Hands On With the Apple 9.7 Inch iPad Pro

Over the past few months I’ve been able to spend some quality time with the iPad Pro and I’ve found that while the iPad Pro isn’t quite a computer replacement in the sense that you should toss your laptop out, it is the first tablet that can actually justify itself relative to a phablet. With the 9.7” iPad Pro, Apple has been able to take the elements of the iPad Pro 12.9” that differentiated it from Android tablets and previous iterations of the iPad, and fit it in a smaller form factor.

The main points of differentiation that make this device more than an iPad Air 3 include the Apple Pencil, Smart Keyboard, and speakers. The Apple Pencil behaves identically relative to the larger device, but the smaller display size makes it feel more cramped. Other than this, the feel of the tip on the glass is identical, as is the pressure sensitivity, tilt sensitivity, and latency.

The Smart Keyboard for this version of the iPad Pro is significantly smaller than the version for the 13” iPad Pro. Right away it felt like it was a lot less comfortable to type on this iteration of the iPad Pro as a result as I couldn’t just rely on sheer muscle memory to place my fingers in the right place every time. However with some practice I was able to keep a typing pace that was pretty much identical, although it was relatively easy to make mistakes relative to a laptop keyboard because the keys are smaller so there’s less tolerance for errors in finger placement. With practice, like a smartphone keyboard, I’m sure it’ll be possible to type as quickly as you would on a laptop but I wasn’t able to reach that level of practice over the course of the two or so minutes I could spend with the keyboard.

Other than the size issue, everything else feels basically identical to the larger iteration of the Smart Keyboard. Those that love mechanical keyboards for their travel and tactile feedback will probably be disappointed by the feel, but I tend to bottom out keys no matter what keyboard I’m typing on so to me the relatively shallow travel of the keys was not a problem when it came to typing at a respectable rate.

Of course, the speakers are also shared with the iPad Pro, but in this case I wasn’t really able to test them properly as the hands on environment is rather chaotic and loud. I wouldn’t be surprised to know that the same speaker protection ICs are shared with the larger version of the iPad Pro for logistics reasons, but I wasn’t able to confirm that this is the case at the event. Similarly, the camera was not properly tested at the event as it wasn’t possible to do a proper comparison in the hands on environment.

The one other notable change that the 9.7” iPad Pro brings is True Tone display, which adjusts color temperature of the display based upon ambient light conditions. It turns out that this is something that you can toggle on and off on the fly, and the result that it produces seems to be designed to make the display more consistently neutral while other Apple mobile devices tend to end up with a colder white balance in most conditions. I didn’t see a toggle for color gamut, so it’s likely that the iPad Pro 9.7” is using either color management to enable a wider gamut on the fly or just displaying a wider color gamut all the time. To figure out which way Apple went here we’ll need to try a review unit, but given just how much emphasis Apple has placed on their displays I would be surprised if Apple wasn’t employing color management.

Other than these points of differentiation, the iPad Pro 9.7” pretty much feels like any other iPad. However, there are a few notable changes to the design, including a camera hump to handle the 12MP camera and replacing the large plastic RF window on the LTE variants with an external aluminum antenna and insulating plastic to separate it from the rest of the chassis. It’s appreciably lighter than the iPad Pro 13”, but feels pretty much identical to the iPad Air 2 in terms of size and weight.

Overall, if you liked the 13” iPad Pro but didn’t want to deal with the extra size or weight, it looks like this will be exactly what you’re looking for.

Apple Unveils The 9.7″ iPad Pro

Today at their March launch event Apple unveiled the iPhone SE, confirmed the official public release of iOS 9.3, and announced their newest standard sized tablet. For a while it was expected that this new tablet would be the iPad Air 3, which would make it a natural successor to the iPad Air 2. However, Apple has taken a different path with this launch and has instead opted to position this new tablet between the iPad Air 2 and the 12.9″ iPad Pro. The newest iPad is, somewhat confusingly, also called the iPad Pro, and I’ll be referring it to the iPad Pro 9.7″ in the same way that Apple differentiates their other products by the display size.

