Which iPad should you buy? Analysis of iPad Pro vs iPad Mini vs iPad Air vs iPad

 

Firstly, I'll be talking about why people use an iPad at all, at what the point of an iPad is Secondly, we'll be talking about diminishing returns and I'll be valuing each of the four iPads at different price points. Thirdly, I'll be talking about the value of delight, and how that feeds into the purchase of an iPad.

 

Which iPad should you buy?

 

In summary, the iPad that I would recommend depends on what you're going to be using it for. So if you're going to be Using the iPad as exclusively a consumption device. To consume content like Netflix, YouTube, Web Browsing and stuff. I personally recommend the iPad Mini Although, if you want a bigger screen the budget iPad is pretty solid as well, if however you want to do some kind of creation work on an iPad. Maybe you're a student and you want to use the Apple pencil. I personally recommend the £489 iPad Air. And finally, if you have professional, powerful needs like maybe video editing or (D'Oench?) photo editing or you're desperate for USBC or you just have a ton of spare cash to burn, then the iPad pro is the one for you, so that was the upfront conclusion if that's all you're here for and that's absolutely fine.

 

Please do follow and consider subscribing on your way out. But for the rest of this article, I'm gonna be expanding on those conclusions and a lot more detail. I'm gonna be explaining why I think those three iPads belong with those three different sorts of people. So the way I see it everyone uses an iPad in a slightly different way but it can essentially be plotted on a spectrum from consumption on the one hand to creation on the other hand. So if you're in the consumption camp, that's things like YouTube, Netflix, Web Browsing. Maybe reading books using the Kindle App or iBooks, things like that is the consumption category and all the way on the other side.

 

We've got the creation spectrum and right on the extreme end of that spectrum is things like video editing, photo editing, music production. You know, the pro applications of an iPad and then kind of further towards the middle is things like writing using a keyboard, Taking notes using an Apple pencil, maybe replying to emails. And the way I see it is that the closer to the creation Pro-end of the spectrum you personally are, the more money. I would recommend spending on an iPad. So in the conclusion, I said that if you're purely in the consumption camp for your iPad use, then I would personally recommend the iPad Mini and the reason I recommend the iPad Mini over.

 

For example, the budget iPad or the iPad air is that the Mini you can hold in one hand and the one-handed use of the Mini is an absolutely incredible thing because let's say you are commuting. It's very feasible to hold the iPad in one hand. It's small enough that you can pretty much take it wherever you want without having to worry about it. So that's why I would go for the iPad Mini personally. And I've got a more detailed review of the iPad Mini coming a little bit later on. Now, let's say you're further along that spectrum of consumption in creation.

 

Let's say you're a student and you're using the iPad to take handwritten notes or you're typing up stuff. I would personally go for the iPad air in those circumstances the $489 iPad Air. Although, you can get by with an iPad Mini, the screen is just too small to really do anything meaningful on it. And if you're in the creation camp and you want, for example take notes with your iPad, chances are, you're going to be taking those on a surface?

 

So there's not really much of a difference between writing on an iPad Mini in terms of space and writing on an iPad air, but it is a massive difference in terms of the size of the paper and how it feels like to take notes like I tried using the iPad Mini to plan some of these videos and it is doable, but I wouldn't want to do it all the time.

Whereas the iPad air is an absolute joy to use when using it for handwritten notes, so then this becomes a toss-up that do we go for the iPad air with this? Possibly weird keyboard attachment or do we go for the iPad budget?

 

There is a 180 pound difference between these two devices and what I'm gonna argue is that, I would recommend you go for the iPad Air and that takes us to part two of the video where we talk about diminishing returns. Whenever we're buying anything in life, I think we definitely want to keep diminishing returns in the back of our minds and that's the idea that spending more money on this thing does not necessarily lead to an equal gain in benefit and equal gain an output.

 

So when it applies to iPad purchasing decisions, I think the graph looks something like this and let's assume that the iPad pro is the gold standard. So at a cost of, let's say, about £770 because that's the most basic version you can get. Let's put that at a hundred percent. Where do the other iPads stack on this graph?

