iPad Pro NOT More Powerful than rMB

[toddzrx]

I just found this article over on MacWorld and thought it fairly addressed the issue of the iPad Pro's A9X capabilities versus other processors. Obviously the author did not include a new rMB in the test, but at least there's a Dell Venue that contains the same Core-M processor as the high end rMB (5Y71).

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3006...he-ipad-pro-really-isnt-as-fast-a-laptop.html

A couple caveats: I'm not into benchmarking and all the details, so I'm coming at this from a layman's perspective. I read the comments following the article and, as usual, proponents on either side are arguing about the results. I don't know anything about the author, but my impression is that he tried to be objective about the testing he conducted.

My conclusion: Geekbench does not tell the whole story of the platform's overall performance in everyday usage that most customers will us their computers and tablets for (yeah, I know that's kind of obvious). As someone who is mainly interested in my computer "just working", this is what's important to me. What's nice these days is that Apple offers a 2 week return period for their products so if you do buy something that turns out to not quite fit your needs, you can get your money back and try again.

 

[keysofanxiety]

Forget that, let's get to the real arguments that'll stir the sauce!

G4 NOT more Powerful than Pentium III! Discuss.

(basically, it's a similar kind of argument.) Different benchmarks and different tests will show different things. The truth is that the raw horsepower of the iPad Pro combined with the OS optimisations makes for remarkably good performance. The real benchmark is what the user feels. People can boast about this spec and that spec, but truth be told I've seen i5 Surface Pros lag when scrolling, and pinching in-and-out very quickly.

You have octacore Android phones with handfuls of RAM crumbling due to poor memory management or rubbish CPU optimisation from the OS. You have gaming PCs running 3000+MHz RAM, an overclocked i7, an SSD, and yet it will still take 2 minutes to install a 80KB Windows Update, for whatever stupid reason that is.

Buy what you want to buy, use what you want to use. Hardware benchmarking software can only tell so much. You're the real benchmark for how well a device performs.

 

[boltjames]

No one would consider purchasing an iPad Pro instead of a MacBook. Two different devices, two different purposes, two different operating systems.

So whether one has a better processor or one has a better keyboard doesn't matter. It's like comparing an iPod to an iPhone. They may look rather similar, but one is for phone calls and the other is for music. Unlike Microsoft who is struggling to find a purpose, Apple isn't trying to create some hybrid tablet/notebook. So when people complain about the iPP's shortcomings "as a notebook replacement" or the RMB's shortcomings "as a tablet replacement" it's a waste of time.

BJ

 

[lite426]

No one would consider purchasing an iPad Pro instead of a MacBook.

I would, and I did very seriously consider the iPad Pro instead of the MacBook. In the end, the only real reason I didn't get was the annoyance I'd have of raising my hand to touch the screen all the time and the lacking "lapability".

So whether one has a better processor or one has a better keyboard doesn't matter. It's like comparing an iPod to an iPhone. They may look rather similar, but one is for phone calls and the other is for music.

I completely disagree. The iPod Touch is probably my favourite electronic gadget of all time. I've almost NEVER used my iPod Touch for music. I use it as a portable pocket computer - web browser, Netflix, Movie Box, radio player, games, social messaging, and indeed phone calls as well with the free wifi apps.

 

[boltjames]

I would, and I did very seriously consider the iPad Pro instead of the MacBook. In the end, the only real reason I didn't get was the annoyance I'd have of raising my hand to touch the screen all the time and the lacking "lapability".

Read what you just wrote because it supports my point perfectly.

"Annoyance of touching the screen all the time" = wrong operating system

"Lacking lapability" = wrong form factor

While you considered an iPad to be a Notebook replacement, you found it didn't work out because of its operating system and its ergonomics. That's been going on since the iPad's launch in 2010, a larger screen doesn't make it any different and keyboard cases have been prevalent since 2012.

