iPad Pro 2018 Review - Should you buy it? By Ali Abdaal

Hey guys welcome back to the channel if you knew here my name is Ellie I'm, a junior doctor working in Cambridge and today, I'm gonna, be talking about this new 2018 iPad Pro with Apple Pencil and basically trying to answer whether you should buy it or not. So to that end, this video is gonna, be split up into a few different parts, and everything is gonna, be linked in timestamps in the video description and an app in comments. So you can skip around if you feel like it. I'll start off by just sharing some quick overall impressions about the new iPad Pro, and then I'll introduce a three part flow chart like three questions to ask yourself before deciding whether to buy this or not so yeah. Let's just get into it. Okay, so overall thoughts, and I'm, just going to echo what every single other reviewer has said, and that is that this is an absolute beast of an iPad.

It's clearly the best iPad ever made its design is incredible. The performance is like second to none, but at the end of the day, it's still an iPad, and it probably won't quite replace your laptop just yet in terms of design. Yeah, it's very like industrial, is very iPhone 5, just kind of stretched out, and you can see all the fingerprints because I've been using this like all day every day since I got it, it's really thin. You can just kind of flick it around Laser, it's an it's a nice design, and then you've got the new Apple Pencil, which is cool. I've got a little engraving on mine, and if you can see that the new Apple Pencil feels very slightly nicer than the previous one and the best thing about it is that it clips on magnetically.

So you don't have to do that annoying. You know sticking out of the side that you had to do with the previous models of iPad Pro. Apart from that really, like you know, that's all there is to say it's pretty, and it's got a nice screen, and it's got a nice Apple Pencil and this smart keyboard. Folio thing is pretty good. I'll.

Do a dedicated review about this because I actually love this thing and I think everyone should get one of these. But you know at the end of the day: it's its still an iPad. It's not gonna, replace your laptop, and I've done a whole video. Where I talk about this in depth and, to be honest, nothing has really changed. There is nothing really that you can do on this iPad that you couldn't do on the previous generations of the iPad and therefore, if we're asking of, does the iPad Pro replace your laptop? The answer is still probably not with a few caveats, but you can watch my video that will be linked up there for a bit more information on that point.

So those are my overall thoughts. I deliberately haven't touched on the specifications or, like you know, the Geek bench scores and all of that stuff, because, as Dave Lee kindly points out in his review of the iPad Pro, which is perfect, I'll link it down below he points out that really. When was the last time your iPad felt. So you know my iPad Pro has never felt slow, even my iPad Air 2 before that, never really felt slow, so speed doesn't really matter when it comes to iPads yeah. So those were my brief overall impressions and let's now talk about who should buy the new iPad Pro? Ok, so I'm going to structure this bit of the video as a mini flow chart like an algorithm.

If you will that you can follow to decide whether you should buy the new iPad Pro and the first question on this flow chart is: do you have a previous generation iPad Pro, because if you do, then you probably should not buy the new iPad Pro 2018. Now, let's break this down a little further in my iPhone 10s max review that I did a few weeks ago, I introduced a different sort of three pot frameworks to decide whether a piece of technology is worth it subjectively questions number one on that list was doesn't make me any happier, and the answer for this iPad is no, obviously not new. Tech never makes us happy unless it fulfills points two or points three of this other three part framework point number two was: does it remove any salient negatives from my life? Does having this new piece of tech? Stop me from feeling pain in one aspect of my life and sort of this new one. Does the fact that the pencil now sticks to the top magnetically removes a massive annoyance, because with the old generation you have to like, stick it into the side and charge it like that and like apart from that, really there were no real, salient negatives of the old 2017, iPad, pro or I. Think of previous generations.

Although admittedly I haven't used the previous generations, there aren't really any saving negatives of that I. Don't think anyone was complaining about how bad their iPad Pro was before for them to warrant justifying purchase of a much more expensive new 20:18 iPad Pro. So that was point number two on this other three pot frameworks, and the third point was: does this new device allow me to do or make or create anything that would add more value to my life and again, the answer for this new iPad Pro is now because it has exactly the same capabilities as the previous iPad pros. Therefore, if you have a previous iPad Pro you're, not really going to gain much additional value from the new one, apart from the fact that screen is slightly nicer and the pencil sticks on which is kind of cool, and you get to show off to your friends that you've got the latest iPad Pro so yeah long story short. If you have an old iPad Pro, it's really hard to recommend buying the new one.

