Review: The 10.5-inch iPad Pro is much more “pro” than what it replaces

Nothing Apple has done in the last three years has reversed the iPad’s sales decline, or stopped it, or even really slowed it down all that much. But 2017 has made clear that if the iPad keeps falling, it won’t be for lack of trying.

On the software side, you’ve got iOS 11, an update that makes iOS 9’s multitasking additions look rudimentary and quaint. It adds a distinctly Mac-like application dock and dramatically changes how the device runs and interacts with multiple apps at the same time. The changes allow for much-improved "window" and file management, and you can easily drag-and-drop content between apps.

On the hardware side, the lineup is as compelling as it has ever been for the new buyers and upgraders Apple needs to attract to push up sales. The $329 iPad sticks to the basics, offering people a great first tablet or an ideal upgrade for that aging iPad 2. And the new iPad Pros push the lineup a step further, pairing interesting screen technology and accessory support with performance you would normally expect from a more expensive laptop.

Apple refreshed both iPad Pro models this month, but today we’re focusing specifically on the 10.5-inch version, the one that has been changed the most visibly. It has a bigger, better screen; it has a better, faster chip with more RAM; and its enlarged Smart Keyboard makes it a whole lot nicer to work on than its predecessor. It might not convince you that an iPad can really be a “pro” device, but it makes a much more convincing argument for itself than the 9.7-inch tablet it replaces.

Look and feel

Specs at a glance: 10.5-inch Apple iPad Pro
Screen	2224×1668 10.5-inch (264 PPI) touchscreen
OS	iOS 10.3.2
CPU	~2.38GHz Apple A10X Fusion
RAM	4GB
GPU	Apple A10X GPU
Storage	64GB, 256GB, or 512GB NAND flash
Networking	802.11ac, Bluetooth 4.2, UMTS/HSPA/​HSPA+/DC-HSDPA (850, 900, 1700/2100, 1900, 2100 MHz); GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz), CDMA EV-DO Rev. A and Rev. B (800, 1900 MHz), LTE Advanced (Bands 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 11, 12, 13, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 38, 39, 40, 41)
Camera	12MP rear camera, 7MP front camera
Ports	Lightning connector, headphone jack
Size	9.8" × 6.8" × 0.24" (250.6 × 174.1 × 6.1 mm)
Weight	1.03 pounds (469g) Wi-Fi, 1.05 pounds (477g) with cellular
Battery	30.1WHr
Starting price	$649, plus $159 for the Smart Keyboard and $99 for the Apple Pencil
Price as reviewed	$1,079
Other perks	Charger, Lightning cable

The 10.5-inch iPad tweaks a few fundamentals of the iPad’s design for the first time since the iPad Air came out in 2013. The Air, Air 2, iPad 5, and the 9.7-inch Pro all made small changes, but they all also had the same screen size and resolution and the same bezels (and the Air design was mostly just a larger version of 2012’s iPad Mini, much as the 12.9-inch iPad Pro was just a bigger version of the Air).

The 10.5-inch Pro keeps most of the same design language—a glass front, an aluminum back, thinner bezels on the sides of the screen, shiny chamfered metal edges, rounded but well-defined corners and edges, and the same ports in the same places—but changes the proportions, and it fits in a screen that’s almost an inch larger on the diagonal. It fits this screen in part by increasing the size of the tablet ever so slightly, from 9.4 by 6.6 inches to 9.8 by 6.8 inches. But the proportion of screen to bezel is also higher than it is in any other iPad, including the new 12.9-inch model, which gets all of the same new features as the 10.5-inch model but keeps the same design.

