iPad for School BUYING GUIDE! (2020) By Tech Gear Talk

iPads have improved to the point where most students can now use them as a replacement for a laptop. What makes the iPads such a great tool for students are things like extremely powerful processors, a touch screen, small and light form, factor, apple, pencil support and better camera speakers and microphones for an improved remote learning experience with all the options that are out there. A lot of students and parents are trying to figure out which iPad is right for them, both in terms of model and storage capacity. What's up guys segue here and welcome to another tech gear talk today, I'm going to help you choose the right iPad for your school needs. I actually think that you should eliminate one option altogether, but we'll get to that toward the end. So let's go I'm going to start out with the iPad that, I think, is the best value and probably the right fit for most people, the iPad 8.

Now some people immediately overlook this option, and they begin their search with the iPad Air 4, but with the addition of the a12 bionic chip with its neural engine, the iPad 8 has plenty of processing power for what most users are going to need. There are definitely situations that justify spending the extra cash on the higher tiered iPads. So, as you make your decision, I want you to think about what are the types of things that you're going to be using your iPad, for when you want to take a break from studying you'll, be happy to know that the a12 bionic chip gives you plenty of power to game on the iPad 8. , I tried all different types of games and with each one the graphics were crisp, and I didn't experience any type of lagging. Even after a few hours of play.

I want to give a shout-out to the sponsor of this video raid shadow legends raid is a game where you build out a team of champions and then equip them with all types of artifacts think about things like weapons and shields and different types of components that make them more powerful. When you start out, you get to pick one of four rare champions. I recommend you start with the one that I did kale because he has great base stats for a rare champion if you've never played these types of games before. Don't even worry, the game begins by taking you through the basics, so you don't feel lost, there's so many cool options, and once you really get into it, you realize that the strategy of how you choose to build your team is the biggest part of the fun it's kind of like building a basketball team where each team member is there for a different purpose and to complement the rest of the team. I had so much fun playing this for the last couple of weeks.

I love the graphics and the competitive aspect of the game, ray just released. The artifact forge where you can save time and craft articles directly, as well as a whole new advanced quest system with amazing rewards, and that's not all. They also brought out some amazing new champions and are developing the amazing looking doom tower as we speak, which I'm super excited about. So what I want you to do is go to the video description, click on the special link and, if you're, a new player you're going to get 50, 000 silver, 50, gems, one energy refill, one clan boss, key five mystery shards one day, XP booster and one free champion, executioner who's. Another excellent addition to your team.

All of these will be waiting for you right here and big thanks to raid shadow legends for sponsoring this video. Let's talk about the price and size option, so the iPad 8 starts at 329 for the 32 gig Wi-Fi only model and then goes up to 429. If you want the 128 gigs of storage, if you want the cellular model, then you're looking at an additional 130 bucks to each model, but I don't think that the majority of students are going to need this option for the most part, you'll be using your iPad in areas where you have Wi-Fi and a lot of users also have the option to tether off their phone. Now as far as storage size, it depends on what you plan on doing with the iPad beyond surfing the web. Making video calls and streaming content things like apps and documents, especially images and video documents that you may choose to store locally, are going to eat up that space.

I do have a video dedicated to this topic so, rather than making this video longer I'll link to it up in the corner and in the description now as far as the screen we're looking at a really nice 10.2 inch retina display. So you have plenty of room to work with, even when multitasking, it's nice and bright, and has a fingerprint resistant coating for locking, unlocking and other actions that require biometric authentication. It uses the older home button style touch ID which actually ends up being quite convenient when you're wearing a mask. Now, looking at connectivity, the iPad 8 still uses a lightning port, so all of your old lightning cables will still work and apple includes a 20 watt, USB adapter and an USB c to lightning cable in the box. On top of that, any down goals that you may already have from older, iPhones or iPads should still work.