This new iPad Pro is a successor to the iPad Air 2 in some ways, but a new segment of the iPad line in others. For one, it doesn’t replace the iPad Air 2 in Apple’s product line – as is tradition, that has been demoted to second-tier and the $399 price point – and when it comes to pricing the new iPad Pro slots in above the old iPad price point. With a starting price of $599, the 9.7″ iPad Pro is a de facto price hike, as Apple is looking to create an even higher-end segment for the 9.7″ iPad that offers better features for a higher price.

From a technical perspective the 9.7″ iPad Pro is really a shrunken down iPad Pro, and it even pulls ahead of the larger model in some respects. The chart below summarizes the specs of the iPad Air 2, iPad Pro 12.9″ and the new iPad Pro 9.7″.

Looking at the specs of the 9.7″ iPad Pro makes it clear that it really is a smaller version of the 12.9″ model, and a true upgrade over the iPad Air 2. Starting with the SoC, we see a move from the A8X SoC in the iPad Air 2 to the A9X SoC that debuted with the 12.9″ iPad Pro. As of right now it’s not clear what max CPU clock speed of the A9X in the iPad Pro 9.7″ is, but Apple has historically shifted clock speeds down when moving chips into smaller devices, and it’s likely that clocks have been moved down from the 2.26GHz speed of the 12.9″ iPad Pro to maintain battery life and control the device’s thermal profile. With the GPU we’re looking at the same 12 cluster PowerVR Series7XT implementation, but it’s again not clear whether Apple has targeted the same peak clock speeds.

Currently the amount of RAM in the iPad Pro 9.7″ is unknown. The rumor mill has been claiming that it’s the same 4GB of LPDDR4 RAM that you get in the larger model, but this can’t be confirmed until the device is in the hands of users and developers. I’ve already covered in the past how split screen multitasking on the iPad Air 2 could potentially bring you up against the limit imposed by having 2GB of RAM, and with the iPad Pro being a device that markets itself as being capable of actual productivity tasks it would make sense that Apple brought the 4GB of RAM to the smaller model. On the other hand, the 9.7″ iPads don’t have the strain of running two essentially full sized applications side by side, so I wouldn’t want to make any predictions on what Apple has done here.

The display of the iPad Pro 9.7″ has the same 2048×1536 resolution of the iPad Air 2. Due to the way iOS handles rendering I really don’t expect we’ll see any improvements in resolution on the iPad until it’s viable to use 3072×2304 panels which would have a pixel density of 396ppi. Even though the resolution remains the same, the display itself is a newer generation panel that inherits the improved contrast and anti-reflective coating from the larger iPad Pro. The improved contrast is the result of Apple using photo alignment to create a more consistent orientation among the liquid crystals. The display’s digitizer maintains the 120Hz scan rate from the iPad Air 2, and gains the improved 240Hz scan rate from the 12.9″ iPad Pro when using Apple Pencil.

In addition to inheriting the advancements made with the 12.9″ model’s display, the 9.7″ iPad Pro comes with some tricks of its own. The first is an improved color gamut. Like the new iMac 4K and 5K, the iPad Pro 9.7″ adopts the DCI-P3 color gamut. I’m hoping that Apple has been secretly building color management into iOS in preparation for this, as there are going to be problems with oversaturation if they haven’t. The 9.7″ iPad Pro also improves luminance dramatically, with a peak brightness of 500 nits. Finally, there’s a new feature which Apple is calling the True Tone display, which measures the ambient brightness and color temperature and adjusts the display to match.

Something unique to the 9.7″ iPad Pro is its camera. The 12.9″ iPad Pro uses the same camera and lens stack from the iPad Air 2, which consists of an 8MP sensor with 1.1 micron pixels and a f/2.4 aperture. The 9.7″ iPad Pro comes with a 12MP PDAF sensor, which may be the same as the one used on the iPhone 6s. Whether it is or isn’t, it will provide a substantial upgrade over the camera shipping in the iPad Air 2 and iPad Pro, as those sensors are already a step behind the larger 8MP sensor used in the iPhone 6. The 12MP sensor enables 4K recording as well.

