iPad 5 in 2021 - worth it? (Review) By 91Tech

This is the iPad also commonly referred to as the cheap one. You know that 300 odd dollar, one apple sells well. This was actually the first one of that line, and it was released in early 2017. And I just bought it directly from Apple refurbished, hey how's, it's going I'm josh from 91 tech, and today we're going to be taking a look at the 9.7 inch, 2017 iPad 5th generation. How does it hold up almost four years later now? Some might be surprised right off the bat that apple still sells such an old device, but uh they don't actually at least not any more refurbished products tend to come and go really quickly, depending on the stock available, and you can see what's around by going to apple's site and scrolling to the bottom, where it says refurbished and clearance. This is where this iPad popped up.

In fact, right now you can see they have the 7th gen iPad, although it is out of stock. The iPad 5 costed me about 269 Canadian, which translates roughly to about 200 bucks us the iPad 8. Currently, the best cheap iPad costs 330 dollars. So I essentially saved 130 bucks by getting this nearly four-year-old device. Okay, so that's not a fantastic deal, I'll admit it, but I don't think that's so much the fault of this iPad as it is the iPad 8 just being perfect value, because I'll be frank, the iPad 5 for 200 has kind of blown me away.

It is much, much better than I expected, but I'll get to all that. So, let's back up here and start with the design of the iPad 5th generation. There's no question that this is a massively different iPad from its predecessor, the iPad 4. , and it isn't really fair to call the iPad for its predecessor, given that it came out in 2012 and the iPad 5 5 years later, but going by apple's naming scheme. This is technically true, as apple brought back the base iPad line to fulfill their budget iPad roll and the iPad 5 has quickly been replaced by the 6, 7 and 8 in the past few years.

The designs have stayed basically the same across the board, with the only difference being a small decrease in the bezels, but otherwise this thin and light all aluminum iPad perfectly holds up. I've always liked this look and while some might criticize apple from not moving on from it sooner I'd, say hey. If it ain't broke, don't fix it for colors, we've got some pretty basic options in silver, gold and space gray. I of course have space gray, which has always been my favorite iPad color, as I like, the black bezels and the bezels are fairly thick, but I don't really mind too much because you know when you're holding the iPad, it's kind of nice to hold it by the bezels, and we also do have a terrific touch I'd home button on the bottom. That works perfectly for an iPad like this, of course, on the bottom of the device.

Is the lightning port same as the iPad 8 and on the top we have the headphone jack a feature that has now been killed on both the iPad Air and pro lines. Sadly enough and the lightning port has as well actually USB-C is both on the air and the iPad Pro the 9.7 inch retina display looks pretty great, with a healthy resolution of 1536 by 2048 and pixel density of 264 pixels per inch. This is the same basic display, Apple's been using forever, and it looks perfect. Although this screen isn't laminated, which is annoying. This means there's a bit of a gap between the top glass and the LCD itself.

So when you touch the iPad, it doesn't really feel like you're touching the display it feels kind of like you're touching above the display, because you are, it's just not right at your fingertips like it is with nicer, newer iPads, and this goes the same for the 8th generation iPad as well. It's something that I don't usually notice, but it is worth mentioning it's just the way apple cuts costs which may or may not be a dealbreaker for some of you. Try it out in a store if you're not really sure what I mean. We also don't have true tone, which is a nice little feature that can help the screen feel more natural in different settings. So that's a pity also.

We don't have Apple Pencil support at all here, which is really a pity. The iPad 6 would get this the next year, but I wish it was on here, because the Apple Pencil is a lot of fun to use and to me feels just right on an iPad, but anyone getting this iPad in today's world, or even still using it, probably is on a budget anyways and wouldn't be looking to drop another hundred bucks on what is essentially just a glorified stylus, even if it is a very, very good, glorified, stylus and, of course, there's no smart connector, which means those fancy apple, keyboards, won't work here, and you'll need to find a different option. At the end of the day, this is one of the most basic iPad designs apple's ever had, but I think that can be easily excused by the cheap price point and even now, when the price is kind of irrelevant, I think the design can still be excused, even without any of the new features that we appreciate, because it's functional and that's really what's important. It's light, it's easy to use and bring around and as far as tablets go, this iPad still holds up really well. Functionality is important, and this iPad does it well, but you know what isn't important on a tablet.

The camera yeah iPads have camera, but they historically haven't been very good, and this iPad isn't an exception. The main sensor on the back is 8 megapixels and can take very mediocre photos. I'm not sure if I'd call them bad heck, they might even be borderline acceptable for a tablet. This thing can also film 1080p video, if you're recording with your tablet, for some reason, because I mean you shouldn't record video with your tablet and that goes for taking photos as well. I don't see many situations why you'd use an iPad over your phone for taking pictures.