It's just so expensive. The 11-inch model starts at 719 pounds. Let's say you buy Apple Care on top of that for another hundred and something pounds, and then you buy an Apple Pencil that that comes out to over a thousand pounds just for the base, 64 gigabyte model, and you're spending a thousand pounds to upgrade an already very, very, very, very good iPad. It's just really not worth it in my opinion. Okay, so let's say you don't have an existing iPad Pro.

The next question need to ask yourself: is: do I have the 2018 iPad with Apple Pencil? That is the student-friendly iPad? It starts at three hundred and something pounds with Apple Care and the Apple Pencil it over. All the cost is about 450 pounds, and you get a little off if you're a student for the student discount, so you're, comparing the 400 pounds of the normal iPad with Apple Care and Apple Pencil with the 1100 pounds of the iPad Pro with Apple Pencil, excluding the keyboard. If you want the keyboard, that's another like two hundred pounds. So that's thirteen hundred quid with a little of a student discount. So this thing costs more than twice as much as the 2018 iPad, the normal iPad, with Apple Pencil, that's aimed at students and, if you're a student, then it's again, it's really, really hard to recommend this.

It's just so so so expensive compared to what you get for it. The 2018 normal iPad with Apple Pencil is, is great. The Apple Pencil works really nicely, admittedly, yes. The writing. Experience of the Apple Pencil is very slightly nicer on the iPad Pro models because of the reduced screen distance and the increased a hundred twenty Hertz refresh rate, but other than that you know it's such a minor thing that you won't really notice unless you've seen the two devices side-by-side.

So if you have a 20-18 iPad, it's its again so is hard to recommend buying the new iPad Pro there's so much more. You could be doing with that money. Instead, you know. Six hundred pounds is a difference in price between the iPad Pro and then 2018 iPad for 600 pounds. You can buy a Sony, a6000 mirrorless camera with, like, although Sony a6000, mirrorless camera for about 300, a really, really nice lens for about two hundred fifty-three pounds for 600 pounds.

You have an incredible camera that you can take amazing photos of your friends and family, and you know your university experiences with that. Furthermore, you'll be looking back on in many years time and thinking wow, I'm, so glad I've got these photos, and actually this has been one of the most like, probably the single most valuable purchase in my life. The Sony a6000 with a fancy lens on the end of it because, like the amount of memory that's created, is just absolutely priceless and I. Look at all my friends, who've got their. You know, crappy iPhone photos, and it's just not the same as the know.

The high quality really nice both, like fancy photos that I've got on me and my friends and my family, so you could do that with that 600 pounds. Alternatively, you could buy an Amazon Kindle, probably the second most valuable purchase I've ever made other than the camera. That sets you back about 90 pounds for the Kindle paper white you can buy like 50 non-fiction books and all those would add infinitely more value to your life than you know. This slightly nicer user experience of the iPad Pro. Alternatively, you could sign up to audible, Amazon's audiobook service.

There 's an affiliate link below if you want and that could that cost about 8 pounds a month. So you can get like 5 years worth of an audible subscription with a free audiobook every month for the 600 pounds that you'd be paying to upgrade to the iPad Pro over. The 2018, iPad and audible is probably the third most valuable purchase I've ever made in my life. I'm going to do like a whole list of this and a video and in a blog post sometime. But the point I want to make is that 600 pounds gets you a lot, and you know the upgrade the incremental upgrade between the 2018 iPad and the 2018 iPad Pro in my opinion does not justify that 600 pounds.

