Apple iPad Pro (2022) hands-on: All in all pretty prositive

Pro in performance and pro in price

Apple continues to refine its product lines this year: the smallest model has improved in terms of design – and surprisingly, it has become more expensive. Pro models get the best hardware Apple has to offer. However, there is no change in the design.

The new M2 chip alone makes the iPad (2022) one of the most powerful home computers out there right now, if you want to talk about computers in tablets. Plus, there’s a great display (thankfully not OLED) and fast connectivity, like Wi-Fi 6E and Thunderbolt 3.

Before you get too carried away and talk too much about the advantages of the Apple tablet, let’s get back to the point: it’s all worth it, of course. Pricing for the 11-inch variant starts at $799, while the 12.9-inch iPad starts at $1,099. The most expensive variant has a truly incredible 2 TB of storage capacity and costs $2,399.

As always, every year after Apple’s event there is a discussion about whether or not the price is right. In my view, it’s not just futility to argue about it—it’s a question that needs to be decided by each individual buyer. It is also a very difficult conversation!

Apple has given its entry-level variant, the Apple iPad, not only a cosmetic facelift this year, but a new chipset in the form of the A14 Bionic that should perform well for years to come. With the iPad Pro and the M2 chipset, this is more obvious—at least five years, but more likely seven years for this iPad update.

After all, it means that Apple builds its hardware to last and doesn’t rely on getting a new product every one to three years to have enough power. In particular, hardware support is not only complex, but also very expensive. If you add the chip crisis, very complex supply chains and very expensive means of transport, you can understand the price without having to explain it.

Not revolutionary, but evolutionary. Unfortunately!

The entry-level iPad from Apple has (still) been denied a Pro variant: Apple won’t change the design this year either, and everything else will remain the same. Unfortunately, this also applies to the placement of the front-facing camera. It is still on the narrow side of the tablet.

Because of this, you will be filmed from the side during a video call, which is the camera you probably use in 90% of cases, and you won’t be able to see the other person. Apple has finally “properly” installed the camera in its new entry-level iPad. Maybe next year it will be the turn of the professionals.

Otherwise, the design and performance are flawless, just like Apple always has. The body is made of beautiful aluminum and is milled from one piece. The Liquid Retina XDR display is perfectly integrated – nothing shakes, blows or bubbles.

Liquid Retina XDR Display: Designed expressly for professionals

Apple’s Pro lines are expanding into products designed for professionals or people who want to get the most out of it. This year, Apple will install a display system in the 12.9” convertible that can reproduce HDR content without distortion.

With a brightness of up to 1000 nits, pictures and videos can be viewed even in very bright environments. The display’s 10,000 mini-LEDs are connected to 2,500 cooling zones to dim individual areas in a targeted manner for better contrast.

This is especially interesting for professionals. The iPad becomes an extended workbench for creatives, allowing photographers, filmmakers or illustrators to work without a laptop, without interruptions and as usual on the go.

Those who want to watch movies and TV series will get their money’s worth with the iPad Pro (2022): in addition to Dolby Vision and HDR10, there is HLG – “Hybrid Log Gamma” standard for playing TV signals in SDR or HDR.

The sound coming out of the iPad Pros four speakers is always amazing. That’s pretty pro too! And of course the display also supports so-called promotion technology, where the refresh rate switches back and forth from 24Hz to 120Hz as needed at the time. In this way, everything works smoothly, but if possible at the same time saves energy.

Apple iPad Pro 12.9″ (2022) special features

With the second-generation Apple Pencil, the iPad Pro 2022 previews the result of the pen tip when the pen hovers 1 cm above the display. This new feature is incredibly practical.

M2+5G+Wi-Fi 6E = absolute high performance

Apple’s own SoCs have earned a reputation for being super-performing and super-power-efficient at the same time. The M2 chipset is Apple’s latest chipset that was introduced a few months ago. It is a system chip with 8 cores for the CPU, 10 cores for the GPU and 16 cores for the Apple Neural Engine. Compared to the previous faster M1 chipset, the M2 is another 15% faster for the CPU, Apple says. Even graphics are rendered 35% faster.

Apple packs everything into the iPad Pro for speed: Wi-Fi 6E delivers wireless speeds of up to 2.4 Gb/s — twice as fast as last year’s iPad Pro. It goes without saying that the iPad Pro variants will support 5G as well as the cellular model.

As usual, Apple doesn’t disclose actual battery performance, but over the past few days I’ve always been able to get the iPad Pro through even with heavy use.

Never change the running system. Lidar horn!

The iPad Pro’s front camera is a 12-megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera that also supports Center Stage. With Center Stage, the camera always keeps you in the center of the action during video conferencing—that is, automatically in the center of the image. But, as written above, the placement of the camera on the narrow side of the iPad is very annoying. I really hope this bug will be fixed soon next year.

The main module on the back of the iPad Pros has a 12-megapixel main camera and a 10-megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera. The camera system can also record 4K videos at 60fps or super slow motion clips at 240fps. By the way, the M2 chip allows processing of ProRes videos up to three times faster.

Of course, a LiDAR scanner will be available with the iPad Pro this year. This technology is used to create a depth map of the environment by measuring the travel time of the infrared light emitted by the environment. In this way, the iPad supports augmented and mixed reality applications.

Summary: Proactive – with limitations

To be honest, I personally probably won’t be able to exhaust the full performance and possibilities of the new iPad Pro. And that’s likely to be the case for most future iPad Pro users as well. So if you have to keep your iPad safe from your mouth and you don’t play graphics-intensive games regularly, or you often deal with large film or visual projects, either personally or professionally, you should also look at other iPad models. . The iPad Pro is too expensive and overkill for movies on the couch, messages here and there, and the occasional Instagram.

The iPad Pro can now replace a laptop. Thanks to Thunderbolt, it can connect to external displays without any problems, it has good computing power, and thanks to iPadOS 16, it can work well with the tablet.

It’s true: if you often jump back and forth between different windows, you’ll need a little practice with the iPad for everyday and special work. I don’t want to do without a permanent computer or a “real” laptop. But the trend of relying more on the iPad when I’m on the go may continue with the new iPad Pro model.

The real issue that had me scratching my head was the placement of the front camera. That’s because it’s not a Pro at all, especially with the tablet’s killer function – video calls – limited by its placement on the narrow side of the device.

Perhaps I should admit that I will not buy such an expensive device for this reason alone, but instead wait another year. Because then Apple will (probably) fix this bug on the iPad Pro as well (on the new low-end Apple iPad, the front camera has finally moved to the wide side) and the iPad Pro will be for professionals all around. .

And for those of you who want us to have the full package.