iPad Pro 9.7-inch Review: Great tablet!

To fully understand my review, must explain a few things. I come to owning the iPad Pro 9.7" via a long lineage of Macs, iPods, iPhones and iPads. I've owned five MacBooks since 2006, the iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPhone 6 and iPhone 6S. I've also owned the iPad Mini 2, iPad 4, iPad Air 2, and for a brief time, the iPad Pro 12.9".
The minority of upgrades along this ownership have been truly revolutionary. Moving to the Retina MacBook Pro from a regular 13" MacBook pro was a huge one. The iPhone 4 over the iPhone 3G was pretty huge.
I purchased this iPad with the cellular and left a review for that one. If you don't need cellular this one is the way to go. My last iPad was the third generation and that was 4 years ago. Now it has gotten old and slow. So, two months ago I started to look at new devices. Surprise! My husband bought me the 12.9" iPad Pro. Very nice device but BIG!!!! So hubby took over the new IPad and I waited until the latest iPad Pro 9.7" was released. The 9.7" Pro is a bit slimmer than the old iPads but has the same sized screen. Unless you have really big hands and long fingers the 12.9" Pro is unwieldy to hold as a tablet and to type. Also, the 9.7" Pro is much lighter weight than the older models full sized iPads and the same weight as the iPad Air. The graphics are exceptional as is the upgraded 12MP camera. It will not take the place of a DSLR camera for the camera buff but for me, who loves to take pictures of family, pets, and items to list on eBay, it is awesome. There is another feature that the camera does which is called a "live" shot. It is not a video but a mini snipit of about three seconds. This feature literally brings a picture to life. You hold your finger on the shot and it comes alive. It is the difference between taking a picture of a child as they blow out that first candle on their cake and actually seeing the child blowing it out. Amazing! As an long time iPad user I knew that I would need at least the 128GB for my apps, updates, pictures and music. Even though we subscribe to a 200GB iCloud storage plan it is amazing how quickly all that data takes up space. It would be a real shame to buy a device and skimp on something so basic. Will this take the place of a desktop or laptop? For me it does 99 percent of the time. It is perfect for social networking, skyping, uploading pictures, writing documents and printing them off of a wireless printer and, of course, on-line shopping. If I was still in grad school or running a business then I would probably need a laptop or desktop. As with all Apple products they are intuitive. The set up is a breeze and if you have an issue the Apple support team is just a phone call away. I am loving my new iPad 9.7 Pro and I know you will, too!
In my opinion, the Apple Pencil is what sets this tablet apart from any other tablet. YOU DO NOT NEED TO BE AN ARTIST TO HAVE A USE FOR THE APPLE PENCIL! I own my own business. I constantly have to annotate PDF files, sign documents, jot notes down. Being able to preform these tasks digitally is not only MUCH more convenient, it's fun! You can mark up things and email them back instantly. For me this is invaluable. You can take a picture (with THE BEST camera on a tablet, again, not debatable) throw it in Notes and use the Apple Pencil to handwrite a few notes about it, and send it away. For this specific task, it is better to have an iPad Pro than a laptop.
In addition, the speakers are amazing. Seriously, 11 out of 10 for a mobile device. I cannot understate this. They sound great and they are loud enough to entertain a small party. My bluetooth speaker has been sitting on the shelf since I bought the iPad Pro. Recently took a vacation to Florida and brought the iPad Pro to the pool. To own an ultra portable device that you can store all of your music on and play it on its internal speakers without having to pair it to some other battery driven device is awesome to me! Around the house, I listen to podcasts on it all of the time. I can leave the room and still hear it in the kitchen. I absolutely love the speakers and simply will not purchase another tablet unless they can match these speakers. I cannot go without them now.

