M1 iPad Pro (2021) Unboxing & Review! By Justin Tse

What's going on everyone, it's Justin here, and today I've got an unboxing and review of the brand new iPad Pro 2021 with the m1 processor. So this right here is apple's flagship tablet. The 12.9 inch model that has the liquid retina Dr display with the mini led panel, the m1 processor. That also comes in up to 16 gigabytes of CPU and GPU memory and a two terabyte storage option. It's even got 5g so today is actually May 12th. I'm going to be unboxing this product and by time you guys see this video.

I would have been using it for quite a few days already, so I'm also going to give you like a review portion after my initial tests and also impressions whether I feel like this tablet makes sense with the introduction of apple's own silicon, the m1 chip over on the mac side of things. Furthermore, I've said in videos before that, I'm very impressed by just how well it works and how it has changed my productivity and also video workflow experience where it does demand more power. So it's kind of come around to the iPad and to think that an apple desktop computer and a tablet is running off the exact same processor and how you're able to have this much power on the go and all the pen features and the lighter capabilities. This is just such an effective tool for so many industries. I've also got the white apple magic keyboard, which is brand new, and I honestly really like the white color, but it could get a little dirty over time.

So that is something to keep in mind, but nevertheless, I'm very excited to check it out. So the first thing I'm going to do is unbox the iPad and show you guys some of the things that are included and also set it up, and this, as I mentioned, is the 12.9 inch model. The 11-inch model also comes in a m1 option when it comes to the processor, but it doesn't have the liquid retina Dr display, which is the mini led panel, which has some benefits in the HDR and the overall brightness. But we're going to talk a bit more about that in our coverage. As always, if you guys want to first look at all apple products, just make sure you subscribe to the channel drop a like on this video and also leave a comment down below as to the feature you're most excited for on the iPad and the videos that you would like to see.

So now we have the initial box off. Let's just lift this up here, and I believe we have the silver model there we go and when it comes to the overall hardware, the iPad is pretty much unchanged, and I've mentioned in the past that I believe the iPad's design is one of their best overall design products when it comes to functionality and aesthetic the redesigned MacBook Pro and MacBook Air is allegedly going to come with a lot of design cues from the iPad, with a nice uniform and flat design with squared off edges, and as you can see, it is just so thin and with the m1 processor inside here the battery life that it gives you, even though it is like slightly thicker than the previous generation for the 12.9 inch model. It is still, nevertheless, a very thin portable device that is, light and easy to carry around, which is why the iPad has been my go-to, like travel computer for the past couple years. Let's just set this aside here and, as you can see, it has like the cameras and the LIDAR and beyond that in the box. You also have the charger as well.

So this is the USB type-c cable and the 18 watt charger, so yeah, nothing too much about that. That is kind of what is included in the iPad box. So the next thing that we have right here is the apple magic keyboard in the new color white, and when I first reviewed this last year, I really felt like it did change the way that I use my iPad because it has the exact same scissor switch that you would find on the MacBook Pro and MacBook Air, which, after Apple's keyboard issues with the butterfly mechanism, have been totally fixed and the keyboard is back to being one of the best to type on in the industry. This keyboard is great in a lot of ways. It is able to charge your device, it also has like a nice stand.

It is durable and is able to protect your iPad, but, most importantly, the keyboard itself is just great to type on, and I actually prefer to use my iPad when it comes to doing notes. Furthermore, it definitely does come in at a price being a first party accessory, but if you guys are willing to invest on a nice keyboard that you're, using with your iPad every single day, I really have no complaints of the product itself, aside from the battery life being a little worse when plugged in so yeah. Let's just slide this open here and, as you can see here, it is compatible with the third fourth and fifth generation iPad Pro. So whether you have the 2018 model 2020 or the 2021 with m1, it is all compatible. Yeah, um there we go, and honestly it just looks.

