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iPad Pro 2018 Review - Should you buy it?

2018-11-19 · Tech review, setup or bag tour · Ali · recording, 12:18 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Tools, apps and tech (also: Money and investing) · mode: Review and recommendation · tags: His own numbers, Aimed at students

Ali calls the 2018 iPad Pro the best iPad ever made but still no laptop replacement, and gives a three-step flowchart against buying it: not if you have an earlier iPad Pro, not if you have the 2018 iPad, and otherwise only if £1,000 is not a significant sum to you.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — What the review will cover: overall impressions and a three-question flowchart

00:00:37 — Overall thoughts: the best iPad ever, design, the new Apple Pencil, the Smart Keyboard Folio, still not a laptop

  • ★★★ Ali calls the 2018 iPad Pro an absolute beast, clearly the best iPad ever made, with incredible design and performance second to none. — 00:00:37 · iPad Pro
  • ★★ Ali finds the 2018 iPad Pro's design very industrial, like a stretched-out iPhone 5, and really thin, though it shows fingerprints. — 00:00:37 · iPad Pro, iPhone
  • ★★★ The 2018 iPad Pro is still an iPad and will not replace a laptop, Ali says; nothing has really changed since his earlier video on the question. — 00:01:11 · iPad Pro
  • ★★ The new Apple Pencil feels very slightly nicer than the previous one, Ali says, and its best feature is that it clips on magnetically instead of sticking out of the side of the iPad Pro. — 00:01:11 · Apple Pencil, iPad Pro
  • ★★ Ali loves the Smart Keyboard Folio for the 2018 iPad Pro and thinks everyone should get one. — 00:01:11 · iPad Pro
  • ★★ Ali says he will make a dedicated review of the Smart Keyboard Folio. — 00:01:11
  • ★ Ali calls Dave Lee's review of the iPad Pro really good. — 00:01:54 · iPad Pro
  • ★★ Ali skips specifications and benchmark scores: as Dave Lee points out, iPads never feel slow; neither his iPad Pro nor his earlier iPad Air 2 ever did, so speed does not really matter for iPads. — 00:02:23 · iPad Pro
  • ★★★ The first question of Ali's flowchart for buying the 2018 iPad Pro: if you already have a previous generation iPad Pro, you should not buy the new one. (hedged) — 00:02:23 · iPad Pro

00:02:36 — Question 1: do you have a previous generation iPad Pro?

  • ★★ New tech never makes us happy, Ali says, unless it removes a salient negative from life or lets us do or make something new. — 00:03:07
  • ★★ Apart from the magnetic Apple Pencil, Ali sees no real salient negatives of the 2017 iPad Pro that would justify buying the much more expensive 2018 model. — 00:03:36 · iPad Pro, Apple Pencil
  • ★★ The 2018 iPad Pro lets you do nothing new, Ali says: it has exactly the same capabilities as the previous iPad Pros, apart from a slightly nicer screen and the pencil that sticks on. — 00:04:05 · iPad Pro
  • ★★ The 11-inch 2018 iPad Pro starts at 719 pounds. — 00:04:05 · iPad Pro
  • ★★ With AppleCare and an Apple Pencil, the base 64 GB 2018 iPad Pro comes to over a thousand pounds. — 00:04:34 · iPad Pro, Apple Pencil
  • ★★★ Spending a thousand pounds to upgrade an already very good iPad Pro to the 2018 model is really not worth it, in Ali's opinion. — 00:04:34 · iPad Pro
  • ★★ The student-friendly 2018 iPad starts at 300-something pounds; with AppleCare and the Apple Pencil it costs about 450 pounds, a little less with the student discount. — 00:04:34 · iPad, Apple Pencil, iPad Pro
  • ★★ Ali compares 400 pounds for the 2018 iPad with AppleCare and Apple Pencil against 1,100 pounds for the iPad Pro with Apple Pencil, or 1,300 with the keyboard at about 200 more. — 00:04:34 · iPad, iPad Pro, Apple Pencil