In all other respects, the 9.7″ iPad Pro is the same as its larger sibling. It comes in 32GB, 128GB, and 256GB storage configurations, and unlike the 12.9″ iPad Pro, Apple has LTE versions of all three configurations. It has the same 4 speaker configuration, and I’m interested to see how much space is taken internally by the speaking housing, as Apple is more constrained on space in the smaller chassis when balancing the battery capacity against speaker size. On the connectivity side we see that the WiFi is a 2×2 802.11ac implementation, along with Bluetooth 4.2 and Apple’s smart connector for connecting accessories like the new smaller Smart Keyboard along with other keyboards that will be made by vendors like Logitech.

The 9.7″ iPad Pro will be shipping on March 31. It comes in Rose Gold, which is unique to it among the iPads. It starts at $599 for the 32GB WiFi model, topping out at $899 for 256GB WiFi and $1029 for 256GB LTE. The Smart Keyboard is priced at $149, $20 less than the version for the larger iPad Pro. Meanwhile the Apple Pencil hasn’t changed at all, so it’s still an additional $99. With the iPad Air 2 starting at $399 for 16GB, the increased storage, accessory compatibility, improved display, and greatly improved performance of the iPad Pro 9.7″ is definitely tempting, although if you aren’t going to be using Apple Pencil you definitely have to consider if the $200 is worth it for you.

Huawei Enters The PC Market With The MateBook Convertible Tablet

Move over Microsoft. One of the world’s largest smartphone makers has decided to enter the PC marketplace with the launch of the MateBook 2-in-1 tablet. Well, maybe not, but they have certainly taken a page out of the Microsoft playbook with their first tablet. This is a 12-inch tablet with a 3:2 aspect ratio. If that sounds familiar, that’s because it’s exactly the same aspect ratio and size as the Surface Pro lineup. Just like Lenovo and others, manufacturers are seeing the relative success of the Surface Pro and want their own piece of the action. And that’s great for all of us.

Rather than compete head on with the Surface Pro though, Huawei has gone for a slightly different target. The MateBook is thinner, and lighter than the Surface Pro, and it is designed around the Core m platform, so it is completely fanless. Only the base model Surface Pro can be had with Core m. Other notable internal items are 4 or 8 GB of memory, and 128, 256, or 512 GB of SSD storage. Battery capacity is 33.7 Wh, and Huawei says this gives all day battery life, but we’ll have to see if that’s true. The tablet itself is only 6.9 mm thick and weighs just 640 grams (1.4 lbs). The MateBook also comes in several hundred dollars less than the Surface Pro, with a starting price of $699, and goes up to $1599 with Core m7, 8GB of RAM, and a 512 GB SSD. The display is a 12-inch 2160×1440 LCD.

You can’t compete against Surface Pro without accessories, and the MateBook has both an active pen and click on keyboard to transform it into a laptop. The keyboard has backlit keys with 1.5mm of travel, but the actual keys themselves are very much like the Surface Pro 3 keyboard rather than the much improved Surface Pro 4 design. The tablet also lacks a kickstand, and instead the keyboard dock does some clever folding to hold the display up when it’s docked. The keyboard connects with pogo pins, so you don’t have to worry about Bluetooth connectivity for the connection, or batteries in the cover. The cover will sell for $129.

The other accessory is an active pen, and while we don’t know the pen technology at this point, Huawei does say that it has 2048 levels of pressure sensitivity. It also features a laser pointer in the pen for use during presentations. The pen charges over USB, and one hour of charge gives one month of use.

It’s great to see a new entrance into the PC space, and Huawei has designed what looks to be a pretty nice tablet for their first attempt. The Surface Pro is definitely the inspiration for the MateBook, and that’s not a bad thing, but the keyboard has been improved a lot of the latest tablet from Microsoft, and the MateBook type cover appears to mimic the prior generation here. Also the display is a much lower resolution panel than the latest offering from Redmond, but it does match the well received Surface Pro 3 model. I’m very excited to see another entrant here though and hopefully we can get this in for review to see how it stacks up.