 

So, we have the £319 budget iPad, and I would personally put that at about 91%. Now, let's talk about the iPad Mini. Now, let's talk about the iPad Mini. The iPad Mini is £399. I don't really think if it's on this graph personally. But if I had to, I'd probably put its value at let's say 92%. The iPad air is about £479 of $479, and I would set that around about 95% or there abouts. And so, the graph of cost versus benefit we get and looks something like this and this is the perfect illustration of diminishing returns. You get to a point where the more money you spend on iPad. It gives you very marginal improvements in value improvements in quality of life.

 

Now the reason I'm showing this graph is not just to be pretentious. Although, that is admittedly quite a big part of it, but it's because I think it's really important to understand that the budget iPad is very marginally less good than the iPad Air and the iPad Air is only very marginally less good than the iPad Pro. So, if you are going to be spending the extra £180 difference between the iPad budget and the iPad air or the reabout. Or the extra four hundred and fifty pounds difference between the iPad budget and the iPad Pro.

 

You really wanna understand exactly why you're spending that money. So, at the start you might remember that I said the iPad air is the one that I would recommend for most people and the reason I said that is because I think this £180 pounds price jump between the iPad budget and the iPad Air is worth it. Whereas, I don't think the £450 jump between the budget and the pro is worth it.

              

 

 iPad Air vs iPad

 

So what are those differences between the iPad budget and the iPad air that make the iPad air worth £180 upgrade? There's three things basically. Firstly, is the screen quality. Secondly, are the keyboard attachment possibilities. And thirdly, the amount of power that you get. And let's talk about these interns. So firstly, the screen. This has a very nice glass screen. Whereas the iPad budget has a not very nice plasticky screen. Like the iPad budget is an absolutely incredible device and it's amazing. It's amazing that you can get something as good as this for £319.

 

But the display does genuinely feel like a piece of plastic and so if budget is really an issue for you.Then this is absolutely fine. Like it's not a big deal, but I think the difference between glass and plastic is sort of significant in my opinion. There is a very slight difference in Apple pencil writing capabilities. This iPad budget has a little bit more of a gap between the screen and the internal bit of the iPad. So there is a very slight lag with the Apple pencil.

 

But it's something that you don't really notice unless you put them side-by-side. The iPad air is absolute incredible. It's an identical writing experience to the iPad Pro. And it genuinely does feel like you're writing directly onto the screen. But again, the the experience is kind of similar. It's just if you have these side-by-side, the budget iPad is very slightly worse. By the way, if you're a student and you're going to be using the iPad for anything that involves the Apple pencil. I'd highly recommend you get the paper like screen protector for it.

 

This is something I've been using for the last year plus and I'm so used to writing on it like it does feel like paper when I'm writing on it that when I bought these new iPads to review and I have to test the Apple Pencil out on them. It just felt so weird writing on glass, like to the point that I think, there's only a bit of difference between the budget iPad and the iPad air in terms of the screen. But there is a world of difference between writing with a paper like screen protector and writing on a glass screen.

 

 

Secondly, the iPad air allows you to use things like Apple smart keyboard connector. Which lets you attach this origami keyboard to your iPad Air, which means you can then Semi-easily turn it into almost a laptop replacement where you've got a keyboard. It's quite a nice keyboard, I quite like the experience of typing on it. You can turn it into this a lot more easier. Whereas with the iPad budget. You don't have that option, if you want to attach a keyboard to this you have to go for a third-party Bluetooth option. So for example, this is the Logitech Slim pro case or something like that and iPad goes in and like, sticks here and then you can like, attach it I think like this, ah, so then it folds into this sort of package.

 

It's kind of heavy assistance and it's not that nice. But I mean, it does the job and this thing I think was about £70. Whereas the official Apple one is about £150. So if you really are on a budget and you need an iPad and you want to be able to type on the iPad and this does work. It's just it's just a bit less nice than using the official Apple and a first-party product and Finally in terms of power. The iPad air has the newest processors. It's got a higher Geekbench benchmark scores.