Your phone is very, very likely going to be better, and it's probably more comfortable to actually you know hold up and so yeah. That's why the camera really isn't important here, but for the few cases where the camera might be nice, like FaceTime or whatever, this iPad will get the job done, although that selfie camera does leave a lot to be desired, with only 1.2 megapixels and 720p video, it's bad like awful for 2017 and while yeah again, this is a tablet, FaceTime or zoom or whatever, isn't an uncommon use case for tablets. So a better front-facing camera would have been nice. So, even though this iPad was meant to be really cheap from the gecko, I do think apple probably could have put a better selfie camera in this thing, when it comes to old or cheap iPads, you can't expect a good camera, but what you can expect is a good battery and this iPad with its newly replaced battery thanks to it being refurbished, is great. Battery life has been very good for me, as the iPad lasts at least a couple of days without charge, even with a decent amount of use.

The battery itself is sized at 8 827 William hours and that's about what you'd expect and want for an iPad like this, although if you buy this iPad second hand, and it's been used consistently over the past few years, the battery might have degraded, and it may not be terrific. What is terrific or was terrific, I should say, is the technical specifications for early 2017? It's exactly what you would want on a budget Apple device, the a9 chipset and two gigabytes of ram along with either 32 or 128 gigabytes of storage. This is pretty solid, and it still has full support on iPadOS 14. Today it started off with iOS 10.3. For some perspective, will this iPad get iPadOS? 15? That's a good question and, to be honest, I do not know apple's patterns with dropping support have been kind of all over the place the last couple of years, so it could really go either way, although there are lower spec iPads such as the iPad Mini 4, with the a8 chipset still fully supported, so that might be a good sign and here's the thing based on patterns I'd, say: no, this iPad probably won't get iPadOS 15.

And it very well could, but it also likely probably won't you know. I don't want to raise expectations, but I'm actually, okay with it not getting the new update, which will be at the end of 2021, and the reason for that is because this thing is performing fantastically for its age on iPad. Os 14. Like this does not feel like a device with a five-year-old chipset. When I first got it and started messing around with it, I actually thought maybe I was wrong.

I had it in my head that this thing had the a9 which it does, but I start to think maybe it was actually the a10 because it felt so fast, but no it's the a9. This iPad is just really well optimized. Now, of course, it's not perfect. The OS feels perfect and most apps I've tried to seem to work without a hitch, but you probably will have slow-downs here and there maybe more frequently than me. It may not be your personal experience to have good performance, and I'm probably helped by the fact that this thing does have a brand-new battery and a fresh installation of software, but even so, I'm very impressed with how the iPad 5 has held up, especially given nearly four years ago it only costed a bit over 300.

This was the budget device nearly four years ago, and not only is it usable today it feels pleasant. What does this tell us that the iPad 5 is actually worth picking up? No, you shouldn't buy this thing anymore. I mean, unless you find like a perfect deal, that you really want for 200. It is worth it doesn't get me wrong, but the iPad 8 for just over 300 bucks is way more worth it, and this iPad shows us why it shows us how well apple is setting up their cheap iPad line in terms of specs and performance. The iPad 8 could last another four or five years, if not longer, and yeah you'll probably want to buy a new tablet before then anyways, but it's still very impressive that you probably wouldn't have to it's just fantastic.

I think this iPad perfectly shows why Apple is the best when it comes to tablets nowadays, and it isn't even close. But with that I'm about done here. This iPad has blown me away. It's good, almost even great, and I likely will end up legitimately using it, as I don't currently own a better iPad. I have been using it since I got it, it works, it works.

Well, it streams YouTube Netflix, whatever you want. This is a fully functional tablet. That'll do what you'd want a tablet to do, despite its age and cheap nature? Should you buy it again? No, the iPad 8 is the one to buy, save your pennies and get the iPad 8. Instead, it's got to last a lot longer. It's going to be faster out of the gate, plus the iPad 8 has the a12 chipset, which is pretty darn good, as well as Apple Pencil, supports and smart keyboard support, if you're interested in that- and it's still got the headphone jack so uh.

Who knows how long that's going to last, but with that any of you have any of the cheaper iPads which one and how's it working for you. Let me know in the comments down below. Hopefully you found this video interesting or helpful, and if you did maybe hit that like button and consider subscribing for more content, just like this, you can follow me over on Twitter and Instagram 91 underscore tech. If you'd like to for some reason- and we also have a discord channel, you should go check out link in the description below. Thank you so much for watching I'm josh from 91 tech, and I will see you all next time you.

Source : 91Tech