Spotless, like this whole thing is just a nice smooth finish there. We have like some paperwork, but it seems, like apple, is planning to bring back more of the white keyboard design that they used to do. We saw that in the iMac and also now in the iPad keyboard, and it honestly looks really, really clean. I mean the photos already look great and with the silver iPad, it all seems to go together quite nicely, but you do want to keep in mind that being a daily tablet. It can get somewhat dirty over time, so you do want to kind of maintain it.

But just on the basis of looks, I can see a lot of people liking this color option. So there we have the iPad setup, and that is what it looks like in the silver and white finish. So perhaps the biggest change in this year's iPad is the m1 processor and even though a lot of the previous generation iPad pros were able to even beat out some MacBook models in pure benchmarks. This year's iPad has the m1 chip that is found on the Apple Macbook air, the MacBook Pro, as well as on the new iMac 24 inches and the Mac mini when compared to the previous generation iPad. The m1 chip is able to give it 50 more CPU performance and 40 more GPU performance, and I'm also curious to see whether the battery life has any difference as well, because the biggest thing that I noticed with the mac books is that the battery life was a lot better with the m1 chip.

As you guys might know, the m1 processor is currently available in an 8 gigabyte or 16 gigabyte option and with the CPU and GPU being a unified architecture. You do want to choose based on the amount of power that you're going to need, of course, in the case of the iPad, if you get the base storage or the 512 gig you're going to get an eight gigabyte unified memory option and if you get the one or two terabyte iPad you're going to get the 16 gig which, when it comes to like video editing, I've been able to video edit on a m1 desktop better in some cases than I have on apple's 20 000 mac pro. Just to show you how much power you have on a tablet form factor as we set it up, though. One of the other huge changes is thunderbolt support on this tablet. Not only are you able to transfer files at up to 40 gigabytes per second with thunderbolt and also usb4, but it also allows you to plug your iPad into a pro display, Dr and push out a 6k resolution to an entire screen, which I think is pretty awesome.

Personally, I don't really plug my iPad into a monitor that often, but if you want to do that and want to do like some video editing or drawing and have that tablet interface, that is projected onto a larger display that is going to be huge depending on the industry that you're in for comparison's sake. That is four times more bandwidth than the previous generation iPad gives you, and even then the iPad Pro has seen improvements over the years in terms of the port speed when it comes to transferring photos and as someone who does like photo and video, I don't exactly edit videos on a tablet, but I definitely prefer to edit photos on an iPad over a computer thanks to the pen functionality. The other big change, though, on the 13-inch model specifically, is the display. The liquid pro Dr display is one that uses a mini, led technology, and we expect that almost all apple products in the next couple of years are going to transition to that. It has a lot of the benefits of OLED, and it is also brighter than some displays found on the previous generation iPads coming in at 1, 000, nits, sustained and up to 1600 nits when playing HDR content, which is right in line with the Pro Display XDR that apple sells separately for a lot of money.

As you know, another industry that is also going to really enjoy the new performance capabilities of the iPad is in AR and VR technology. The lighter sensor that is built on the back makes this one of the most powerful tools that is built into one singular device when it comes to computing, and even though that is not my area of expertise. If you're in that space, then I'm sure any CPU power and any improvement in that area is going to be effective for practical use. So another feature that I also really like is that the new front-facing camera on the iPad is wider, and it is able to actually track to keep you in frame if you're, in a FaceTime call or even in any conference, call in general just to make you feel more engaged and especially for the people who are on the call, as well, if your say like walking around the room or in the kitchen or trying to demonstrate something. But now I'm going to go ahead and use the iPad as my daily driver for the next couple of days, and I'm going to come back and give you like a first impressions review as to which feature I like the most about this.

What I think about the display, the battery life and the additional power, but in my full review and comparisons, I'm also going to try to give you some real world benchmarks and just like number, based comparisons to help. You make your decision whether you should upgrade or go ahead and get an iPad or a MacBook with the same processor in there. So after my first five days with the iPad Pro with m1 processor, what are my opinions and initial reviews of this product? And I think the first thing to make very clear- is that the previous generation iPad didn't have any major problems. It had a very fast chip that a lot of times on benchmarks was able to rival or even beat out some baseline mac books, and the display was also very good. It had 120 hertz, the colors were all great and, generally speaking, it was a tablet that I felt it was complete in its state, but the whole purpose of the 13-inch iPad Pro is just to take everything to the next level.