I use quite a few of them to attach additional storage, get images and video clips off my SD cards and even attach an external monitor. Now, as far as wireless connectivity, the iPad 8 uses Bluetooth 4.2. It supports 802.11, ABG and ac and 2.4 and 5 gigahertz at speeds of up to 166 megabits per second. Now. These numbers may not mean a lot to you, but they are potentially slower than what you get on the higher end models which I'll cover in a minute now, the iPad 8 also uses a smart connector which makes it compatible with apple's smart keyboard, not the magic keyboard, but the smart keyboard.

Now, personally, I chose to go with the Logitech slim folio instead, because the apple smart keyboard for the iPad 8 doesn't have a cover on the back of the iPad only on the front, and it doesn't have a place for the Apple Pencil which I'll get to in a minute now. One thing I know about myself is that I'm not always the most careful when it comes to my devices, so I'd rather have protection on both sides. I like the additional layer of function keys at the top and the sleeve for the Apple Pencil, so that I don't lose it now. Speaking of the Apple Pencil, the iPad 8 is compatible with the first generation pencil, which is still a great tool. Now, unlike the newer version, it does require being plugged into the iPad's 8, lightning port for both pairing and charging.

If you're uncomfortable with the pencil sticking out of the iPad, you can pick up something like this tech mat charging cable, which gives you a female lightning port. On one end, so you can charge your pencil finally, you're, probably going to use the camera speakers and microphone for video calls. The iPad 8 front facing camerae is only a 1.2 megapixel camera, and it's only capable of 720p and the speaker system is good enough, but not as good as the other models. The rear facing camera is an 8 megapixel camera with an aperture of f 2.4, but I'm not going to get into that too much, because I expect most students to use their phones to take pictures and video rather than the iPad. Now, all in all, the iPad 8 may not have all the bells and whistles of the higher level models, but it is an extremely powerful option and one that many should consider given the price point, starting with this lower cost means that you can add some accessories and then still stay under budget when compared to the more expensive iPads all right.

So now, moving up in the iPad ranks we get to the iPad Air 4. Now, in previous years, I felt like there was more of a clear distinction of who should get what you had the iPad at the bottom, the iPad Air in the middle and then the iPad Pro at the top, and there were pretty significant gaps in features and performance that I think made it easier for people to choose. But this year apple kind of shook things up a little because of the new design features and performance of the iPad Air 4. They almost made an iPad Air pro from a performance standpoint. The iPad Air 4 is extremely responsive, apps start very quickly, so you never feel like you're waiting and your general navigation and switching between apps also feels really snappy.

Now we're getting the newer a14 bionic chip, which is the same chip used on all four new models of the iPhone 12. It's an extremely powerful chip and makes the iPad Air 4 about as capable as most students are going to need a tablet to be. The iPad Pro still has the advantage in some areas with better multi-core performance and higher ram, but that will matter to a very select set of students performing very specific tasks that require that level of performance. As far as price and storage we're looking at 599 for the 64 gig model and 749 for the 256 gig model, we're seeing the storage options are double that of the iPad 8 and again make that choice. Based on how many apps you need and whether you plan to storage large files locally, usually the books themselves, don't take up a significant amount of space.

So it's really the other types of files, like images and videos that you need to worry about. As far as the design we're getting an iPad Pro like look with the squared off edges and the very small bezels that gives us a slightly larger screen at 10.9 inches with a higher resolution, not meaningful enough to make. You choose the iPad Air 4 over the iPad, but it is nice to have as far as quality. We are getting a better fully laminated display on the iPad Air 4. If you're not familiar with this term, it means that the display panel, the touch layer and the cover glass are laminated into one single piece of display and glass.

This makes the screen thinner. There is no air gap and the image looks like it's painted on the screen. Rather than appearing to be under a sheet of glass like it does with the iPad 8. , it will mean that if you crack your screen, it's probably going to be more expensive to replace this one because you're going to break the LCD rather than just the top glass. Now, the screen itself is absolutely beautiful.

