I start looking at new models after 2-3 years with my current iPad, and if something seems compelling, I make the jump. I'm two years now on my 7th gen, so I've reached the point where I'll start casually shopping for new.
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All iPads How often do you upgrade your iPad?
- Thread starter The Game 161
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I watch the keynote every year. Whether I upgrade or not depends on how compelling the new devices are for the given asking price, and how well my current device still serves my needs.
It is noticeably faster than even my Intel 16" Macbook. A few reasons.
Wi-Fi 6. I didnt even know I had it but my Xfinity router is Wifi6. So wireless is faster. 500Mbps vs 80.
Wired ethernet I can get up to 800.
The M1 runs JetStream web benchmark at 230. Which is higher than many core i9 desktops for Web browsing. So yeah, we experience is very enjoyable and Mobile Safari is suppose to be a dog vs Desktop chrome.
It is basically the fastest web browsing machine in my house until I get a new Macbook w/ Wifi6.
I watch the keynote with interest too. I've been sucked in by many presentations at those things, and you would think, as a marketing guy, I'd know better ?
Well, there's usually like 4-5 days delay between the keynote and when pre-orders open. That gives me time to think more or less rationally and decide after the initial excitement has worn off. ?
Especially useful now that iPads have gone from a sub-$1K purchase (for top capacity, cellular) to ~$2K+. ?
Yeah, those days in between have saved me too. Many times! And you're spot on about prices. It's easy to drift north of $1500 for an iPad Pro with peripherals now...
I usually wait for iPad sales at the Army or Navy military exchange stores, usually on or around Veterans Day as the best price - typically 40% off. This year zilch due to apparent supply chain issues. But previous year iPads still going strong.
I first bought the iPad 2, then upgraded to the first-gen iPad Pro 12.9” (128 GB) in the fall of 2015, and I’m still using it. I bought an Apple Pencil with it, with the plan to experiment some with art on it, but that hasn’t been a great success. I tried doing a lot of stuff on the iPad, learning, coding, drawing, illustrating, some gaming, but it’s all fallen away in favour of some base activities.
I use my iPad a lot, but mostly just for web browsing, forums and some media consumption. It’s not had very pro demands made of it, and I don’t think I will upgrade until it goes out of support. When I do upgrade I’ll step back to a non-pro model.
I do love my iPad, I find it way more convenient to hold than a laptop on the couch or in bed, but the pro model hasn’t been a success for me. For serious work I prefer a chair, a desk and a Mac.
I use my iPad a lot, but mostly just for web browsing, forums and some media consumption. It’s not had very pro demands made of it, and I don’t think I will upgrade until it goes out of support. When I do upgrade I’ll step back to a non-pro model.
I do love my iPad, I find it way more convenient to hold than a laptop on the couch or in bed, but the pro model hasn’t been a success for me. For serious work I prefer a chair, a desk and a Mac.
I’ve been thinking all the javascript they put in FB website is likely too much for my processor. Just tried FB on a 2020 ipp 11” and Safari runs it really well. I think it also has 6 gb memory vs my 4. Also my iphone 12 mini runs it well on Safari. No way am I using their stupid app.
Lol, my estimate doesn't even include peripherals. Just purely iPad cost.
$830 iPad 3 64GB Cellular
$930 iPad 4 128GB Cellular
$2000 iPad Pro 12.9 1TB Cellular
Granted, I was pretty frustrated with the 64GB iPad 3. It only had maybe 500MB-1GB free space and I spent like more than half a year with "You have 0MB free" messages every single time I updated apps. I couldn't upgrade to 128GB quickly enough.
Meanwhile, I find 512GB to be quite comfortable and 1TB worry-free. With 1TB, I've got more than enough space for all my favorite manga and comics, my reading list plus the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Substitute Mac with PC and I'm the same. I'm an office drone though (very, very, very rarely work from home) so all of that is provided by my employer.
For me, computers, iPads and tech in general are more of a "hobbies and entertainment" expense and for that, I much prefer the iPad for personal use.
