Apple iPads changed the face of the tablet market. iPads are sleek, easy to use and have an impressive display quality which makes them a great productivity and entertainment consumption product. In the year 2017, Apple launched yet another budget iPad which grabbed a lot of attention. With the price closer to Rs. 28,000 here in India, it was an instant hit among users.
To overcome some of the limitations of the older model, Apple has now upgraded and launched its new 2018 iPad. It follows the same sleek profile but with a bunch of features which are capable of impressing anyone. What make the new model so interesting? Let’s find out.
Design and build
The iPad 2018 follows the same sleek profile as its predecessor. It has a thickness of just 7.5mm, making it even thinner than a pencil. It weighs 478 grams and feels comfortable to hold in the hands even if it’s for prolonged use.
The front sports a gorgeous 9.7-inch display which has a fingerprint-resistant oleophobic coating. The top has a 1.2 MP front-facing FaceTime camera, while the bottom holds a Home/Touch ID sensor. The aluminium back feels premium which at its centre, holds the signature Apple logo. The back also sports an 8MP camera along with a noise-cancellation microphone.
The power button is placed at the top while the volume keys are placed on the right. The feedback from the buttons is as always, promising and responsive. The cellular models come with a SIM tray placed at the right bottom of the iPad. This iPad still retains its 3.5mm headphone jack along with stereo speakers at the bottom. To match the theme of the new iPhone XS series, the iPad 2018 now comes also in a gold variant.
Features
The iPad 2018 has a 9.7-inch display with a display resolution of 1536 x 2048. The display is sharp, and bright enough to be used is even under direct sunlight. The colours on the display look vivid, and it is always pleasant while watching content.
The biggest improvement over the older model is the Apple Pencil support. This is one of the most anticipated feature amongst users, as this now allows them to use Apple Keynote, Numbers and other design and productivity applications with the Apple Pencil.
The iPad 2018 comes equipped with the Apple A10 Fusion processor (which also powers the iPhone 7) and 2GB of RAM. It runs the latest iOS 12 operating system, out of the box. The interface is easy to use and there is barely any lag. Applications load instantaneously and most of them, run flawlessly. It also supports Augmented Reality which is definitely exciting. We used some of the pre-loaded AR applications including Measure which acts as a tape or a ruler measuring objects around you, using the iPad’s camera. The measurements were almost accurate all the time, and device quickly identifies most of the objects. There are also many AR games available on the Apple App store which are also worth checking out.
Performance
The iPad 2018 runs on the A10 Fusion processor clocked at 2.34 GHz. The quad-core processor has two high-performance and two energy efficient cores. It also has an embedded M10 co-processor which handles most of the motion captures. iOS 12 runs flawlessly on the iPad and there are hardly any glitches or lag. We even tried multi-tasking on the iPad, and opened multiple applications to test it. You can easily have YouTube or Netflix running occupying half the display and simultaneously run applications like Safari, Google Chrome or even Microsoft Word using the other side.
The 9.7-inch screen on the iPad is an LED-Backlit IPS display with a 264 pixel density which is same as on the iPad Pro models. We played a number of Full-HD videos and were thoroughly impressed by the quality of the display. It has great viewing angles and picture quality is crisp and vivid. To test the Apple Pencil support on the display, we ran apps such as Procreate and Pixelmator. It lacks Apple’s ProMotion technology which is capable of delivering higher refresh rate, but the display on the iPad 2018 still feels fluid. The pressure sensitive inputs of the Pencil work well on it.
The iPad 2018 comes equipped with a PowerVR Series7XT GPU which makes gaming a truly enjoyable experience. We tried a couple of graphics-intensive games and were impressed with the performance. The device tends to get slighter warmer towards the left corner after prolonged gaming sessions.
Apple had made sure the iPad 2018 gets the best connectivity options. It comes equipped with latest 802.11ac Wi-Fi standards and has dual-band support (2.4 GHz and 5 GHz). It also sports the Bluetooth 4.2 which uses low energy for data transmission. You can also connect Bluetooth keyboards to enhance the typing experience, however it does not support the Apple Smart keyboard. Apple claims a 10 hour battery life on a single charge, however under everyday use, you can easily manage to get a battery life of 8 hours or more.
The sound quality still remains the same as the previous models. The sound quality is crisp and loud, however when we compared it to the higher iPad Pro models, it does sound dull.
Verdict
The iPad 2018 is a great device considering the price range it falls in. With the Apple Pencil support, it overcomes the lacking feature on its predecessor. There is no doubt it can be a great buy for casual users as it delivers a great entertainment experience. It can also be a good device for amateur designers and students, for running productivity and creativity apps. However, if you are a professional, you should definitely consider the iPad Pro model as it offers the ProMotion display and a wide colour gamut makes a difference. Apple has just announced the latest generation of the iPad Pro which are also worth waiting for. We for one, can’t wait to get our hands on them and will tell you what we think of them when they are here. Till then, keep following us on www.reliancedigital.in
