapixel protruding camera sensor that we’ll talk more about later.
The display on the 10.5-inch iPad Pro is pretty unique. First of all, it measures in at 10.5 inches, which Apple says can fit a full-sized digital keyboard and a Smart keyboard. It also features a wide color gamut TrueTone display that will automatically adjust the White Balance based on your environment to produce the best possible image. There’s also ProMotion technology. So ProMotion technology is new this time around and what that fancy terminology means is that it has 120Hz refresh rate. This is a refresh rate that you typically find on high-end TVs. It’ll make content extremely fluid. You’ll notice that scrolling through apps or swiping through the home screens is an even more smooth experience. And what’s also neat is that iOS will calibrate itself so that the 120Hz refresh rate is only being used where it is needed. For example, if you’re looking at a static image, the refresh rate will be slowed down to save some battery life.
The 10.5-inch iPad Pro comes preloaded with iOS 10.3.2 but it’ll be receiving iOS 11, which brings a ton of new features for the device. The good news is that most of the features vital for a tablet are available in iOS 10, such as multi-tasking.
In terms of power, the iPad Pro features the new Apple A10X Fusion chip, which is even faster than the iPhone 7’s A10 Fusion chip. For single-core performance, get this, it’s 30% faster than the A9X chip found in the previous iPad Pro generations and roughly 82% faster in the multi-core performance. So needless to say, it should perform well when running social media applications and playing graphic intensive games.
There is a 12-megapixel rear- and 7-megapixel front-facing camera sensor. I am not a fan of tablet photography but for $650, I’m pretty glad Apple threw in a very capable front- and rear-facing image sensors. I don’t plan on using the sensor very much but I do look forward to testing it out.
Apple claims the iPad Pro will offer up to 10 hours of surfing the web on Wi-Fi, watching videos or listening to music-- a claim that we’ll have to test in our full review. There are four speakers on this device similar to the previous iPad Pro generation and they still sound incredible. It’s incredible that a device of this size can output such a rich and loud sound.
With that said, we’ll be working on some supplementary coverage of Apple’s new iPad Pro. Let us know what you think of this device and if there’s anything you need us to cover specifically, let us know.