The 10.5-inch Pro is exactly as thick (0.24 inches) and only slightly heavier than its predecessor (from 0.96 pounds to 1.03 pounds), using it feels mostly the same, especially if it’s on a table, a desk, or your lap. It’s still a great size for plane computing, since it can sit upright on its Smart Cover or Smart Keyboard even if you don’t have much legroom and the person in front of you has leaned his or her seat back. If you’re trying to use it while you’re holding it, though, it's a bit more of a strain than with a normal iPad Air 2. Your thumbs have to stretch that much further to reach everywhere on the software keyboard, and slimmer bezels means being just a little more careful about where you put your thumbs. But these changes all fall well within the “you’ll get used to it” category.

As for other changes, the camera bump from the older iPad Pro returns, and it’s bigger than before; the iPhone 7 lens assembly that both the new iPads use takes up more space than the 6S-era camera that the old 9.7-inch iPad Pro used. Also, the TouchID sensor has been upgraded to the “second generation” model also found in the iPhone 6S and 7. The only difference is that it’s faster.

The new screen

Of everything Apple sells, none have screens that do quite as much stuff as the iPad Pros' are doing.

That list starts with DCI-P3 color gamut support (new in the 12.9-inch Pro, returning to the smaller one) and an anti-reflective coating, features also present in recent iMacs and MacBook Pros. But the True Tone feature, which detects the color temperature of the ambient light and adjusts the display’s color temperature to match, is iPad Pro only. Most significantly, the iPad’s refresh rate has been bumped up to 120Hz, twice the normal 60Hz. The screens in the iPad Pros are the best screens Apple ships, which is appropriate for a thing that’s just a giant screen by design.

The 10.5-inch Pro has a 2224×1668 screen, up just a little bit from the 2048×1536 in 9.7-inch iPads. The density is identical, so photos and text are exactly the same size they were before; you can just fit a bit more of them on-screen at once.

The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus and iOS 9 all pushed developers in the direction of resolution-dependent apps, so most apps expand relatively gracefully to fill the entire screen. While using Split View mode, it helps both apps breathe a little bit more. That said, the smaller iPad Pro still can’t fit two full-size iPad apps side-by-side; in developer parlance, you can see one “regular” app and one “compact” app or two “compact” apps, the same as on the 9.7-inch iPads. The 12.9-inch iPad Pro is still the only one that can handle two “regular” apps at once. In the cases where apps aren’t written to support resolution independence, the tablet stretches them a bit, making them slightly blurry but avoiding a letterboxing effect.

Let’s talk more about that 120Hz refresh rate, since it’s the new display’s most significant addition. Apple calls it “ProMotion,” and it makes all animations and motion on-screen look really fluid and smooth and great. App developers don’t need to do anything to take advantage of it—Word and Tweetbot and Chrome and Slack and all my normal productivity apps all benefitted from the new screen with zero updates required.

To keep the 120Hz screen from completely destroying the tablet’s battery, Apple has continued to refine the variable refresh rate tech that it introduced in the last-generation Pro. Those models still had a 60Hz refresh rate, but they could drop down to 30Hz when displaying static or slow-moving content. The new Pro screens can go from 120Hz to as low as 24Hz (which eliminates 3:2 pulldown for 24 FPS videos) and pretty much anywhere in between, giving you smooth animation when you need it but saving your battery (and in some cases, making your stuff look better) when it can.

Apple told us that the variable refresh rate is made possible by a block in the A10X chip, one that flips the normal relationship between the display and the GPU that drives it. Rather than having a display that asks the GPU for new content 60 times per second, as is the current standard, the GPU in the iPad Pro tells the screen how many times per second to refresh.

As for how it is to use a 120Hz display, I can say that it’s undeniably slick, and it makes animations and transitions look great; it’s also easier to read text and scroll simultaneously, since the “ghosting” effect you get at 60Hz is much-reduced. None of the display improvements that Apple has made post-Retina—an ever-longer list that now includes the DCI-P3 color gamut, True Tone, and ProMotion—have had quite as big an impact as those sharper screens did, but the 120Hz refresh rate comes close. The sooner this trickles outward to the iPhone and Apple’s various Macs, the better.