HUGE MISTAKE!!! M1 MacBook Pro vs 2020 iPad Pro! By Tech Gear Talk

If you're, looking for a powerful and portable Apple device, you're likely considering the m1 MacBook Pro and the 2020 iPad Pro both bring very impressive processing power to the table and combine it with a beautiful display, great speaker and excellent user experience. So, let's put these two head to head. Look at the good and the bad and figure out which option will work best for what you need what's up saga here and welcome to another tech gear. Talk, I'm going to compare two excellent options and talk about my real life experience using them as my main device. I will include, but not focus on the specs, and I will always try to put them in context of how they actually impacted my experience. Both devices performed very well, but I did find that I was consistently reaching for one over the other.

Depending on what I was doing. I want to start off by talking about design because intentionally at their core, taking away performance, benchmarks and tests, discussions about screen resolutions and app compatibility. The MacBook Pro and the iPad Pro have fundamentally different designs which carry different implications for this video. I'm using the 2020 12.9-inch iPad Pro and the 2020 m1 MacBook Pro, which, in terms of sheer form factor for portability, are quite similar. The iPad Pro also comes in an 11-inch version, which will shrink both the form factor and the price.

The iPad Pro is slightly lighter than the MacBook Pro, but that advantage goes away when you add an accessory like the magic keyboard which I'll talk about later on. I never use my iPads without at least a case that covers the back and protects the front so for how I use my iPad. The difference in size and weight isn't meaningful and for it to be a true comparison, we are talking about some sort of keyboard case, otherwise using the iPad as the main device is a non-starter, at least for me, there's just no way that I could manage the amount of typing that I have to do on a regular basis using the on-screen keyboard on the iPad Pro and this transitions us nicely to talking about the keyboard and trackpad functionality. For the most part, the keyboard and trackpad combo that you see used most often is the apple magic keyboard which costs 350 bucks for the 12.9-inch iPad. Pro I've used the magic keyboard with the iPad Pro and the iPad Air 4, and if you want to see a dedicated review of it, check the video up in the corner when working on my desk, the typing experience with the magic keyboard is good, but not as good as the MacBook Pro in terms of the keyboard size, they're, almost identical, but the keys on the MacBook Pro have a nicer feel to them and provide more tactile feedback.

Both keyboards are backlit, but the MacBook Pro keys seem to stay on longer and offer more control, whereas the magic keyboard keys seem to turn off fairly quickly when working with the device on your lap or laying in bed. The advantage of the MacBook Pro is much more noticeable. The device is much better balanced, with the majority of the weight being at the bottom, keeping the notebook stable while you're typing, and even when you take your hands off the board, the magic keyboard iPad. Pro combo is top heavy, and it's much less stable and much more likely to tip over as you shift position or if it's in a slight downward angle. The magic keyboard also lacks a row of function, keys that we see on something like the Logitech folio touch, and it's definitely a feature that I'd like to see apple add in the next version.

In contrast, the MacBook Pro has a touch bar, which is an OLED strip that provides shortcuts to the most commonly used tasks, and it changes depending on which app you're using having this added functionality plus the versatility to customize. It is a major productivity advantage to the MacBook Pro now. Moving on to the trackpad, the magic keyboard probably has my favorite trackpad of a keyboard. Trackpad combo, it's precise, responsive, and it clicks perfectly every time, regardless of where, on the trackpad, you press and while that gives it an advantage over the trackpad on something like the Logitech folio touch, it can compete with a larger and better MacBook Pro trackpad. This thing is an absolute beast, and it's my favorite trackpad on any laptop and the advantage isn't just one of size.

The actual cursor functionality on iPadOS isn't as good as macOS like sure it's better than not having a cursor at all, but the circular cursor is frustratingly less precise than the traditional arrow, and it doesn't allow me to place the cursor in the middle of the word when I'm using something like Google Docs. Unless I do a hard press and then drag the cursor, it's not the end of the world, but it's a less elegant user experience than the MacBook Pro where you can just simply click where you want the cursor to move to another important difference between these devices has to do with biometric authentication, where the MacBook Pro uses the touch ID sensor on the top right of the keyboard and the iPad Pro uses face ID due to the true depth front facing camera. Now I'll get into the difference in terms of image quality later on in the video. So for now, I'm just going to address the authentication function. For the majority of my use cases, I'm using both devices around the house or in my office, so I'm not wearing a mask.

