New Apple iPad Pro 9.7-inch

Apple took the stage in late March to introduce two new major products: the iPhone SE and a smaller version of its iPad Pro. The iPhone SE is everything fans of small phones have asked for—the guts of Apple’s latest iPhone 6S in the shape and size of 2013’s iPhone 5S—and will likely sell accordingly. But users are usually less compelled to replace their tablets, meaning the newly released 9.7-inch iPad Pro may still not sell well. That could be the case even though the new smaller iPad Pro is the spiritual successor to the iPad Air 2, and it is now undoubtedly Apple’s flagship tablet product. Still, it packs lots of excellent features from its 12.9-inch sibling — the original iPad Pro, released last fall— into a smaller, lighter, and more compact frame.

BODY Dimensions 240 x 169.5 x 6.1 mm (9.45 x 6.67 x 0.24 in)
Weight 437 g (Wi-Fi) / 444 g (LTE) (15.66 oz)
SIM Nano-SIM/ Electronic SIM card (e-SIM)
– Apple Pencil stylus
DISPLAY Type LED-backlit IPS LCD, capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors
Size 9.7 inches (~71.6% screen-to-body ratio)
Resolution 1536 x 2048 pixels (~264 ppi pixel density)
Multitouch Yes
Protection Scratch-resistant glass, oleophobic coating
– True-tone display
PLATFORM OS iOS 9.3
Chipset Apple A9X
CPU Dual-core 2.16 GHz (Twister)
GPU PowerVR Series 7 (12-core graphics)
MEMORY Card slot No
Internal 32/128/256 GB, 2 GB RAM
CAMERA Primary 12 MP, f/2.2, 29mm, phase detection autofocus, dual-LED (dual tone) flash
Features 1/3″ sensor size, 1.22 µm pixel size, geo-tagging, simultaneous 4K video and 8MP image recording, touch focus, face/smile detection, HDR (photo/panorama)
Video 2160p@30fps, 1080p@30/60fps, 1080p@120fps, 720p@240fps
Secondary 5 MP, f/2.2, 31mm, 1080p@30fps, 720p@240fps, face detection, HDR, panorama
Loudspeaker Yes, with stereo speakers (4 speakers)
3.5mm jack Yes
COMMS WLAN Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, dual-band, hotspot
Bluetooth v4.2, A2DP, EDR
GPS Yes, with A-GPS, GLONASS (Wi‑Fi + Cellular model only)
NFC NFC
Radio No
USB v2.0, reversible connector
FEATURES Sensors Fingerprint, accelerometer, gyro, compass, barometer
Messaging iMessage, Email, Push Email, IM
Browser HTML5 (Safari)

– Active noise cancellation with dedicated mic
– Siri natural language commands and dictation
– iCloud cloud service
– MP3/WAV/AAX+/AIFF/Apple Lossless player
– MP4/H.264 player
– Audio/video/photo editor
– Document editor
BATTERY Non-removable Li-Ion battery (27.5 Wh)
Stand-by
Talk time Up to 10 h (multimedia)
Colors Silver, Gold, Space Gray, Rose Gold

Size Matters
The most important thing an iPad does is work everywhere. The 12.9-inch iPad Pro is a terrific device, but it’s most comfortable on a desk. The 7.9-inch iPad Mini is too small to do anything more than deal with email. The 9.7-inch model is the closest thing yet to a perfect middle ground: Big enough to give you space to work, small enough to hold with one hand. It’s the Goldilocks iPad.

It’s Pencil not stylus
The Apple Pencil is for drawing and sketching. Maybe for taking notes in a meeting. It’s not for navigating, avoiding fingerprints while you play games, or typing on the on-screen keyboard. It doesn’t do such things well at all. If you have no artistic intentions for your iPad Pro, you don’t need to drop a Benjamin on the Pencil. If you do, you should. Also, it only works on the iPad Pro, and not iPad Air.

Multitasking
The most ADD thing you can do on the iPad Pro is have two apps running side by side, with a tiny video window overlaid in one corner. That’s a massive improvement over the regular iPad’s obsessive monotasking (and a use case that begs for the new device’s fast processor), but still nothing like what you can do with a decent laptop or desktop. Apple would tell you it’s good for focus; I say it’s bad for productivity.

Work & Travel
Let’s say you’re on vacation—a beach in Belize, say—and the boss pings you to say he needs to you to send six emails and double-check that spreadsheet, stat. The iPad Pro is perfect for these kinds of short, simple, and task-oriented tasks. It’s light and portable, it lasts a long time, it’ll work anywhere. But if you’re already sitting at your desk, hunkering down for the workday, wouldn’t you want something with more power, more screen, more flexibility?