The iPad Pro has a number of other amazing features that I'm sure the other reviews will highlight. I will end my review with this: This is undoubtedly the best tablet available. As with almost anything, if you want the best, it's going to cost you more. My advice to anyone willing to spend around $350 for a tablet OR laptop, spend the extra money to purchase an iPad Pro instead. It will run circles around any tablet or laptop in that price range, and from my experience, it will become the favorite electronic device that you've ever bought.
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Apple iPad Pro 12.9" Review: Not a Laptop Replacement, Not Just an iPad

Apple iPad Pro - 12.9" Display

The Apple iPad Pro is an amazing piece of technology and looks and quality have always been a staple with Apple and that is still what their products are all about here with the iPad pro. I almost feel like buying this would be a waste if you don't try and get your hands on an Apple Pencil as the two go so wonderfully together. Why the two do not come together really mind boggles me. They could still sell it stand alone for $100, but include it with the pro for no extra charge, but the pencils sell like hotcakes, so they're not going to change the business model.
There's a lot of confusion about this online at the moment, and things may not be any clearer if you try it out at the Apple Store.

The two prevailing views about it are that it's a larger iPad great for movies, surfing, and reading -- or that it's trying to be the Surface Pro and fails because it can't replace your laptop.

Neither view captures what is truly new and unique about it.

It's not trying to be a laptop replacement. It's certainly an iPad, but it's something no earlier iPad has been able to be.

It's a new kind of computer: it's iOS as a kind of desktop experience, one that makes the strongest case ever for the virtues of computing with one app at a time, and one that can make you more productive by affording you a much greater sense of clarity and focus. It declutters your space: mentally and physically. You have nothing in front of you but a keyboard and screen (closer to you than the screen on a laptop), and you're free from the busyness of juggling so many windows around a virtual desktop.

Put another way: it may be less functional than a Mac or Surface Pro *if your primary goal is to multi-task*, but if your goal is to get discrete things done -- create a doc in Word, write email, read a webpage or a pdf -- the iPad Pro is so much more elegant, cleaner, and more pleasant to work with.

Apple seems to be saying: keep your laptop for the more elaborate file manipulation stuff. But for the vast majority of the rest of it, set your laptop aside and enjoy the clarity and elegance of this.

I've had the benefit of using the Surface Pro 4 for the past two weeks and the iPad Pro for the past week. They're both incredible devices. The use cases for the SP4 are obvious, and I love using it (work paid for it, so I didn't have to choose). But if you love the design qualities of the iPad and iOS, you will find the iPP every bit as compelling to use for almost anything.

After all the carping online about the limited keyboard shortcuts in iOS (which will obviously change soon), the complaints about how often you need to raise your arm to touch the screen, the limits of multi-tasking on the iPad, and so on, I've been pleasantly surprised by how much I can do on it (or how little I can't) and how easily. Many tasks I wouldn't have bothered with on my smaller iPads are now worth the time on the larger one, because it's so much nicer to use at this size.

The iPad Pro is also noticeably larger than the Surface Pro 4. Because I use the iPP with the Magic (and not Smart) Keyboard, I prop up on a few books, making it more ergonomic. It's like a large laptop screen at the right height, and closer than I could bring a laptop, making it more intimate and immersive. I could do the same with the SP4, but I usually use it with the Type Cover, which means it's usually lower down, with its screen seeming smaller and slightly more cramped by comparison.

Is the iPP worth it if you can't do to much multi-tasking on it? Why would you buy it (plus accessories) when you could get a retina Macbook for almost the same price? This is the part that won't be obvious if you only try it out at the store.

Buy it. Bring it home. Give it a try. It won't come down to specs. It will defy your earlier assumptions about computers and iPads. It will either appeal or it won't.

I suspect it will. Either way, you'll see that there's really nothing else like it.

Anyways, back to the iPad. The screen is huge and the overall construction of the iPad Pro is super solid, which is typical of Apple but on a tablet of this size, you can really appreciate that Apple sturdiness. The display is the best I've seen on any phone or tablet displaying bright, sharp, and vibrant images that just seem more life like than ever before without any 3D utilization. Images just look amazing, but this was bought to be almost fully dedicated to artwork. Using this coupled with the Apple Pencil and some apps like Sketckbook Pro and Procreate, will grant you an amazing drawing and painting experience. Procreate's utilization of the Apple Pencil is by far some of the best I've seen for stylus's with pressure and tilt sensitivity. You will be amazed at the precise feedback of your inputs of attention to detail when working with the Apple pencil on this screen.
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