It's a DC ip3 display, which is a wider color gamut and offers more variations of each color for more accurate color reproduction. This is going to be important if you're, editing, photos and video, where you'll want to know that you can really trust what you see on the screen. In addition to the fingerprint resistant coating that we saw on the iPad 8, the iPad Air 4 also has an anti-reflective coating, which does a pretty decent job, and it's a true tone display. So sensors are able to evaluate the color temperature of the ambient light and then make sure that white always looks white on the screen instead of having a blue or yellow tone to it. As far as biometric authentication, the iPad Air 4 uses a new form of touch ID with the fingerprint identity sensor built right into the top button, so we're still getting biometric security with a one touch, activate and unlock, and we can also use this feature to make purchases and for other functions that require authentication for connectivity.

The iPad Air 4 uses an USB c port instead of lightning and apple, did include a 20 watt, USB adapter and an USB cable in the box. With this more powerful connection, I was able to use an USB hub instead of individual dongles for different purposes, and I was also able to power an external SSD directly off of the iPad Air 4, whereas with the iPad 8, I had to supply additional power. When I wanted to use an external SSD and with the iPad 8. I also ran into an issue where my largest SSD, a one terabyte Samsung extreme pro. Wouldn't work, even with external power, it would say that the accessory required too much power on the iPad Air 4.

I could get it to work with the USB hub when I'm providing power, and I can even get it to work when I'm just plugging it directly into the iPad Air 4 with no power, and I like that, because that means that I need one less piece of gear with me. At all times for wireless connectivity, the iPad Air 4 uses the newer Bluetooth 5.0 supports a newer, Wi-Fi, 6, 2.4 and 5 gigahertz, and has simultaneous dual-band support with speeds of up to 1.2 gigabits per second. Now, whether this will actually make a difference for you will depend on your particular setup, but if you're moving to the latest Wi-Fi 6, router or mesh network, either now or in the near future, it's a nice feature to have we're also getting a smart connector which makes the iPad Air 4 compatible with apple's magic keyboard. You've probably already seen this keyboard where the iPad appears to be floating. It has really nice backlit keys, and it offers an USB pass-through.

So you can charge your iPad Air 4 through the keyboard. This is a nice feature because you can have the charging cable flat on the desk rather than hanging out of the side of the iPad Air 4. The magic keyboard is not cheap. This model is 300 bucks. So if you plan on getting one definitely work that into your budget and of course there are third-party options that are more budget-friendly now.

As far as the Apple Pencil goes, the iPad Air 4 is compatible with the second generation Apple Pencil, so you're getting the newer design with that flat edge. The double click functionality that switches you from the current tool to the eraser and, of course, wireless charging and pairing for gaming. The iPad Air 4 offers an even better experience in terms of speed when compared to the iPad 8. I mostly noticed this when starting a game and not really during gameplay, where both models do a great job. Now, moving on to the camera system, the front-facing camera is a 7 megapixel, camera capable of 1080p or full HD, and we also get an upgraded stereo speaker system.

In both cases you're going to notice a difference. The image quality is going to be better and the sound when consuming video content or playing game is noticeably more immersive to wrap up the iPad Air 4. It's a more powerful iPad, with a better display, better connectivity, more advanced Apple Pencil functionality and improved camera system and more robust stereo speakers before I move on to the iPad Pro, if you like what you've seen so far, and I've gotten value from this video, let me know by giving it a thumbs up 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 gear and tutorials all right. So now we're getting to the king of the iPads, the 2020 iPad Pro.

This iPad comes in two sizes: the 11 inch, which is virtually identical in size to the iPad Air 4 and the 12.9 inch model. I'm going to be using the 12.9 inch model for this video, but the good thing is that they're identical in terms of specs, except for the display, so you don't have to get the larger model to get all the features. The iPad Pro shares a lot of design elements with the iPad Air 4. We have the squared off flat edges the smaller bezels. We also have USB c port for charging and accessories.

