I’ll start this article by saying some of this information might come as a bit of a surprise to some of our readers, but I’ve passed up multiple iPad revisions and releases and have been using outdated technology for years! Normally when something new comes out from Apple, that product lands in my hands fairly quickly after the release. But for various reasons, I’ve stuck with my original 16GB iPad mini and passed up several generations of upgrades.
We just started getting shipments in small batches of the 9.7” iPad and I got to thinking that it’s time to upgrade my old faithful mini and officially pass it along to my youngest daughter. I’m a huge fan of the size of the iPad Mini and debated for several days if I wanted the iPad Mini 4 or the iPad with 128GB of storage. Ultimately I decided to go back to the larger screen and upgraded to the new iPad 9.7” as I’m now using my iPad more for video watching.
The reviews of the new iPad are mixed, it’s heavier than the iPad Air 2 it replaced and is slower than the iPad Pro. When I first took mine out of the box the weight was the first thing that I noticed; it does feel heavy. I held it up against the iPad Air 2 and it’s amazing that such a small difference seems so significant. Coming from a background of using a mini for the last several years it’s no surprise the weight was a temporary negative for me when I was unboxing the iPad.
My reasons for upgrading were primarily speed of the iPad in everyday use and storage. With more and more streaming options and the ability to download and view content offline I found the battle of storage to be never ending. My first big test of the iPad was using Safari, running different apps and accessing my iCloud drive. Knowing this release was in some regards just a minor bump and refresh of the mid-range iPad family lineup this was an important trial for me. For someone going from an older and outdated iPad to this unit, there is a huge difference! Where I saw delays in just the apps themselves opening or just opening a new browser window on my old mini I experience none of that with the new iPad. Even something that seemed insignificant like how fast the screen rotates from portrait to landscape suddenly seems lightning fast, I actually debated turning off that feature while playing around with the iPad.
I also spent some time both taking pictures and transferring some photos from my iPhone 7 plus. I was very impressed with both the image quality of the photos that I took and the viewing quality of photos that I moved from my iPhone. For an iPad and comparing it against some older models there’s a significant improvement with the photo quality. I then spent a little bit of time comparing sound quality from the iPhone 7 plus and the iPad and that one is a tough call. In our unofficial testing here at the office there was slight disagreement over which sounded better, so I’ll leave that final decision as undecided.
Ultimately I went with the new iPad and my only regret is that I couldn’t get it in Rose Gold to match my watch and iPhone. This revision is not meant to compete with the iPad Pro in my opinion, but it’s a huge upgrade and an impressive unit for hold outs like myself. Apple has reduced the pricing and increased the storage capacities of their mid level iPads and I think that’s huge for the everyday iPad user like myself.