I WAS WRONG - iPad Pro 11 vs. 12.9 inch By Ali Abdaal

- Hey, friends, welcome back to the channel. In this video, I'm gonna be answering the question that has been plaguing philosophers since 2018. Do you go for the iPad Pro 11-inch, or do you go for the iPad Pro 12.9-inch? I've been using the 11-inch version every single day since 2018. It's gonna with me absolutely everywhere. I use it at work for several hours each day. You can tell from the state of the keyboard how beat up it is.

But having be experimenting with the 12.9-inch as my daily driver for the last week, I'm actually gonna switch and, in this video, I'll be breaking down the reasons for that, and I'll explain the rational. How do we decide between the 11 and the 12.9? We'll start of with a couple of assumptions about what sort of person should feasibly care about the difference between the 11-inch and the 12.9-inch, and then, we'll address the decision-making process in three ways. So firstly, portability. Secondly, capability. And thirdly, psychology.

That sounds pretty pretentious, doesn't it? It's pretty great. So two main assumptions before we dive into 11-inch versus 12.9-inch. Firstly, I assume that you've thought very hard about why you actually want an iPad Pro. If we're being honest, there are not many people in the world who actually need an iPad Pro. If you're a student, for sure.

I cannot imagine very many students at all needing an iPad Pro, and I've actually done a whole long video that recently hit one million views, actually, about which iPad you should buy. And the point I made in that video is that, really, the only reason to get an iPad Pro is, firstly, if you're an actual pro and need the pro levels of power, which the vast majority of people, including practically every student, and including myself, we really don't need the power of the Pro. But the second reason is that you just have the cash to burn and you want the very best tablet on the market. Because the iPad Pro is the very best tablet on the market. Because, honestly, if you are concerned about the $200 price difference between the two, I would tentatively suggest that, maybe, you don't quite have the cash to burn to actually get an iPad Pro and you'd be much better off with the iPad Air instead.

So the price is not gonna factor into the decision-making process about 11 versus 12.9. The assumption I'm making is that you want the very best for your needs, and you've justified the purchase of an iPad Pro to yourself to the point where $800 versus $1,000 doesn't actually make any difference. So those assumptions out of the way, let's get on to the three main factors that influence the decision-making process between the 11 and 12.9. So point number one is portability. Now, obviously, the 11-inch is more portable than the 12.9-inch. That is the single biggest factor in its favor, and actually, anytime people have asked me for the last two years that, you know, people always comment on my videos, "Bro, which iPad do you have? "Is it the 11? "Is it the 12.9. " I always tell them I've got the 11.

And whenever people ask, which do I prefer, I always used to say that much prefer the 11 because of the portability. I walk around the hospital every single day with my iPad in my hands for hours and hours each day. I can't imagine a use case for anyone else that requires portability more. Maybe, if you're on a film set and you're sort of, literally, carrying it around in your hand every single day. But, you know, I don't 10,000 steps a day walking in the hospital from ward to ward, from office to office, and the iPad's in my hands.

I care a lot about portability. And that was the main reason why I went for the 11-inch in the first place. But over the past week of using the 12.9-inch iPad as my daily driver and walking around with it in the hospital every single day for many hours. I've actually realized that the portability isn't as big a thing as I once thought it was. Yes, it's a little bit heavier carrying the 12.9-inch compared to carrying the 11-inch. But if you're carrying around an iPad, it doesn't actually make that much difference if it's like, you know, that much slightly wider.

And so, this whole thing about portability, I guess, if you're on an airplane and the table is very small, then maybe, the 11-inch, and maybe, if you only have that 11 inches of room. But, to be honest, if you got the 12.9-inch instead, then maybe, the keyboard can go off the edge a little bit. It doesn't actually make that much difference. Point number two is about capability. Now, everyone says that, well, you know, obviously, the 11-inch is more portable, but the 12.9-inch is better because it's a bigger screen and, therefore, you can do multitasking. And before, when I bought the 11-inch, I'd tried out the 12.9-inch multitasking in the Apple Store and stuff and decided that, eh, really, it's only 1.9 inches. What's the difference, really? How much better can it really be for multitasking? Again, I've had to change my mind on that front.

