As March came to an end, Apple released its latest iPad , a $329 9.7 inch version that includes compatibility with the $99 Apple Pencil. (Slightly lower prices are available to schools; there is also a more expensive model if you want to add cellular service.)
Barron’s Next 50 stock Apple (AAPL) was the market share leader in tablets , a category that sits in an interesting place between laptops and smartphones; Amazon.com (AMZN), meanwhile, was on the rise. As for the new iPad, meanwhile, reviewers like it—but note that it’s more of an update than a new product, so you may not really “need” this.
“Let’s start this quick review with some harsh truth,” wrote Jeremy Horwitz at VentureBeat . “Apple’s 2018 9.7-inch iPad is a ‘press release’ product, not an ‘Apple Keynote’ product.” But if you don’t already have one, or are tired of the one you have for whatever reason, this one may be at the top of the list even though it represents the company’ entry-level model.
Some observations that stand out”
• If you use tablets to play a lot of media, you might at least consider other models. “This iPad’s display and speakers are the same as last year’s entry-level iPad,” Scott Stein wrote for CNET . “ That means it’s not as good as the current iPad Pro, which has louder quad speakers and a larger 10.5-inch screen, with a faster 120Hz refresh rate TrueMotion display. This iPad also lacks TrueTone, the color tone-adjusting tech that’s in iPad Pros and last year’s iPhones, and doesn’t have as wide a color gamut, if you’re a display nut.”
• Whether you need a hundred-dollar stylus is, of course, your choice—but if you do, wrote Mike Wuerthele for Apple Insider , “Apple Pencil support is a good addition.…Responsiveness from the Apple Pencil is about the same as it is on the original 12.9-inch iPad Pro—meaning pretty great. Our artists that we tapped to test it out still liked it just a hair better on the 2017 iPad Pro lineup, and far more than any Android equivalent that they had tried to that point.”
• And the Pencil hasn’t been redesigned, and it has its critics, including PC Mag’s Sascha Segan . “A perfect cylinder, the Pencil rolls off a table much too easily,” he wrote. “It’s too long for small hands to use comfortably. Charging is awkward: The male Lightning port can snap off, and you can lose the removable cap while it’s charging. Replacements are really expensive. The Pencil also needs an eraser. When we had an enthusiastic sixth-grade artist try the new iPad, she complained about all of these things (and lost the Pencil under a table at one point).”
• Dieter Bohn, writing for the Verge , praised the performance, particularly relative to its price. “I’ve been using the iPad for a little less than a week, and I can report that it feels fast, lasts all day (Apple claims 10 hours of battery life, and it gets close), and runs everything I’ve thrown at it well,” he wrote. “There is a speed difference between the iPad and the iPad Pro, but it’s not so great that I think anybody who buys this will care—or maybe even notice.”
Though Mashable’s Raymond Wong wrote that on the new iPad, “iOS 11 runs smoother (especially when running two apps in Split View), 3-D games have fewer dropped frames, photos process quicker, videos export faster in iMovie, and more. Everything is snappier compared to devices with an older Apple chip.”
• Gareth Beavis, at TechRadar, summed up what seemed like the general thrust of most reviews : “The new iPad for 2018 is designed to achieve one thing: deliver the best of Apple’s tablet efforts at a more affordable price. Note that we say more affordable, rather than cheap—because the cost is still higher than many other tablets out there—but the new upgrades bring a lot to the iPad, bridging the gap between a ‘standard’ slate and the more impressive iPad Pro range.”
Email David Marino-Nachison at david.marino-nachison@barrons.com . Follow him at @marinonachison.
