Let’s put everything in perspective. I’m a graphic designer and illustrator, when I decided to buy this iPad, I really wanted to fail my expectations. I had a 2-in-1 Laptop with pencil support, which I have to give to my wife for her studies, so my expectation was very high, I needed a product I could use on the go draw and do some graphic design on the fly, which I could finish back in the office.
I’ve been a non-Apple user for many years and I heard many people telling me how awesome the iPad was so I give it a shot, but keep in focus what my expectations were. Well, I didn’t want to spend too much money, Christmas was getting closer, so I wanted to be on a very tight budget, and I saw all the reviews about the new iPad 7th Generation, where each reviewer stated that for the price was perfect on the budget solutions for young artists.
I’m not a young artist, but I also heard that the pencil supported angle detection which my laptop didn’t do at that time, later on, was added with an update, but still was an upgrade at the moment.
So I received the iPad with my new Apple Pencil and I set it up, installed Sketchbook, Affinity Photo, and Affinity Designer right away. I have been using those last two applications for about 2 years now and I heard as well that they had all the capacity of the desktop counterpart in the iPad, and I said to myself: “let see about that”.
Well, after all, that I started to draw, hated the clicking noise, but the smoothness of the strokes, the responsiveness of the experience, and the fluidity of the pen captivated me. This is a $400 to $500 set up and so far so good. Then I started to work on Affinity Designer, had a couple of projects on my OneDrive, with was easy to set up to work with the iPad File System, from 128 Gb went to 1Tb unit, just like that. The project opened without any issue on my iPad, every element, and every layer was there, I was able to work on that project without any lag, it was then that I said... “No way!”
This cheap set up works great, better than expected. If you are a new designer trying to get by, let me tell you, the iPad 7th Generation, and whatever comes next is more than enough to get you started.
Now if you come from another platform and you have a bunch of Apple Sheep telling you how great the system is and how the apps are optimized better for the iPad, let me put it in perspective, that’s a bunch of bolognas. The Instagram app is junk in the iPad if you have your iPad in a case with a keyboard be ready to have to get the iPad out of the case constantly because many, probably, too many apps force portrait, which is a pain. iPad OS is not bug-free. Apps do freezes and there’s no way to close all the apps at once.
The iPad is a very capable device, don’t get me wrong, but do not set your mind that’s a perfect experience, because it is not, is good and in some cases better because the Apple ecosystem, AirDrop has no match for sure. But is far from perfect. It is a very long learning curve, that once you come through it you will love the experience.
The screen quality is not the best if you are wanting to enjoy your YouTube videos in 4K, “No way José”, you are out of luck with this iPad, color accuracy is good, the touchscreen is the best experience you could have.
If you are buying this iPad for drawing as your primary function, buy silicone tips, the clacking and clicking of the pen get to you after a while, no you don’t get used to it, you just tolerate it, with $5 dollars you can make it all go away. Don’t buy paper-like screen protectors, they will make the screen looking worst, and is LCD, no deep blacks.
But man, with less than $500 you can have a very powerful drawing and design device for on-the-go experience, no i3 or i5 4Gb of RAM unoptimized crap that you can get at this price with other brands, this is a great bargain, if you are not planning to do 4K video editing. In that case, I think I would go with the iPad Pro.
One big CON... takes forever to charge, Oh My Gosh, why did you do this Apple, give me a break. At least battery life is not that bad, it will take you through the day for sure. If you are 10% and want to charge for a meeting, forget about it if you are 10 minutes away it will only charge 2% or 3%. Yeah, the Turtle would beat yours for sure.
Well, but seriously, for the price, all Cons are outlasted by the Pros. If you need a design device at a low budget, you cannot get better than the iPad, and you get 1 year of Apple TV for free. Not much to see there but at least entertain.
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Compare Apple iPad products
| Price | From: - | From: $309.99 | From: - |
| Ratings | (8,873) | (63,670) | (23,594) |
| Display | 10.2 inch Retina display | 10.2 inch Retina display | 10.9 inch Retina display |
| Face/Touch ID | Touch ID | Touch ID | Touch ID |
| Chip | A10 Fusion chip | A12 Bionic chip with Neural Engine | A14 Bionic chip with Neural Engine |
| Camera | 8MP photos | 8MP photos | 12MP photos |
| Video | 1080p HD video recording | 1080p HD video recording | 4K video recording |
| Apple Pencil Compatibility | Apple Pencil | Apple Pencil | Apple Pencil (2nd generation) |
| Smart Keyboard Compatibility | Compatible with Smart Keyboard and Bluetooth keyboards | Compatible with Smart Keyboard and Bluetooth keyboards | Compatible with Smart Keyboard Folio, Magic Keyboard and Bluetooth keyboards |
| Connector | Lightning connector | Lightning connector | USB-C connector |
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1/ First Unit - IPAD worked for 10 minutes - then half the screen went black. Although this looked like a split-screen bug at first - I think it really was a hardware issue as none of the split screen 'fixes' did anything - and a total reset did not fix the issue as well. Amazon sent me a new unit and I returned the defective item to Kohl's - hoping the new IPAD works 100% tomorrow. I will update my review when I get the new unit.2/ Second Unit - Amazon sent wrong replacement - they gave me a 32GB Gold IPAD instead of the 128GB Grey - looks like the Amazon stock sticker was wrong (see photo showing Apple ID on box and Amazon stock sticker) . Took a week to resolve with customer service - returned via Kohls - hope the third IPAD ordered is correct and works.3/ Third IPAD - returned incorrect second unit to Kohls ... new IPAD arrived in a day ... works great ! I will now retire my laptop.
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