Having used this for the last week everyday, it just is better for multitasking. So if we open up Safari, this is one of the common use cases for me of the iPad Pro. So, you know, I've got Rome Research open on one side of the screen, and I've got Kindle open on the other side of the screen, and I'm taking notes from this book, ironically, or rather, very meta, very meta, it's about how to take smart notes. And I'm kind of writing a summary, I'm writing my thoughts, and kind of linking thoughts together in Rome. I'll be doing a much more detailed video about Rome in he future.

But the point is, on the iPad Pro 11-inch, it's fine. I mean, it does work and, for the first kind of few chapters of this book, I was taking the notes on the iPad Pro 11-inch. But then, I moved to the iPad Pro 12.9-inch. I think, it is significantly nicer having the bigger screen. Doing it on the 11-inch screen is fine.

You know, you can take something, you can highlight it, you can copy it. You can, I don't know, make something about a sled box. You can paste it. You can kind of do stuff in Rome. It's all very possible.

It's all completely fine. But it's just a bit nicer doing it on the 12.9-inch. You know, if you look in the overhead camera, there's more screen visible on both sides of it. So, especially, if I'm doing something like taking notes from a book, I get a little bit more context of where my notes are going, whereas, with the iPad Pro 11-inch, it's sort of at the point where, you know, if I was actually taking the notes here, where I can only really see one, two, three paragraphs, whereas, on the 12.9-inch, I can see one, two, three, four, probably, five paragraphs. It's just a little bit of a nicer experience using the iPad Pro 12.9-inch. And so, when I found myself using the 12.9-inch at work, when I had some downtime, the whole coronavirus situation means that, actually, there's not very many patients to see just yet. We're still waiting for the tsunami to hit us properly, at least, in the hospital where I am.

I had quite a few hours of spare time in the day. And so, I would sit in the hospital cafeteria two meters away from everyone else with the iPad Pro, and I just got more done. Secondly, the other factor of capability is that, apparently, the battery life of the 12.9-inch is about one or two hours better than the battery life for the 11-inch. But really, the iPad Pro last all day. The iPad Pro 12.9-inch lasts all day. I don't notice much of a difference and, either way, if I'm gonna be using either of them absolutely all day, then I do bring the charger along.

It's not like having the 12.9-inch means that I don't have to carry a charger because, even so, if I'm using it very, very heavily, the battery still down run out just about by the end of the day, especially, if I'm at a long 13-hour shift. And finally, let's talk about what I think is actually the most important factor for me to switch to the 12.9-inch, and that is the psychology of what is an iPad and what are we using it for? So for me, the iPad is very much a creation device. It's not a consumption device. Literally, I don't have a Netflix subscription. I don't spend a lot of time binging YouTube videos.

The other day, I decided, you know what? For the first time in a year, I'm gonna let myself watch a TV show, and I watched two episodes of The Mandalorian before getting bored and realizing that, actually, I much prefer to do something productive than to chill out by watching a TV show. Anyway, so it's not a consumption device. But having said that, obviously, the 12.9-inch is a bigger screen. It's nicer for watching stuff on it if you're lying in bed, or watching with the family, or whatever. But as I was saying, for me, the iPad Pro is very much a creation device.

It's something that lets me get work done and, mainly, the work that I'm doing is, you know, content creation, and managing my businesses, and managing the YouTube channel, and writing for my email newsletter, and planning out podcast episodes for the weekly podcast I do with my brother and, you know, that sort of solopreneur creator-type work. And, for the last two years, I've been really happy with the iPad Pro 11-inch from 2018. Having this iPad and taking it with me everywhere has objectively allowed me to create more stuff than I wouldn't have done otherwise and, therefore, you know, it absolutely more than pays for itself in the amount of extra stuff I've managed to create, because all the stuff that I'm creating is monetized to some degree or another. When I use my iPad Pro 11-inch, I'm more more tempted just to sort of screw around. I've got the Instagram app and it's, sometimes, I'm ashamed to say this, but I've found myself just screwing through Instagram on my iPad kind of with my head tilted over because, for some reason, they don't let you tilt the screen around, or I just sort of reply to comments on YouTube videos, which is fine, but it's not objectively adding very much value in terms of what else I could be doing with my time.

