Apple just unveiled the new iPad Pro 10.5 in the ongoing WWDC conference. The tablet marks the third iPad in the Pro series after the 9.7 inch and 12.9 inch launched last year.
The Pro has slimmer bezels and 20% more screen estate than the 9.7 inch. In addition, the screen has a max brightness of 600 nits which is a healthy gap above the 400 nits average on most devices. Apple didn’t stop there, they built a 120HZ refresh rate which translates to an industry-leading 20ms latency when using the Apple Pencil. The refresh rate is variable, that is, it will only kick in when you need it hence saving power when not in use. Best of all, the new iPad comes with the new trending HDR screen technology making it the first Apple iOS based product to support it.
This and more power saving features of the new iOS 11 will lead to a 10 hour battery life and fast charge thanks to USB 3.0 based connector.
Under the hood is a 6 core Apple A10X Fusion chipset. Three of those cores are power saving while the other 3 are high performance ones. The chip will be accompanied by a whopping 12-core graphics unit. This setup will translate into 30% more power in CPU and 40% improvement in GPU compared to the previous generation.
On the photography front, The iPad Pro 10.5 will have the same exact camera combo as the iPhone 7,that’s is, 12MP with OIS and f/1.8 on the back while the front will have a 7MP selfie shooter. This is quite amazing considering that tablet’s aren’t really used for taking photos and most manufactures don’t equip them with half-decent shooters.
The new iPads won’t come cheap considering all the high end specs; the base WiFi version with 64GB goes for $649. The 4G LTE version requires an extra $130 above that price. The iPad Pro 10.5 will launch with a iOS 10 but will later get an upgrade to iOS 11 towards the end of the year when it gets released to the public, the new OS version will bring the new Files App, better split screen multitasking and a smarter Siri among other features.