Now when I made my previous video comparing the 2017 iPad Pro with the 2018 normal iPad gosh. This is getting confusing, isn't it when I made that video I made the point that I would still personally prefer the pro because I met I said something about spreading the extra cost over three years and if you think about it, 600 pounds over three years, that's about one pound a week, and I'm happy to pay one pound a week for the slightly nicer experience of the iPad Pro, but actually on reflection. There was one really important point that I didn't touch on in that video, and that brings us to point number three in our three-part. Flowchart and point number three in our flowchart is, if you don't have an iPad Pro already the previous model, and you don't have the 2018 iPad the question you want to be asking yourself in my opinion before buying this is: do you have the cash to burn now, I'm going to talk a little about money here. I know, and I know that talking about money is impolite, but when Apple is asking us to spend our words of a thousand pounds on one of these, when you could spend 400 pounds on a normal I pad, that's just as good pretty much.

We really do need to talk about money and to speak candidly about what money means to different people and I. Think the most important question here is: is that 1,000 pounds a significant amount of money to you and the answer for this is going to vary for different people, and you know there's no judgement here. For some people, a thousand pounds is a hell of a lot of money, and it is a hell of a lot of money, but for other people, including myself. Admittedly, a thousand pounds is a lot of money, but it's not a significant amount of money in the sense that it's not going to change the way. I live my life if I didn't have that thousand pounds or if I chose to spend a thousand pounds on this device, and the reason that question is important is that the iPad Pro is less a functional tool and a more luxury product.

So when you're splashing out so much money on a luxury product, it's its hard to convince yourself that you're doing it for a functional purpose. Further, for the most part, there's going to be one percent of people that genuinely do need the extra performance of the iPad Pro and amazing. That's amazing! For those people, but I doubt those are the sorts of people watching this video I. Imagine for the most part, if you're watching this video you're, probably a student you're, probably on some kind of budget, and you're, considering whether to buy an iPad Pro or whether to buy an iPad at all or maybe going for a surface that you know, gets you the best of both worlds for a laptop, an iPad or whatever and yeah. We.

We just need to answer that. Question is a thousand pounds, a significant amount of money. A few years ago, when I was a student and I didn't have my side. Business can even generate income every year. I would never have ever have bought.

This I spent like a whole year of my life, saving up seven hundred pounds to buy the MacBook Air in, like 2012 I was tutoring four times a week, making about 20 pounds an hour and by the end of the year, I managed to save seven hundred pounds for a MacBook, Air and I made that MacBook Air last three years, and it added an immense amount of value to my life, and I'm, really glad I did it but would I have saved. You know whatever worked an extra whole year to buy a MacBook Pro for 1,400 pounds back in the day. No, of course not because I didn't need a MacBook Pro I was quite content, and I could do every single thing I wanted to on the base model of the map and I. Think it's a similar situation for this iPad versus the iPad Pro the 2019 iPad is great. Do you need an iPad really? Probably not, but you know honestly, it is quite a useful device to have as a student, because if you have seen my previous video up there about taking notes on an iPad, you might want to become paperless with your note-taking and I think it's got the potential to genuinely make you a better student.

If you have an iPad that has Apple Pencil support, because the Apple Pencil is just absolutely incredible. But the reason we're talking about money is that the jump from the normal iPad to the 23rd, the 2018 iPad Pro the extra 600 pounds price difference, it's just so, so hard to justify as a student. If, however, you're in the position where a thousand pounds is not that significant and amount of money, then yeah feel free to buy one of these, it's still quite hard to recommend because a thousand pounds. This is still a lot of money. Even if it's not significant.

But it's you know if that money is not really going to change your life, that much. If it's an amount of money that you'd be happy to splash out on a luxury product, then by all means you should buy it so yeah. Those are my thoughts on the subject. We've talked about overall impressions, yeah I love this it's the best I've had ever made, but it's still not a laptop replacement that you know it's incredible hard word that is hampered by the limitations of iOS 12. As every other tech reviewer said, and then we talked about the three pop framework flow chart of deciding whether you should buy one of these.

It's an incredible device, but it's really really really bloody, expensive and yeah. That concludes this random review thing. So thank you very much for watching. If you liked the video, please give it a thumbs up if you haven't subscribed to the channel. Yet please consider doing so.

Have a lovely day, and I'll see you in the next video goodbye.

Source : Ali Abdaal