I completely disagree. The iPod Touch is probably my favourite electronic gadget of all time. I've almost NEVER used my iPod Touch for music. I use it as a portable pocket computer - web browser, Netflix, Movie Box, radio player, games, social messaging, and indeed phone calls as well with the free wifi apps.

That's someone using an iPod as a poor-man's-iPhone, more a question of finances rather than use. An iPhone, by definition, allows one to communicate out of the house and wherever one travels, not tethered to a short-range homebound network.

It seems like you are trying to use multiple Apple products a) in a way they were never intended in an attempt to b) save money or c) carry less devices. It's not what Apple is about and not why they design products. The iPad Pro is designed to be a more useful tablet, not a notebook-hybrid.

BJ

 

[lite426]

Read what you just wrote because it supports my point perfectly.

"Annoyance of touching the screen all the time" = wrong operating system

"Lacking lapability" = wrong form factor

While you considered an iPad to be a Notebook replacement, you found it didn't work out because of its operating system and its ergonomics. That's been going on since the iPad's launch in 2010, a larger screen doesn't make it any different and keyboard cases have been prevalent since 2012.

Yes. But you said NO ONE would consider buying an iPad Pro over a MacBook. Your statement is simply wrong. I'm sure plenty of people do consider it, and end up getting it over a MacBook as they don't mind not having a touchpad or maybe find out after purchase that they do want a touchpad. I'm sure that Apple could easily implement a basic trackpad support for iOS, it would be easier than to do it the other way around and optimise OS X for touch. I use a mouse all the time with my Nexus 7 2013, I love it.

That's someone using an iPod as a poor-man's-iPhone, more a question of finances rather than use. An iPhone, by definition, allows one to communicate out of the house and wherever one travels, not tethered to a short-range homebound network.

It seems like you are trying to use multiple Apple products a) in a way they were never intended in an attempt to b) save money or c) carry less devices. It's not what Apple is about and not why they design products. The iPad Pro is designed to be a more useful tablet, not a notebook-hybrid.

BJ

So you think Apple never intended the iPod Touch to be used as a personal pocket computer? You think it was designed so people could just listen to music on it? That's funny because even Wikipedia now classes the iPod Touch as a "Handheld PC" rather than a music player - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPod_Touch

The reasons I much prefer to use the iPod Touch over an iPhone are:
- Slimmer compared to the iPhone
- Much lighter compared to the iPhone. Very nice and easy to use lying down in bed.
- Can be used one handed easily
- Better design than iPhone

 

[boltjames]

Yes. But you said NO ONE would consider buying an iPad Pro over a MacBook. Your statement is simply wrong.

Okay, so there's one person who would consider an iPad as a Notebook replacement. I don't know if that makes my earlier statement 'wrong' regarding a corporation that is used to selling tens of millions of units to the consumer segments they target.

So you think Apple never intended the iPod Touch to be used as a personal pocket computer? You think it was designed so people could just listen to music on it?

Yes. I made that point quite clearly in my earlier post.

BJ

 

[KALLT]

Yes. But you said NO ONE would consider buying an iPad Pro over a MacBook. Your statement is simply wrong. I'm sure plenty of people do consider it, and end up getting it over a MacBook as they don't mind not having a touchpad or maybe find out after purchase that they do want a touchpad.

Of course they can consider it, but the point still stands that if you are looking for a laptop with its distinguishing features, the iPad Pro will not suffice. If the iPad Pro does cover your needs then you weren't even looking for a laptop in particular, but more generally a portable device.

 

[maflynn]

My conclusion: Geekbench does not tell the whole story

Benchmarks never did, and it would be silly for anyone to base their purchase decisions solely on the results of benchmarks. They'll helpful to be sure, but they're not the end all, be all. With regards to the iPad Pro vs. the MacBook, the MacBook runs a desktop OS, and thus has a lot more abilities, and options, interns of what it can do, and physical peripherals.

 

[Freyqq]

I don't think anyone expected it to be faster than Intel chips. Intel has a superior manufacturing process, for starters. Regardless of how it compares to Intel processors, A9X is overkill for iOS. No iOS apps are going to come close to feeling slow with the A9X.

