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Apple iPad Pro (late 2018) with folio and pencil review

Apple iPad Pro (late 2018) with folio and pencil

CHOICE Expert Rating

71%
What is the CHOICE Expert Rating?
Good points

Good Points

  • Very small proportion of storage taken up by system and pre-installed apps
  • Screen has excellent viewing angles, colours, and luminance
  • Excellent GeekBench 4 score that puts it ahead of traditional laptops in the same tests
  • Four speakers provide a better listening experience than the majority of conventional laptops
  • Highly portable
  • Very bright screen
  • Silent operation
  • Good quality rear camera
Bad points

Bad Points

  • Folio keyboard lacks a palm rest and can feel cramped to type on, especially if used on your lap
  • Very long time to charge to 80 per cent
  • Very expensive tablet and accessories
  • Glossy screen produces some reflections
  • Very short power cord length
  • Keyboard not backlit
  • Can't just plug in external storage to copy data to and from the tablet unless you use a corresponding app for the storage device
  • One USB-C port is the only physical connector

Type

Ultraportable
Ultrabook
Tablet mode
Operating system
iPadOS

Recommended products

Recommended
Not recommended
Recommended for tablet use

Test results

CHOICE Expert Rating
71%
Performance score
69%
Tablet use score
78%
Ease of use score
69%
Battery life score
63%
Display score
84%
Audio score
65%
Wi-Fi score
77%
Storage write-speed (MBps)
944
Storage read-speed (MBps)
2433
Wi-Fi speed (MBps)
39
Average battery life – heavy usage (hours)
5:34
Charging time to 80% full (h:min)
2:11
Expert tester comments
Apple's 12.9-inch iPad Pro packs enough processing power and memory to be considered a laptop replacement, but only as long as you can find the apps that you need in the iOS environment. It can be purchased with a massive 1TB solid state drive, which is perhaps overkill considering this type of device works best with cloud-based storage; barely any mainstream laptops are offered with such a luxurious storage offering. But make no mistake about it, this iPad is a luxury/professional device, with a price to match, plus extra to equip it with the Folio keyboard that can turn it into a laptop (we tested it as a laptop with the Folio attachment) and new Apple Pencil. If you want a single device that can be both super-light tablet and capable laptop and you aren't beholden to a desktop operating system such as Windows or MacOS, then it's one of the standout products to consider. Note: This laptop's performance is not directly comparable to current products due to it being tested with an older version of our benchmark.

Sustainability

Shop Ethical rating
D
Warranty (years)
1
Replaceable battery
Not collected
Replace/upgrade RAM
Not collected
Slots for additional RAM
Not collected
Replace/upgrade storage
Not collected
Slot for additional storage
Not collected
Replace/upgrade Wi-Fi
Not collected
Country of origin
Not collected

Related products

Availability
Discontinued model

Cost

Price
$3,367.00

Specifications

Screen size (inches)
12.9
Native screen resolution (pixels)
2732 x 2048
Processor (CPU) type
Apple A12X Bionic
CPU frequency (GHz)
2.5
RAM (GB)
6
Video graphics type
Apple A12X Bionic
Storage capacity (GB)
1024
Available user space (GB)
1011
Storage type
SSD
Wi-Fi version
5
Weight of laptop (kg)
1
Weight of power supply (kg)
0.1
Size (mm, H x D x W)
14 x 217 x 281

Features

Screen finish
Glossy
Touchscreen
USB-C
USB 2.0 ports
0
USB 3.0 ports
0
USB 4 as USB-C port
0
USB-C (USB 3.2 Gen 1 or 2, not Thunderbolt 3 or 4) ports
1
Thunderbolt 3 or 4 (as USB-C) ports
0
SD card slot (full-size)
SD card slot (micro)
HDMI port
Gigabit ethernet port
Rear camera
Backlit keyboard levels of brightness
0

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