Apple just gave iPad Pro fans a good reason to upgrade: a bigger, better screen in a small package.
The new iPad Pro features a 10.5-inch Retina display, but with 40 percent less bezel around the screen, the body is still small and slim and weighs just about a pound.
"It's going to take everything you love about the 9.7-inch and give you a whole lot more to love," said Greg Joswiak of Apple's marketing team.
The new model features a True Tone display with a 2,224x1,668-pixel resolution (264 ppi) and a wide color gamut, ultralow reflectivity with 600 nits brightness and HDR video support. It's big enough to fit a full-size keyboard and it's also the first with Apple ProMotion, which doubles the refresh rate to 120Hz to make motion look smoother and more responsive. Apple says the when used with Apple's Pencil the latency is only 20ms.
There's more power behind that display, too. Inside is an A10X fusion chip that includes a 12-core graphics processor and a six-core CPU: three that are for high performance and another three for high efficiency. Joswiak said the chip is 2.5x or 30 percent faster than A9X with 40 percent or 4.3x faster graphics.
Out of the box it will run on iOS 10, but can be upgraded to iOS 11 in the fall. That's important because there are several iPad-specific upgrades in Apple's updated mobile operating system. Part of this is a new Mac-like Dock that makes multitasking and switching between apps easier. The update will also add drag-and-drop capabilities -- text, images, URLs -- between apps when viewed in split screen.
Perhaps because more and more people are using iPads as mobile all-in-one photo- and video-production systems, Apple put the same camera in the new iPads as you'll find in the iPhone 7: A 12-megapixel camera with optical image stabilization in back and a 7-megapixel FaceTime HD camera in front.
All of these features are also coming to the 12.9-inch size iPad Pro. The only difference between them, aside from their size, is the screen resolution which is 2,732x2,048 pixels for the 12.9-inch.
The 10.5-inch iPad Pro is available for preorder now and starts shipping next week. Color choices include silver, space gray, gold and rose gold.
iPad Pro base prices
| Model | US | UK | Australia |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10.5-inch 64GB Wi-Fi | $649 | £619 | AU$979 |
| 10.5-inch 64GB Wi-Fi + LTE | $779 | £749 | AU$1,179 |
| 12.9-inch 64GB Wi-Fi | $799 | £769 | AU$1,199 |
| 12.9-inch 64GB Wi-Fi + LTE | $929 | £899 | AU$1,399 |