When I switched to the iPad Pro 12.9-inch, it just feels like a more legitimate device. It feels like a device that, when I get it out and, you know, put the screen up and start typing on the keyboard, when I'm doing that, the mindset that I've got is that I'm here to do work. And so, on those many hours of kind of downtime when I was at work this week using this iPad Pro 12.9-inch, I actually got more stuff done than I would've done with the iPad Pro 11-inch because of that slight shift in psychology that this feels like a beefy sort of device. For example, I don't waste a lot of time when I've got my 15-inch MacBook Pro around because, you know, lugging around a 15-inch MacBook Pro, popping it on the table, and then, putting the screen up, at least to me, it feels like I'm there to do work and, therefore, I do work. Or if I get my phone out, to an extent, I can get stuff done on my phone.

But really, the phone for me is a consumption device. When I get my phone out, I'm probably gonna be browsing Instagram, I'm probably gonna be wasting time watching a YouTube video or something like that. But when I get the iPad Pro 12.9-inch around, it feels more like the MacBook Pro, whereas, the iPad Pro 11-inch, maybe, this is because I've been using it for so long, but iPad Pro 11-inch almost feels a little bit more like my iPhone in that, I get it out, and then, I'm quite happy to sort of waste time doing non-creation-y, nonproductive activities. That's why I'm switching to the iPad Pro 12.9-inch. Because, for me, really, the main thing is that I wanna be able to create more stuff.

If, over a two-year period, until the next iPad Pro comes out, or maybe, even six months time, however the analysts are saying, over that kind of time period, if I can even make one more video, because the slightly-increased productivity because of the psychology for the iPad Pro 12.9-inch, if I can make even one more video compared to the iPad Pro 11-inch, that will have paid for itself easily. It is absolutely a no-brainer to go for the thing that very slightly increases my chances of doing some productive on it. So that is sort of the psychology of the iPad Pro 12.9-inch. And this is something I didn't hear anyone talk about when I was kind of extensively researching 11-inch versus 12.9-inch the first time around, because, I guess, it's just something that's not very quantifiable, right, and in this kind of tech YouTube world, it makes a lot of sense. People are very editorial.

They're very sort of quantified. They're very, you know, wanna give the information as impartially as possible. But, for me, it's just, I think, the psychology is important to keep in mind. Now, what about if you're a student? I've got a big audience of students. I was certainly a student, and I really started kind of using the iPad Pro 2017 when I was a student, and that was one of the things that helped this channel take off.

If you're a student, firstly, I would say that you really don't need an iPad Pro. Just get an iPad Air, please. But if you're a student and you've got the cash to burn, or your parents are buying it for you, or you just really want the best thing ever, or you're somehow convincing yourself that, actually, longevity-wise, I guess, an iPad Pro will last five years, whereas, an iPad Air will only last four years and, therefore, that cost is worth it over time. You know, I've been through this whole process. I know how we justify these purchases to ourselves.

But, let's say, you've justified the purchase of an iPad Pro. Do you go for the 11, do you go for the 12.9? Honestly, if I were having my student days again, I would go for the 12.9. I went for the 11, I love the size of the 11. The 11 is great. You can take it anywhere.

You can do what you want on it. But again, it just comes down to the psychology of it. I can't think of many circumstances in which you're so limited by space that you have to, that you're only allowed to use 11 inches worth of space, and that extra 1.9 inches of the 12.9-inch, I can't think of any circumstances in which you'd be in a position where the 11-inch would be the difference between getting your iPad out and not getting your iPad out. And that's the difference, isn't it? That's the thing we have to wonder about. Because, you know, if this iPad Pro was 15 inches, then there would be a lot of circumstances, for example, if we're cramped in tiny lecture theater and all we've got is our laps, even then, 15 inches is probably still doing.