I absolutely love the face ID on the iPad Pro because I don't actually have to think about. On the other hand, if I was working in an environment where I was wearing a mask, then naturally the touch ID on the MacBook Pro would be ideal. Now I do want to mention that, because my hands are already on the keyboard, when I'm using the MacBook Pro having to use the touch, ID doesn't really feel like it's a disruption of my workflow, like it sometimes does with the iPad, 8 or air 4, where I have to reach for the button in either cases the touch ID or the face ID works much better than having to type the password every time. So both options work really well, and it will really depend on how and where you plan on using your device. Next, I want to talk about multitasking and file management and, depending on how familiar you are with iPadOS, it does offer improved native multitasking.

You can have multiple windows of safari open each with multiple tabs. You can have multiple apps open side by side, and you can allocate real estate to where each of the app gets half the screen, or you can split it into one third and two thirds. Furthermore, you can also have multiple additional apps open in a hidden slide out window and then access or alternate between them as needed, and I think that without question this is a good step forward for multitasking on a tablet, but without question. The MacBook Pro has the advantage here, because macOS is simply much better suited for multitasking being a dedicated computer OS things like opening, multiple, apps, switching and then resizing windows just a lot more intuitive. There are also some practical and functional advantages when using something like Zoom going back to the iPad.

While we can use split screen, those apps must be open from the dock, which is not always convenient. There are also apps that don't allow you to multitask and there's no way to show or hide the slide over apps without touching the screen again. I want to mention that this is better than not having the ability to multitask at all, but the MacBook Pro multitasking experience is much more streamlined when it comes to file management. I don't think this needs to be a long discussion. There have been some improvements on iPadOS, but its nowhere near the capabilities we're getting with the MacBook Pro and macOS.

Next, I want to talk about the cameras, speakers and microphone, because I know that a lot of us are doing a ton of video calls. I thought the iPad Pro would win this in a landslide and it sort of does, but not in every case. The camera on the MacBook Pro is still an older 720p camera versus 1080p camera on the iPad. Pro apple did make some improvements to the MacBook pros camera with the new image signal processor, but its nowhere near the quality of the iPad Pro front facing camera. So in terms of sheer image, quality sharpness, dynamic range, the iPad Pro camera is the clear winner, but when it comes to actually using the camera, it's a little of a different story, and I see this happening a lot in the photo and video world where people get hung up on the specs, and they overlook user experience.

So if you're using the camera for zoom or video calls where you're attaching a keyboard to the iPad Pro, so it's in landscape mode, then you run into a couple of problems. First, the camera is on the side, so you're framed kind of strangely, and you look like you're looking off to the side on the MacBook Pro, the camera is centered, so you're always looking right at the screen, and you appear to be looking at the person you're having a conversation with next is the height the iPad Pro camera is in the middle of the side. So it's at a much lower angle. Looking up at you, which isn't great the MacBook Pro camera is at the top of the screen. So it's a much better angle.

Now, of course, if you're using the iPad Pro in portrait mode, then these two advantages go away and everything swings back in favor of the iPad Pro with a centered camera that is mounted higher and provides a much better angle and better image quality. The iPad Pro also has the advantage, if you're trying to create content with two high resolution, rear-facing cameras and a LIDAR scanner. Of course, the MacBook Pro is not really designed for you to create content with, but if you're looking for a dual-purpose device, the iPad Pro is a better choice: I'm putting together a more detailed camera comparison with tips on how to improve quality, and I'll add it up in the corner and at the end of the video as soon as it's published. Now, let's get to the speakers. The iPad Pro has an outstanding system with four speakers located at the narrow ends.

Next to each of the four corners, these speakers automatically adjust their output depending on the orientation of the device. Now, in contrast, the MacBook Pro has stereo speakers that are located on each side of the keyboard. The iPad Pro speakers are louder and, in my opinion, provide a fuller, sound with a wider sound stage, even at a hundred percent, which is as loud as I could imagine, wanting a tablet to be the mid and highs aren't overwhelming and there's a decent amount of bass. The speakers on the MacBook Pro are about as good as I've heard on a laptop, but the iPad Pro speakers are definitely the best speakers that I've heard on a tablet. If you watched all the iPad content that I put out, comparing the iPad 8 air 4 and the iPad Pro, you know that you're getting better audio as you move up in a price range and the iPad Pro takes a big step even from the iPad Air 4.

Now both devices support wireless and wired headphones, but the MacBook Pro has a 3.5 millimeter headphone jack, whereas with the iPad Pro, you will need to use a dongle or a hub now. Finally, I want to mention the microphones, where I think it's best to just do a couple of sound tests. So this is a test of the iPad Pro microphone. I moved the iPad to the side, so I'm sitting right in front of the camera and of course, I'm not looking at the screen, I'm looking straight at the camera, and hopefully this gives you a pretty good idea of what the iPad microphone is going to sound like and here's a test of the MacBook pros camera. I have the MacBook Pro the same distance.

