This right here is my 10.5-inch iPad Pro and this has been the only portable device that I’ve used over the past four weeks. About four weeks ago, I sold my 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touchbar for a couple of reasons: one, I knew that a new MacBook Pro is coming out and mine would probably be obsolete; two is I just never used my MacBook Pro. I always used my iPad and four weeks ago, I only had just an iPad. I didn’t have any fancy keyboards or any attachments to make it a more laptop replacement device. But now, four weeks later, after getting rid of my MacBook Pro, do I regret it or do I not? Let’s find out.
I’m sure you’ve heard before in other people’s videos that iPads have been laptop replacement devices for a while or the other end of the spectrum saying iPads can never replace laptops. Let me just get one thing straight: a laptop and a tablet will never really merge. I know there are hybrid devices like the Surface that is kind of both. But I think those are the best types of devices you can get if you only have money for one device. But if you’re someone who needs a portable device that does a few things really, really well and doesn’t do some things at all, then an iPad Pro may be the device for you. For example, I got rid of my MacBook Pro because I just never used it. I stopped doing YouTube full time, I have a full time job that I don’t really need to use my MacBook at all because I have a supplied device that needs particular permissions to do stuff that I do, and I just never really used my MacBook Pro. And at home when I edited videos, I have a brand new 2017 iMac behind me where I do all of my editing because it’s more powerful, it has a bigger display, it’s nicer, I don’t have to worry about the battery going down or decreasing if I don’t carry a charger because I just need pure performance. And I’m not going to get that from a portable, especially a 13-inch MacBook Pro or even a 15-inch MacBook Pro. The iMac is just clearly more powerful and less expensive.
If you’re a creative and need access to applications like Adobe, Premiere, or DaVinci Resolve, or any of those, then you basically need to have some kind of laptop. There are some Apple applications for iOS, especially for the iPad Pro that does pretty light video editing but there are a couple that do a little bit more video editing and with the storage options that go up to half a terrabyte on an iPad, you really can use this thing as your only device.
Now let me give you my rundown of requirements I need to have in a portable device that makes it usable for me:
Number one for me is battery life. If it doesn’t have good battery life, I just don’t want it. My MacBook Pro said it’s supposed to have around 8-9 hours of battery life. It never got anything close to 8 or 9 hours of battery life. Some laptops will get that, like the Dell XPS 13. But again, I’m not a huge Windows guy and I really want good battery life.
The iPad Pro has stated 10 hours and you know what, I get 10 hours every single time. And also, I have to carry one less charger for me because if I just carry an iPad charger, I can charge my iPad and iPhone and not have to worry about carrying a USB-C charger for my MacBook, which is a lot bigger.
Number two, it has to have a beautiful display. The MacBook Pro has, hands down, a beautiful, great-looking display. It’s P3, 500 nits, great retina resolution-- it’s wonderful.
The iPad Pro has an even brighter display at 600 nits, the same color accuracy, the same P3 calibration. And although it has a smaller resolution, it’s almost as good. Honestly, I think the iPad has a superior display because it’s brighter and you can use it-- you can touch it. You can’t touch the display on the MacBook Pro.
Number three is that it has to have good audio built into the device. The MacBook and MacBook Pros have great audio somehow, especially the 12-inch MacBook. The iPad Pro has pretty superb audio. We have four speakers, great stereo separation. They’re not front-facing but honestly, they are really good sounding speakers. They work seamlessly with my AirPods. They work seamlessly with Bluetooth headphones-- it’s a very big, all-in-one package.
Number four is storage options. Again, the iPad Pros come in a variety of flavors, kind of basically matching the 12-inch MacBook that you can get in 64 (which I won’t even bother), 256, or 512 GB flavors. And honestly, 512 GB of built-in storage in an iPad will give you tons and tons of space. And with a built-in Files application, a true application for files, you can really utilize all of that storage.
You may be asking how the iPad Pro really replaces your laptop. For me, I actually paired it up with a Logitech Combo Keyboard, which I will say is probably the most ugly case I’ve ever seen and used on an iPad. But it has a Surface Pro-esque kind of kickstand on the back that gives it basically an infinite amount of angles between where it clicks in and goes all the way down almost nearly flat. And then the keyboard itself is pretty good. I loved this keyboard compared to the Apple Smart Keyboard, which I think is absolute trash. It’s also backlit, doesn’t need a battery, literally runs off the Smart Connector from the iPad, it draws very little charge, and it has actual function keys that I can use to volume up or down, screen brightness, and even the backlighting brightness of the keyboard. It’s not super good-looking. It has this ugly pencil holder that I don’t use the Apple Pencil. But it integrates very well with the iPad and just works all the time and you don’t have to worry about charging it up.
And you do get a lot of support with the iPad. I mean you have a full suite of Microsoft Office applications like Word, Excel, and Powerpoint. You have Apple’s alternatives that are completely free so you don’t have to have a subscription, like Pages, Keynote, Numbers, and all that kind of stuff. So you do have a lot of flexibility and there’s a lot of applications. And with iOS 11, even though it’s not the best version of iOS in my opinion. It’s probably the best version for iPad on its own. The multi-tasking is really cool, the ability of split screens is really cool, the ability of just being able to use a lot of application at the same time. The dock makes it super easy to multi-task. It really is the biggest step forward in iOS multi-tasking, especially for the iPad. Maybe not on the iPhone, but it is for the iPad. And generally, it’s been pretty glitch-free on the iPad in comparison to the iPhone, which has been full of glitches.
So believe it or not, I am fully into this whole iPad replacing everything. Mainly because of its battery life. It’s great and phenomenal. I can’t complain about the iPad battery life. The standby time is amazing and it’s instantaneously on, has Touch ID, has great FaceTime camera, has a great back camera (even though I never use it). It honestly is the best Apple portable in my opinion. If you’re in between this and the 12-inch MacBook, hands down the iPad Pro is more powerful than a 12-inch MacBook if you’re talking about pure performance: it has a 6-core processor and a 12-core GPU. You can run Fortnite on this thing. It’s really powerful. Obviously it doesn’t run a full-blown operating system like MacOS but iOS 11 is really powerful on the iPad Pro. It really comes to show that this thing challenges even the 13-inch MacBook Pros in some kind of Geekbench performance benchmark. It’s a really powerful machine, super sleek, battery life is amazing. I can’t talk about the battery life enough. If you have a MacBook Pro, you probably know my frustration with its battery life and it sucks. The iPad is always good, 10 hours all the time. You have to carry one less charger if you have an iPhone. For me, again, it really is a no-brainer.
Am I going to buy the next generation MacBook Pro? Maybe, who knows? I mean I really don’t have a need for it right now. Maybe if I got back full time into the video game, I’ll definitely do that. But right now, running on iMac and iPad, I don’t need anything else. You get a full web experience, a lot of great features, iOS, and iMessage. I get the same functionality that I do get on my MacBook but just in a slimmer, better battery life performance package than any MacBook I have ever used.
It’s kind of ugly with this case but you know what, take the case off and it’s still a very pretty device. Great resolution screen, great color, great brightness, great everything. If you fit the bill where you don’t need to do hardcore video editing or have to have specific applications that only run on MacOS or Windows, then this is it. If I was in college right now, this is all I would take: an iPad with Microsoft Word, my Notes application, Safari, and all the stuff I’d need to survive. And Spotify, one big thing for me is offline Spotify-- you can’t do that on a Mac, you can do that on an iPad.
What do you guys think of using the iPad Pro as your only device?