 

[lite426]

People always say "we'll never even use the full power of this new processor" yet one year later games show lag. iPad Air 2 now lags with some games. I think no amount of power is overkill.

 

[soulreaver99]

People always say "we'll never even use the full power of this new processor" yet one year later games show lag. iPad Air 2 now lags with some games. I think no amount of power is overkill.

Agree 100%. Remember how people said the iPhone 5S 64-bit CPU was "future-proof" (dumbest word and concept ever btw) and that it will take a long time to use it's full potential? Now iOS and apps have come to a crawl even on the iPhone 6 and iPad Air 2.

 

[maflynn]

People always say "we'll never even use the full power of this new processor" yet one year later games show lag. iPad Air 2 now lags with some games. I think no amount of power is overkill.

That's just the nature of the beast, yet with that said, I find my 2012 rMBP pretty powerful still. My brand new iMac absolutely flies and I expect the speed and my perception of its performance will stabilize in time as well

 

[AFEPPL]

The perfect device is always the one you have and everyone elses point of view is just wrong...!

 

[xmichaelp]

Glad we have some accurate benchmarks now. I was so sick of hearing BS about how a tablet is more powerful than a MacBook Pro. Such BS.

Geekbench is a joke. I wish it wasn't seen as reputable.

 

[boltjames]

Glad we have some accurate benchmarks now. I was so sick of hearing BS about how a tablet is more powerful than a MacBook Pro. Such BS.

Geekbench is a joke. I wish it wasn't seen as reputable.

Good post. I'll take it one step further:

All this discussion and worry about processor speed is useless, it's not like anyone can feel the difference in daily use for 99% of the people who use them. It's not like the applications we use have changed much since 2005, not like these processor wars are really necessary other than to create the illusion of needing the newest/fastest one.

If we really want to talk about speed and productivity, we should talk about something that really makes a meaningful difference. Like typing speed. I type 80 words a minute. That trumps anything Intel can throw at me. Those who fret over a millisecond here and there in launching Safari should instead take a typing class, do something that makes a real difference in your life and save you some time you can actually feel.

BJ

 

[KPOM]

Glad we have some accurate benchmarks now. I was so sick of hearing BS about how a tablet is more powerful than a MacBook Pro. Such BS.

Geekbench is a joke. I wish it wasn't seen as reputable.

That said, there is more to "power" than the CPU. I'm interested in seeing AnandTech's full review. Are they using the same storage chip as the iPhone 6S (with PCIe and NVMe)? How does it perform on their entire suite of benchmarks? I think the gap between the MacBook and iPad Pro is probably narrow enough where we can expect better applications on the iPad Pro than what currently exists for the iPad.

 

[hiddenmarkov]

Forget that, let's get to the real arguments that'll stir the sauce!

G4 NOT more Powerful than Pentium III! Discuss.

(basically, it's a similar kind of argument.) Different benchmarks and different tests will show different things. The truth is that the raw horsepower of the iPad Pro combined with the OS optimisations makes for remarkably good performance. The real benchmark is what the user feels. People can boast about this spec and that spec, but truth be told I've seen i5 Surface Pros lag when scrolling, and pinching in-and-out very quickly.

You have octacore Android phones with handfuls of RAM crumbling due to poor memory management or rubbish CPU optimisation from the OS. You have gaming PCs running 3000+MHz RAM, an overclocked i7, an SSD, and yet it will still take 2 minutes to install a 80KB Windows Update, for whatever stupid reason that is.

Buy what you want to buy, use what you want to use. Hardware benchmarking software can only tell so much. You're the real benchmark for how well a device performs.

Apples former architecture was faster for specific applications. It could bang out some FLOPS, if coded for it properly. Used to be liked for science/data analysis.


M$ updating is a M$ issues. Patch around 80 servers monthly. Its the .net framework patches I have come to hate the most. They take forever to run. Its not hardware, if I throw on a linux distro like Ubuntu and run sudo apt-get upgrade patching goes fast. I prefer cli installs.