 

Essentially what that means is that if you get the iPad air, it'll probably last you longer than the budget iPad. So those are the three main differences; Screen, keyboard and power. And in my opinion, those differences are worth the £180. But explore this in a bit more detail are going to go into part 3 of the article where we talk about the value of delight.

The value of delight

 

I've been arguing that the iPad air is the one that I'd recommend for most people including most students. The iPad budget pretty much does the iPad budget pretty much does the same thing and you probably won't notice much of a difference, but it's enough of a difference that it but it's enough of a difference that it justifies the £180 price tag and the reason behind that is because of the delight factor that comes with the iPad Air and with the iPad Pro and what I mean by that is that although you can do the same stuff.

 

The iPad Air is just a little bit nicer to use. It's a little bit more delightful. It makes me want to use this. And I think the very fact that it makes me want to use it is what justifies the £180 investment. Now, there's two main reasons behind this. The first one is that it's a generally peddled piece of financial advice that you want to be spending your money where you spend your time. So people often say that you should invest in a good bed and you shouldn't good pairs of shoes because you are spending literally 8 hours of your life every single day in your bed and with your shoes.

 

So what do I mean by this?

 

I mean that let's say I were to buy a new sofa that would encourage me to spend more time on the sofa because then my sofa is more comfortable that sofa in the background is not very comfortable, therefore I don't spend a lot of time there, but do I really want to be spending more time with sofa? Probably not. Let's say I wanted to buy myself a Tesla. I want to club together all my YouTube earnings for the last, like three years and whatever and decide to buy a Tesla for myself, that would encourage me to spend more time in the car more time driving. Is that really what I want to be doing with my life?

 

Do I want to be spending more time driving? No, I don't. Let's say I were to buy a TV for the house. We don't have a TV at the moment. If we do Game of Thrones nights, we have to watch it on the monitor. But all that's gonna do is it's gonna encourage me and my housemate and our friends to spend more time watching TV, which is, again, not something we want to be doing.

 

And I mention all this because spending £180  to upgrade from the budget iPad to the iPad air. Now, I think that is something you do want to be doing. So for me when I was a student  any time. I spend on my iPad is time that is inherently productive because of the things that I do on the iPad I used to use the iPad for taking notes and lectures. I used to have all my textbooks on it. I used to have my passed paper questions. Used to have medical books on it

 

So if I was spending time on the iPad it would be productive I'd be learning stuff and I think if you're the sort of person who you does use the iPad for productive for creative purposes. Then the fact that this extra investment in the iPad air is a bit more of a delight to use will encourage you to use it more And therefore, it becomes an investment in your life that adds more value over time rather than just a liability.

 

The case for the iPad Pro

 

So I've done a whole video on the iPad pro so I don't really want to spend too much time talking about it. But if you follow the logic about the value of delight and stuff, you might think that, well, I've rated the iPad pro as a 100%.  I've rated the iPad air as only 95%, truly that 5% increase in value is worth the 300-pound extra investment between the iPad Pro and the iPad Air.  And I would argue that that really depends on your budget. I think this £180 difference, $180 difference.

 

Again, it does depend on your budget but clubbing together. An extra £180 is probably more doable for a lot of people then clubbing together an extra £300-£400 for the iPad Pro. Yes, the iPad Pro is a slight increase in quality of life compared to the iPad Air, but unless you have a lot of money to spare. I don't think that difference justifies £300. The experience of writing with the iPad with the Apple pencil is identical. The screen is pretty much identical. The only real difference is the fact that you can magnetically stick this on which is nice.

 

It's really nice to have but probably not worth £300. This keyboard thing cost another like £200. This is slightly nicer than the old one because then you don't have to fold it around in the origami fashion. But again, probably not worth the extra money you spend on the iPad Pro. Thirdly, in terms of power, that just has the X chip. This has a normal chip, I can't even remember with a cord because the power doesn't really matter to me in terms of power.

 

In terms of power, if you're a pro user and you need the iPad Pro for graphic editing or video editing or music production stuff like that of course. You want the extra power you want the best thing out there. I think the iPad air is the sweet spot between price and value. Whereas the iPad Pro is amazing. I absolutely love the iPad Pro. I use it every single day. But for me, it's slightly different.

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