I guess never again- had an iPad Air 4 for a few months and realized I just never really used it much or I can do the same work quicker on a MacBook use an iPhone. Mostly, I just got tired of keeping up with so many devices ahaha. It's a solid product, just not for me.
It's not RAM. A12 with 3GB RAM runs is flawlessly just like an iPad pro 11 with 6GB. It's A12 (even without X) that can handle browsing, including of heavy sites, smoothly. Probably the best synthetic benchmark of browsing speed is the Speedometer Browserbench 2.0:
A9X: 52
A10X: 107
A12: 140
A12X: 150
M1: 220
For comparison something like a laptop i7 (8th gen) scores around 120.
The best Android tablet (Tab S7+), which I also own, scores terribly: 40 with the native browser and around 50 with Chrome (which is not even optimized for desktop) and feels even slower than A9X (despite the SD865+ in the tablet being much more powerful, with a Geekbench in between A10X and A12).
Android tablets in general are terrible for browsing heavy websites.
I get 239 JetStream/255 Speedometer on my iPad Pro M1 11". I tried it on my Kid's Kindle fire 8" and 10"... Both get 16 operations per minute. Damn slow and you can tell just browsing craigslist (which is text heavy)..
I mean. 16. Score is 16!
Up until my latest M1 12.9 IPad Pro ,8GB memory,2TB HDD, every year , now with this beast, I just don’t know!
that's the same score as my iPad mini 2 with A7. For reference, my Air 2 with A8X (now sold) scored 26-27 in browsing, barely more than my mini 4 with A8 (to be expected since they have the same single core speed)
Yeah, the new iPad Pros are very refreshing. The whole argument about "better web browsing" experience of desktop vs tablet is no longer true.
My iPad is literally the fastest web browsing experience in my household. Everythingis super snappy. I browse SlickDeals all day and read text heavy sites and scrolling is so smooth and page renders are instant.
This still depends on the website. Some websites were simply not designed or tested properly with Mobile/iPadOS Safari.
That said, web browsing on the iPad has come a long way. Adobe Flash is finally dead and I think majority of commercial websites work fine on the iPad.
Nowadays, it's pretty rare that I encounter issues. Alas, they can be very annoying when they do occur (buying $199 iPhone SE 2020 from Walmart, order checkout on Lenovo website, trying to download 1095 from CoveredCA).
Still true with Android tablets, but no longer with iPads.
Hardware-wise iPads started reaching parity with the average laptop i5 (in terms of browsing speed) with the first gen iPad pro, started overtaking them with the second gen pro and pulled forward with the 3rd gen.
But it was only in 2019 with iPadOS that the software part (Safari) started to really catch up with desktop browsers.
However it should not be forgotten how annoying mobile browsing was before, let alone how slow anything before A9/A9X was for browsing demanding sites.
Nowadays if you want a smooth experience on virtually any website you should start with A12 and above (even though A10X is still relatively decent)
That's on Lenovo. Their site is a sloth. Doesn't matter what I use to access it, it makes my tech feel ten years old.
I can tolerate the slowness. The issue was placing/confirming an order was failing completely. I had to switch to a PC so I could place the order.
Had a similar issue with Walmart. The PDF form viewer they were using to deliver wireless carrier agreement/consent forms didn't want to work on the iPad.
Ditto for CoveredCA and downloading the tax form 1095 PDF. Incidentally, it wouldn't download on Safari on the MacBook Air either. I think I had to use either Firefox or Chrome to download.
Yes, the issue is absolutely the web developer. That said, can't do anything with regards to fixing iPad compatibility aside from submitting a complaint/feedback.
Yep. Having access to desktop Gmail on the iPad is very convenient.
Granted, that's something I usually only do on the M1 Pro. I think it probably uses a lot of RAM since it's glitchy/crash-prone on my 2017 Pro. Used it on the Pro 9.7 once and crashed/reloaded with every single batch operation.