00:04:52 — Question 2: do you have a normal 2018 iPad? What £600 buys instead

  • ★★ Writing with the Apple Pencil is very slightly nicer on the iPad Pro, thanks to the reduced screen distance and 120 Hz refresh rate, but Ali calls it a minor thing noticed only side by side with the 2018 iPad. — 00:05:24 · Apple Pencil, iPad Pro, iPad
  • ★★★ The second question of Ali's flowchart: if you have the 2018 iPad with Apple Pencil, especially as a student, it is very hard to recommend buying the 2018 iPad Pro, which costs more than twice as much. — 00:05:53 · iPad, iPad Pro
  • ★★ The price difference between the 2018 iPad Pro and the 2018 iPad is 600 pounds. — 00:05:53 · iPad Pro, iPad
  • ★★ Instead of the £600 iPad Pro upgrade, Ali suggests a Sony A6000 mirrorless camera for about 300 pounds and a really nice lens for about 250 to 300, to take photos of friends, family and university life worth looking back on. — 00:06:21 · Sony A6000, iPad Pro
  • ★★★ Ali calls his Sony A6000 with a fancy lens probably the single most valuable purchase of his life, because the memories it has created are priceless. (hedged) — 00:06:21 · Sony A6000
  • ★★ Ali suggests a Kindle Paperwhite for about 90 pounds plus some 50 non-fiction books, which would add far more value than the iPad Pro's slightly nicer experience; he calls the Kindle probably his second most valuable purchase. (hedged) — 00:06:50 · Kindle, Amazon, iPad Pro
  • ★★ Ali suggests Audible at about eight pounds a month: the £600 would pay for about five years of it, and he calls it probably his third most valuable purchase. (hedged) — 00:07:19 · Audible
  • ★★ Ali says he will make a whole list of his most valuable purchases, in a video and a blog post. — 00:07:19

00:07:49 — Question 3: do you have spare cash to burn? The MacBook Air he saved for

  • ★★ In his earlier comparison of the 2017 iPad Pro and the 2018 iPad, Ali says, he preferred the Pro by spreading the extra cost over three years, about one pound a week, which he is happy to pay. — 00:07:49 · iPad Pro, iPad
  • ★★★ The third question of Ali's flowchart, a point he says his earlier iPad comparison missed: before buying the iPad Pro, ask whether 1,000 pounds is a significant amount of money to you. — 00:08:16 · iPad Pro
  • ★★ Talking about money is impolite, Ali says, but when Apple asks people to spend upwards of 1,000 pounds on an iPad Pro, it has to be discussed candidly. — 00:08:16 · Apple, iPad Pro
  • ★★ For Ali, 1,000 pounds is a lot of money but not a significant amount: having it or spending it on the iPad Pro would not change the way he lives. — 00:09:06 · iPad Pro

  • ★★★ The iPad Pro is less a functional tool than a luxury product, Ali says, so buying it can hardly be justified by function. — 00:09:06 · iPad Pro

    “the iPad Pro is less a functional tool and more a luxury product.”

  • ★★ As a student, before his side business generated income every year, Ali would never have bought the iPad Pro. — 00:10:04 · iPad Pro

  • ★★ Around 2012 Ali spent a whole year tutoring four times a week, at about 20 pounds an hour, to save 700 pounds for a MacBook Air, which lasted him three years and added immense value to his life. — 00:10:04 · MacBook
  • ★★ Ali would not have worked another year for a 1,400-pound MacBook Pro, because he did not need it: the base MacBook Air did everything he wanted, much as the 2018 iPad does against the iPad Pro. — 00:10:04 · MacBook, iPad Pro
  • ★★★ A student probably does not need an iPad, Ali says, but one with Apple Pencil support is quite useful, can make note-taking paperless and could genuinely make you a better student. — 00:10:43 · iPad, Apple Pencil, iPad Pro
  • ★★★ If 1,000 pounds is not a significant amount of money to you and you would happily splash it on a luxury product, Ali says, by all means buy the 2018 iPad Pro, though it is still hard to recommend. — 00:11:19 · iPad Pro

00:11:40 — Wrapping up

  • ★★ The 2018 iPad Pro is incredible hardware hampered by the limitations of iOS 12, Ali says, as every other tech reviewer has said, and really expensive. — 00:11:42 · iPad Pro

In the description and comments

  • ★★ Ali Abdaal (channel): In a channel reply of October 2020, asked whether the 2018 iPad Pro, now about $494 refurbished, is worth it two years later, the channel answers yes. — creator comment · iPad Pro

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: iPad · iPad Pro

Also: People: Dave Lee

Organizations: Amazon · Apple

Products: Apple Pencil · AppleCare · Audible · iOS · iPad Air 2 · iPhone · iPhone XS Max · Kindle · MacBook · Microsoft Surface · Smart Keyboard Folio · Sony A6000

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