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iPad refurb 10.5" pro vs iPad 9.7 for school

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FiremanMike

macrumors 6502
Original poster
I'm about to buy an iPad for my wife for school. It's primary purpose will be note taking, studying, and youtube at night..

Is there any reason to get a refurb 10.5" pro over one of hte new iPad 9.7's now that the new iPads have pencil support?
 
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Just ProMotion alone is priceless. I wouldn’t really out a price to it.

Quad speakers are huge too. Probably worth an additional few hundred bucks.

2 GB VS 4 GB RAM is probably worth an additional few hundred bucks too.

Then the faster processor in the Pro 10.5 is probably worth an additional USD 100.

There are probably other differences. But the top 3 above are together easily worth a USD 1000 difference. And I doubt anybody is really asking for USD 1000 to move up to the Pro. So it’s really a bargain. 🙂

Of course your budget does matter. And if you’ve never used ProMotion I suggest you stay away because it makes 60 Hz iPads unusable thereafter.
 
aakshey said:
Just ProMotion alone is priceless. I wouldn’t really out a price to it.

Quad speakers are huge too. Probably worth an additional few hundred bucks.

2 GB VS 4 GB RAM is probably worth an additional few hundred bucks too.

Then the faster processor in the Pro 10.5 is probably worth an additional USD 100.

There are probably other differences. But the top 3 above are together easily worth a USD 1000 difference. And I doubt anybody is really asking for USD 1000 to move up to the Pro. So it’s really a bargain. 🙂

Of course your budget does matter. And if you’ve never used ProMotion I suggest you stay away because it makes 60 Hz iPads unusable thereafter.
Click to expand...

I have a 10.5" pro that I've had and used the dog crap out of since I bought it in 2018, I've never touched the new 9.7
 
If you live near a Microcenter, check them out they might have some new 10.5 leftover. I got mine with 256GB and cellular for $575 before tax. You want quad speakers if you watch alot of youtube.

 
If you get a keyboard for it, then the 10.5” size is a HUGE advantage. The key spacing is much better. Plus the Smart Connector is great. No need to deal with Bluetooth.

ProMotion is great, but I’m OK with 60 Hz.

Wide colour gamut with TruTone is great.

Quad speakers are way better than two.

Surfing is nicer on the 10.5” screen. Split view also works better.

4 GB is a nice advantage.

The better camera (with flash too) is helpful for scanning documents.

However, the 10.5” Pro cannot use Logitech Crayon and costs more for AppleCare.

From best to worst:

11” > 10.5” Pro > 10.5” Air > 9.7”
 
I didn’t notice, at first, moving to the 120 Hz screen from a 60 Hz iPad. But using a 60 Hz, I noticed the difference immediately.
 
As I mentioned earlier, 120 Hz is a nice bonus, but I can live without it.

For example, more important to me are the wide colour gamut screen and the quad speakers.

As for memory... This isn’t an iPad but I was interested to see the memory utilization on my Apple TV 4K with tvOS 12, which I would have guessed is less memory hungry than an iPad.

E858426A-7FF2-4537-9BD1-0DFC7408D536.jpeg


It seems at idle on both this device and my iPad Pro, base memory usage is often close to 2 GB, so a 2 GB device is going to be limiting sooner rather than later. This gets reflected in the fact Apple’s most recent product releases are all 3-4 GB.
 
In either case make sure it will be capable of doing everything she needs it to do. I stumbled across something this summer that caught me off guard since I don't typically teach online. My cousin's daughter is taking classes at my campus and our content management system, Blackboard, has a weird quark. Students can join live lectures with Chromebooks, and iOS devices, but cannot playback the recorded lecture as it requires java. I ended up cobbling together a solution by installing a stripped down version of Ubuntu on her Chromebook to get her through, but what a pain just to take in a few recorded lectures. She is not particularly techie, so I can't wait to get her back on ChomeOS.

Maybe I'm just cheap, but I cannot justify the price increase of the iPadPro over the iPad, but then again for me it has always been a content viewing device that my kids have taken an interest in over the last year or two. I managed to score an incredible deal on a 2018 model over the weekend. Staples had the base model 9.7" iPad on sale for $249, and a $100 off my next purchase coupon showed up with no restrictions, so I picked one up and at $150 it was well worth it. It's a great little device, and I will probably pick up a cheap Bluetooth keyboard to use with it to see if I can truly find a use for it for occasional productivity.

I'll probably tinker a bit with a cheap stylus to see if I find it useful for writing equations and such, but may eventually splurge on an Apple Pencil.

If I were more artistic and had a need to unleash the extra power of the Pro model for some specific work, I would reevaluate, but based on your wife's needs, I wouldn't say that beyond a doubt she needs the pro model.

Good luck with your choice!
 
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