Furthermore, I'd have it from me if I was just typing on it and of course I can look right at the screen, because the camera is right above where I would be looking, and the device is centered right in front of me because again, the camera is centered on the device. So hopefully this gives you a pretty good idea of what the MacBook Pro microphone is going to sound like, in my opinion, the microphone on the MacBook Pro sounds better. It's warmer, fuller and less harsh. Both would do a fine job for video calls, but I'd love to know in the comment section which one you think sounds better now, of course, if the best audio quality is your goal, you'll always want to go with an external microphone. Now before I move on to the next section, if you like what you've seen so far and have gotten value from this video, let me know by giving it a thumbs up.

It helps the video and the channel, and it lets me know what kind of content you like, so that I can make more of it and if it's your first time here, hit to subscribe and notification buttons, so you can stay up to date on all the latest apple gear and tutorials. Next, I want to talk about the displays, so the MacBook Pro has a 13.3 inch, retina IPS display with 227 pixels per inch. The iPad Pro has a 12.9 inch, liquid retina IPS display with 264 pixels per inch, and even though the MacBook Pro display is slightly larger. The iPad Pro has a higher resolution at 2732 by 2048 versus 2560 by 1600. It's also 20 brighter at 600 nits versus 500 nits on the MacBook Pro both are DC, ip3 displays, which offer a wider color gamut for more accurate color reproduction and both offer true tone where a sensor on the device measures, the color temperature in your environment and then adjusts the screen, so that white always appears as white rather than yellow or blue.

Now, the iPad Pro is also a pro motion display with a maximum refresh rate of 120 hertz versus 60 hertz on the MacBook Pro. This offers more fluid scrolling, greater responsiveness and smoother motion content. It's also responding to the type of content, that's being displayed and then adjusting the refresh rate on the fly in order to conserve battery life now. Finally, the iPad Pro, of course, has a touch screen, which is a huge advantage in and of itself, especially when it's used as a tablet, rather than as a laptop replacement. It also opens the door to using the Apple Pencil too, which is an outstanding tool for drawing note-taking and photo editing.

In my opinion, the iPad Pro has the better display it's brighter. It's sharper, it's more crisp. So the image really seems to pop it has a higher potential refresh rate, and it's a touch screen which comes with a host of advantages. The MacBook Pro has a different advantage with the ability to use an external display to actually extend your desktop space, whereas the iPad Pro can only mirror what you see on the actual display, and you'll get the ugly black bars on the side unless you use an app and even if you use something like shift screen, it's still cumbersome, it's limited in functionality, and it's nowhere near as good as an actual extended display. Now, speaking of accessories, we already discussed a magic keyboard or some other keyboard that you'll need for this to be a fair comparison and the Apple Pencil.

But I also want to mention a few other accessories that you'll want to consider I'm finishing up a dedicated video for each device, but I wanted to mention three that I use with both for a mouse. I opted for the Logitech MX master 3 for mac. I've been using this line of mice from Logitech for over 10 years, and I absolutely love it. This is the latest model and, like the previous ones, it's extremely comfortable, and I can pair it with up to three devices right now. It's set up to control my Mac mini my MacBook Pro and my iPad Pro, and I can just use the button on the bottom to toggle between the three devices.

The next accessory is an external SSD and in this case the Samsung t7 I'll talk about it more in the configuration section, but it's a much more cost-effective method for adding storage. Now. Finally, I use an USB hub. The iPad Pro has one USB port and the MacBook Pro has two which obviously give it the edge, but I still have some USB a device and I always need a card reader or a connection to an external display. So I have this small USB hub with me.

Wherever I go, I do wish that apple put one port on each side of the MacBook Pro so that I can charge it from either direction and before getting to the configuration options and recommendations, I want to discuss the processing power and actually using these devices for work. I've run a ton of tests and benchmarks on both devices and in this video I'm not going to list them for a few reasons. So, first they would double the length of this video, so instead I'll just create a dedicated video for them and second, they measure very specific tasks in very controlled environments. So they don't always reflect real life use, but I'll talk about that more in their respective videos. What I will share with you here is that the MacBook Pro is a much more powerful device for both single core and multi-core performance.