It uses the same smart connector, which offers similar compatibility with the magic keyboard. The 11-inch model actually uses the same magic keyboard as the iPad Air 4, and the 12.9 inch model has a larger version which costs 349. Again. We have second generation apple, pencil compatibility and, like the iPad Air 4, the display is a true tone, fully laminated DCI p3 display with a fingerprint resistant coating and an anti-reflective coating. Now, let's get to areas where we're going to see some differences.

First, the screen itself has a higher potential refresh rate of up to 120 hertz versus only 60 hertz on the iPad Air 4 and the iPad 8. Uses apple's pro motion technology, which apple says, 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. But are you actually going to notice a difference? The short answer is yes. If I gave you an iPad Pro and an iPad Air 4, and I put them side by side, you'll notice, smoother movement on the iPad Pro.

You may also notice a slightly more responsive apple, pencil functionality for a better writing or drawing experience. Another area where you may want a faster refresh rate is gaming, where games like PUBG that are able to deliver more than 60 frames per second will look smoother and more responsive. Now, moving on to the camera system, the iPad Pro again has the advantage in both categories. The front-facing camera is a 7 megapixel camera, which is the same as the iPad Air 4, but the iPad Pro has a true depth camera which allows it to have face ID for authentication rather than needing touch ID for the main camera, we're actually getting a 12 megapixel wide camera like on the iPad Air, 4, plus a 10 megapixel ultra-wide and a LIDAR scanner which sends out rays of light and then measures how quickly they reflect back. This essentially lets the iPad Pro create a 3d model or depth map of the scene, and this can be used for a wide variety of augmented reality applications because it's able to reproduce a more accurate representation of the 3d world environment.

The last advantage that I want to mention is the upgraded speaker system, we're now getting a quad speaker system which are independently controlled to create an even wider, sound stage. As far as pricing and storage, the iPad Pro gives us by far the most option. First storage goes from 128 gigabytes, all the way up to one terabyte and then, of course, we have the 11 inch and the 12.9 inch option to choose from for each storage, size I'll put a breakdown on the screen, so I don't need to sit here and read them all out to you and remember to always check to see if there are student or teacher discounts available when buying an Apple device. Now that we discussed all three iPads, I do want to mention that storage is not expandable on any iPad, so make sure that you're buying enough storage for what you're going to need, because you get what you get all right. So that was my complete look at the best 2020 iPads for school you'll notice that I left out the iPad Mini.

So let me tell you why, and then we'll get to a summary breakdown of all three iPads. I think that in the long run, most people will regret getting a smaller iPad because, as phones are getting bigger, there's overlap in functionality. The iPads are becoming more and more powerful and for things like multitasking, either now or in the future, you're going to want more screen real estate. Okay, so now to the breakdown, if you want what could be the best value, in my opinion, you're still getting a really nice display, gen, 1, apple, pencil functionality and plenty of power for what most students need, get the iPad 8 and if you want to be safe, get the 128 gig model. If you're looking for added performance, a fully laminated DC, ip3 display smaller bezels, newer touch, ID implementation, better camera and speakers better wired and wireless connectivity options, plus magic keyboard and second gen Apple Pencil compatibility.

Then the iPad Air 4 is the right choice for you. Finally, if you want the largest and best display with pro motion and up to 120, hertz refresh rate, the best camera and speaker system, with the most ram and the largest options in terms of storage, then the iPad Pro is just calling your name. I think that every one of this year's models is a good fit for the right user, and I hope this video helped. You make a decision I'll put links in the description where you can buy all three iPads as well as the accessories that I mentioned in this video. I really hope I was able to give you a good overview of this year's iPads from the perspective of a student.

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 techyeartalk. You know what I always say: buy it nice or buy twice good luck and see you soon.

Source : Tech Gear Talk