But, you know, or if you're on an airplane where the table is nowhere near big enough for a 15-inch tablet or a 15-inch laptop, then fine. You know, if you have a 15-inch iPad, in those circumstances, you wouldn't use it and, therefore, getting the 11-inch would be better for you. But, realistically, 11-inch versus 12.9-inch, does it actually make a difference? Some of our lecture theaters in Cambridge, they were quite cramped, they were quite small. But still, an 11-inch fit comfortable and a 12.9-inch would've fit, as well. Maybe, not comfortable, but when an iPad is the only device that you have on the table, you know, what does it matter if there's a little bit hanging off the edge, or if it's a bit of a tight squeeze on the table, rather than you've got a little, you've got the extra 1.9 inches of room. So, honestly, if I were a student again, I would just go for the 12.9-inch assuming, of course, that, A, I was going for the iPad Pro and, B, that money was no object and this 200 pound price tag difference did not phase me in the slightest. So, yeah, that's kind of the decision-making process between the 11-inch and 12.9-inch, at least, for me. If you have other thoughts on this, I'd love to hear them in the comments.

Maybe, we can start a dialogue. But one of my students, actually, wanted to buy the iPad Pro 11-inch off me. He saw my video and he said, "Hey, my brother's going to university. "Can I buy that off you?" And that was around the time where I was experimenting with the 12.9. And then, I was thinking, oh, I now have a very good reason to just swap to the 12.9. Because when I initially made my review of the iPad Pro, I said publicly on the internet that, hey, look, you know, I'm just gonna keep my 2018 model.

I'm not gonna switch to the 2020 model because there's literally no point because there's no difference. Then, the student came along and said he wanted to buy this one off me. So now, I can sell my 11-inch, and then, just move to the 12.9-inch. Before we stop, I just wanna, you know, if you're wondering, this iPad 11-inch has the Paperlike screen protector on it. They're not sponsoring this video, but I've got an affiliate link in the video description.

It's my favorite iPad screen protector of all time. I'll admit, I've not actually tried any others, but this is just clearly the best one on the market and there's all sorts of videos on YouTube from artists talking about how amazing it is. Actually, now when I test new iPads and see the glossy screen, I really don't like it because, you know, my fingers scrolling through the kind of matte screen protector on the Paperlike feels a lot better to me, I guess, because I'm used to it, then the slightly sticky glossy screen of the non-screen-protected one. And, obviously, when I'm using the Apple Pencil, write on a gloss screen just feels a bit more grim compared to writing on the Paperlike screen protector, which does feel a lot like actually writing on paper. And so, having the Paperlike screen protector, yes, it's like $29, or $35, or something stupid like that, it's quite expensive for a screen protector, but do you really wanna protect your $1,000-pound iPad with a $2 screen protector.

Also, it's just so nice that it encourages me more to take notes and draw spiral diagrams and stuff with the Apple Pencil. And so, that's why I wholeheartedly recommend the iPad Pro screen protector for everyone. I put an affiliate link in the video description. If you buy it using that link, I make enough money for a cup of coffee, so feel free to buy it. If you want, you can just go to paperlike.

com, if you really wanted to deprive me of that cup of coffee but you still want it. That's fine, I really don't mind. Yeah, Paperlike protector, it's great, so I'm gonna be buying one for the 12.9-inch, and then, I'll be selling this one to my student. So thank you, Roy, for buying this one off me. You're great, and you've given me a good excuse to switch to the 12.9-inch because, otherwise, I don't think I'd have been able to justify that decision. Thank you so much for watching.

If you like this video, I linked to some other ones about iPad themed things like which iPad should you buy and my review of the 2020 iPad Pro. Thank you so much for watching and I'll see you in the next video. Bye-bye. (gentle music).

Source : Ali Abdaal