Don't get me wrong for a tablet. The iPad Pro is a monster in terms of performance, but if you're looking for the most processing power, if you're deciding factor is raw power, then the MacBook Pro with the m1 chip integrated ram, more ram at the baseline 8 gigs, which is then upgradeable to 16 gigs and a cooling fan for sustained performance is your answer, or maybe the MacBook Air, but we'll get to that in another video. There are also some important OS based considerations, so the iPad Pro comes with an impressive iOS, app ecosystem and there are some extremely powerful options for pretty much any task that you can imagine, but it still doesn't support desktop software and while I can definitely use Lightroom affinity photo and suffusion on the iPad Pro personally, I prefer to complete most of those tasks on a laptop. The exception would be doing editing in Lightroom, while using the Apple Pencil too, that that's been a game changer, but when it comes to actually managing a lot of files, now, I'm back to preferring the MacBook Pro. The MacBook Pro does have the option to run some iOS apps, which is cool for apps, that don't have a desktop countertop or a web-based interface.

But I find that most of the time those apps are designed with a touch interface that doesn't translate perfectly to a laptop, whether this works or not, for you is going to be very specific to what you plan on doing with the device. So, if you're happy with iOS apps for your specific needs and workflow, the iPad Pro is awesome. If you prefer professional native desktop apps, then grab a MacBook Pro now there are a couple more things that I think could be helpful when making a decision. The iPad Pro is available with a cellular option, whereas the MacBook Pro is not now. Obviously that lets you use the iPad Pro in areas that don't have Wi-Fi, but you'll need an additional data plan.

What I end up doing with both devices is, if I'm in an area that doesn't have Wi-Fi, I just tether off my iPhone, so I can use my existing unlimited plan now the final and kind of silly difference, I'm almost embarrassed to mention it, but the iPad has no calculator app like what's the story with that. I know that I can use the spotlight search to perform calculations, and I know that I can download an app, but it's something that I use on my desktop and laptops and my iPhone all the time, and it would just been awesome if it was there in the control center. Okay. So now, let's talk about the price and configuration options for the iPad Pro since there's no performance or feature difference between the 11 and 12.9 inch models. You can get the 11 inch 128 gig model for 799 and go all the way up to the one terabyte model for 12.99. But since we used the 12.9 inch Wi-Fi only model for this comparison, the 128 gig version will cost you 9.99 going to 256 will be 1099 512 for 12.99 and then one terabyte for 14.99 and all models come with six gigs of ram with the MacBook Pro 999. Bucks will get you eight gigs of ram and 256 gigs of internal storage.

You can then upgrade the ram to 16 gigs for another 200 bucks. And then, if you want to upgrade the internal storage, you can go to 512 for 200 bucks, one terabyte for 400 bucks and then all the way up to 2 terabytes for an additional 800 bucks. In both cases you can buy an external SSD and add a ton of external storage for a lot less than the cost of updating the internal storage. But there are different implications for each device. The iPad Pro has limitations in the type of data that you can use on an external drive, namely photo and video files.

If you need to edit those files, you can preview them on the external SSD, but you'll need to copy them over to the internal storage. If you want to edit or use them on the MacBook Pro you'll be able to preview and use the files while they're on the external drive, without needing to copy them onto the internal storage. Now I discussed this in more detail in my dedicated iPad videos and since not every user is a photographer or video editor I'll leave it at that, and you can just check out those videos if you're interested in more information and this price comparison doesn't even take into account the fact that you would still need to invest in a keyboard, slash trackpad combo, to get comparable functionality now. Naturally, if you want to look at the other side of the coin, you could say that the iPad can be used as a tablet when you don't need the keyboard, where that's obviously not something that you can do on the MacBook Pro. So it really depends on what you want to use it for all right.

So now, let's sum things up and see which device would work better for you. I would buy the MacBook Pro if you want the most power and upgrade options need to run desktop software need more built-in ports, much better file management, better multitasking capabilities, better external display functionality, better trackpad or mouse user experience and better camera usability and microphone for video calls again not a better camera in terms of quality. But in terms of how most people do video calls for work. I would get the iPad Pro if you want a device that you can use as a laptop and as a tablet. If you don't multitask extensively, if you want a touch screen Apple Pencil, 2 compatibility, which is going to be a big selling point for some users, a brighter display, with a faster refresh rate and better speakers now I want to know what you think.

So in the comment section, let me know which one of these devices you would get and what you would use it for I'll put links in the description to where you can buy the iPad Pro and the m1 MacBook Pro, as well as the accessories that I mentioned in this video. I really hope that I was able to give you a good comparison of the 2020 iPad Pro and the m1 MacBook Pro. If I did please, let me know by giving this video a thumbs up, tweet it share it and if you haven't yet join the community by hitting to subscribe and notification buttons, you can always find me on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook at tech gear talk. You know what I always say: buy it nice or buy twice good luck and see you soon.

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