 

[Admiral]

The perfect device is always the one you have and everyone elses point of view is just wrong...!

I thought the perfect device is always the one coming in the next refresh. For example, I'm sure my retina MacBook will be perfect, if only Apple would hurry up and get that Skylake processor on the motherboard.

 

[BoneHead001]

Well, I did just that — I got rid of my 2015 rMB for the iPad Pro. I did it for reasons of media consumption. The iPad Pro is better for my media consumption needs. The rMB was beautifully packaged, compact, light and thin. The downside for me was for the price of $1750, its performance was a bit lackluster. The deluxe iPad Pro with LTE, A9X processor, SmartKeyboard and Apple Pencil for $1350 is a better deal for me.

 

[SteveJUAE]

Well, I did just that — I got rid of my 2015 rMB for the iPad Pro. I did it for reasons of media consumption. The iPad Pro is better for my media consumption needs. The rMB was beautifully packaged, compact, light and thin. The downside for me was for the price of $1750, its performance was a bit lackluster. The deluxe iPad Pro with LTE, A9X processor, SmartKeyboard and Apple Pencil for $1350 is a better deal for me.

That's a perfectly logical and financial decision if it fits your needs perfectly

I'm not sure why you thought it's performance was a bit lacklustre given your presumably more modest requirements, still the rMB is no lightening bolt for sure on intensive software.

I just found this article over on MacWorld and thought it fairly addressed the issue of the iPad Pro's A9X capabilities versus other processors. Obviously the author did not include a new rMB in the test, but at least there's a Dell Venue that contains the same Core-M processor as the high end rMB (5Y71).

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3006...he-ipad-pro-really-isnt-as-fast-a-laptop.html
.

I read the review and you at least you can assume it's a bit more rounded biased than the sites with just the Geek Bench 3 benchmark.

It certainly fits the profile one would assume of hardware running with full OS vs a mobile OS

However the IPP must be fast/faster on certain things/apps and it's a shame they did not show these exceptions even if it's niche to IOS to calm down some of the remarks

We all easily understand what the IPP will not do or run compared to a Mac/PC/laptop/tablet running a full OS on typically Intel hardware, I'm still waiting for what it does better than just some mobile apps as it seems a lot for a consumption device that's not as ergonomic as it's little sister Ipad

 

[BoneHead001]

I read the review and you at least you can assume it's a bit more rounded biased than the sites with just the Geek Bench 3 benchmark.

It certainly fits the profile one would assume of hardware running with full OS vs a mobile OS

However the IPP must be fast/faster on certain things/apps and it's a shame they did not show these exceptions even if it's niche to IOS to calm down some of the remarks

We all easily understand what the IPP will not do or run compared to a Mac/PC/laptop/tablet running a full OS on typically Intel hardware, I'm still waiting for what it does better than just some mobile apps as it seems a lot for a consumption device that's not as ergonomic as it's little sister Ipad

Don’t get me wrong — I thought the rMB was a beautiful laptop. My other choice after I returned the rMB was to get a MacBook Pro. For me that would have been a bit more money and somewhat overkill for my needs. While still deciding what to buy, along came the release of the iPad Pro.

 

[chrisrosemusic1]

No one would consider purchasing an iPad Pro instead of a MacBook. Two different devices, two different purposes, two different operating systems.

So whether one has a better processor or one has a better keyboard doesn't matter. It's like comparing an iPod to an iPhone. They may look rather similar, but one is for phone calls and the other is for music. Unlike Microsoft who is struggling to find a purpose, Apple isn't trying to create some hybrid tablet/notebook. So when people complain about the iPP's shortcomings "as a notebook replacement" or the RMB's shortcomings "as a tablet replacement" it's a waste of time.

BJ

You get a thumbs up just for your signature

 

[boltjames]

You get a thumbs up just for your signature

Thanks. Some people have class.

BJ

 

[Max(IT)]

PCWorld .... lol .... the worst and more biased of any websites out there.