This year, apple's introduction of the m1 processor had perfect reviews, and so now that is on a tablet. Experience users who are really into the iPad lineup and have replaced their entire kind of workflow are now able to take advantage of the full power of apple's lineup in a form factor like this, and I can tell you that, from some real world tests, we definitely notice an improvement that are aligned with apple's claims of the processing power 50 in the CPU and 40 in the GPU to be exact and in some tests we literally did see that type of difference. For example, in Lightroom, when copying uh edit onto 50 images, it was a pretty noticeable improvement and, in the field of like photography, say you're doing that for 100, 200 or 500 images. That can make a huge difference in other aspects if you're doing AR and VR and stuff that takes a lot of rendering and graphics. That is another area where the m1 chip is going to be a huge improvement as well, but if you're, just like a general user like myself, who like consumes some media edits like one photo at a time or just like, does some casual drawing you're not really going to notice a huge difference when it comes to the day-to-day performance? As for the display, that is another area where, on paper, it is a huge jump.

It is a thousand nits sustained at its max brightness and can go up to 1600 with HDR content, whereas the previous generation iPad and the iPad Pro 11 inches has a 600 nit max brightness display in a situation where you're like outside and need that peak, brightness you're, going to notice a difference and in the situation of viewing optimized media. That is obviously a technical advantage, but a day-to-day user is really not going to notice that either. So here's a look at a camera comparison between last year's iPad Pro and this year's iPad Pro with m1 chip. Another front facing camera is where there is the biggest improvement overall. The previous one has a 7 megapixel sensor, whereas the new generation has a 12 megapixel, ultra-wide camera and through the machine, learning and FaceTime, I actually just tested it out a couple of minutes ago.

It was able to actually track me all around the room. I was walking back and forth and just really trying to put it through her spaces, because I know a lot of times with like machine learning stuff. It doesn't work that well, but it was able to do a great job in keeping me in the center frame, and I just find that this is actually a really nice practical feature. So yeah. Let me know if you guys can notice the difference in the camera quality of the previous and current generation iPad Pro.

I don't really see it as being a reason to go ahead and buy a brand new iPad entirely and on the back camera. The hardware is generally the same, but through the processing and the improvements that apple has made on the software side over the years. There is some visual improvements there, as well and in the comparison videos I'll cover that a little more. The other areas of improvement that I also notice, though, are obviously in the thunderbolt port, having thunderbolt abilities on a tablet increases the transfer speed by about two times. So, if I just have like a SSD plugged in and want to get the files over for photo or video editing or just send them off, it is faster, and you can also connect it to up to a 6k display, such as the Pro Display XDR.

The last thing, though, is 5g and there's been a debate of 5g in the last few years, and whether it is a real world kind of improvement, and it just does come down to where you live in Victoria, where I am, it doesn't really have a huge jump.5G is like not really like mainstream, even though it does show up as 5g, but if you're in a city that really does support that speed, and you transfer a lot of files, and you're always on the go, then that is another reason to get the brand new iPad so just to wrap things up in my unboxing and initial review. This iPad is very complete, and I could totally see myself using this as a machine to do all of my photo editing in different batches, and if you really wanted to video editing in terms of its raw power and hardware, is able to handle just fine as well, but I don't really find doing video editing or like tasks that are usually done on a computer on a tablet very enjoyable for the most part. But when it comes to general productivity, I usually do opt for a tablet, but for my kind of uses I don't need this level of power. I know a lot of times. People ask like why.

I only talk about video and photo editing, but honestly the iPad is so limitless. There are so many applications that you can get for it. The app store has a ton of optimized things, so I don't really want to talk about an area that I don't really use, or I'm not familiar with, but for my own real world tests, I can say that the m1 chip is a significant difference. Otherwise, if you guys enjoy this video make sure you drop a like subscribe to the channel, and I'll see you all in the next one. You.

Source : Justin Tse