Apple bumps up price on iPad Pro as flash costs climb Apple has raised the price on much of its iPad Pro tablet line. The Cupertino giant did not say why it was bumping up the price for the 256GB and 512GB iPad Pro 10.5-inch and 12.9-inch models by $50. A Wi-Fi only 256GB iPad Pro now costs $649 for the 10.5-inch model and $799 for the 12.9-inch one. The 64GB models for both …
Many people will get the phone on a contract which means that the upfront cost is hidden from them. Those that can do maths will have worked out that's an expensive way* of buying a phone and therefore separated the device from the call/data plan.
Compared to buying a phone upfront and using someone like Giffgaff (if you're in the UK).
What's "measly" about 64GB of flash? Unless you are taking tons of 4K video and wanting to keep it on your phone instead of offloading it regularly, 64GB will go a long way for many of us. My current phone is "only" 32GB and not close enough to full that I've ever had to do cleanup. 64GB would easily last me the life of the device.
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I've decided I've got the money to replace my old iPad 3. Which sadly has a crack in the screen, a knackered old battery and is woefully short of RAM by this point. It can no longer hold two webpages in memory simultaneously - if you switch between them you have to wait for the old one to reload when you go back to it. So that also doesn't say much for the efficiency of the programming in Safari and latest versions of iOS. Obviously you'd expect it to struggle with the latest apps and games.
Almost makes you wonder if they deliberately slow the old models down...
Anyway the Pro looks tempting. But then they put in the stylus I've always wanted on an iPad - and deliberately cripple it so you can't write with it. Why!?!?! Supposedly you can buy third-party apps that will sort this, but why the fuck should I have to do that? And how can I test them before buying?
Or I can get a Samsung with their stylus that does work properly - but on a version of Android now 2 out of date (even though it's brand new), and not much hope that Sammy will update it - or even give me security fixes.
So I'm thinking stuff it, I'll go for a cheaper 'Droid. Get one of those nice Lenovo Yoga ones, with the barrel down the side of the screen that makes them much nicer to hold. They're also on out-of-date software, but at least they're not charging over £500 for a device they fail to support.
I guess there's always Surface.
Almost makes you wonder if they deliberately slow the old models down...
A mate of man told me about this a few years ago when Safari introduced tabs or something.
The high-end Samsung Tabs are beautiful but Samsung is terrible at keeping them updated. On the plus side: they are easy to root and generally well supported by AOSP's like LineageOS. I got as far as Android 6 for my 2011 8.9 which eventually died on me in spring.
But the Yoga also looks like a good device.
I really liked my 2 iPads. But Apple have always taken the piss on the price of storage, and I notice that I'm using the thing much more as a web browser than for apps nowadays. I was rather tempted by the bigger screen of the Pro, but for that money I don't want their pisspoor crippled "pencil" - I want a proper stylus with handwriting recognition. I don't think that's unreasonable.
I had one with my HP convertible tablet back in 2005. It was slow, and used Vista, but the stylus worked flawlessly. I admit that it was one of the few parts that did, hence my move to an iPad 1.
I use the things way more than my PC now, so I'm happy to spend £800 - but not if it's only going to last a couple of years - or they've done a half-arsed job.
There are a number of handwriting recognition apps on the App Store, a quick google will give you the reviews. 7notes is apparently fairly decent.
But I do have to wonder why you'd want it given that you have a perfectly decent keyboard at your disposal, which will almost certainly be faster than writing. You may well have your reasons, but I manage just fine with the keyboard for typing and the pencil for writing.
Lord Elpuss,
As far as I'm aware from playing with one in a shop, you can draw to your heart's content, but there's no handwriting recognition.
I could get the Notes app to let me doodle, or write notes - but it wouldn't turn them into text. And the pencil only worked as a totally pointless pointing device in Email and Safari.
I'd be delighted to be corrected if I'm wrong. Because the one consistent thing I've wanted for my iPad all along has been a stylus. Onscreen keyboards are rubbish for anything more then tapping out a line or two of text.
> You can write, draw and shade in Notes, so I don't know what you're talking about.
Yeah, but don't do it with important info. Until learning the hard way, I was doing this too. And then suddenly the drawing part is gone, taking along with it much of the written notes on the page.
After this happened a few times, I now avoid doing any kind of drawing in Notes. It's not worth the potential data loss.
A useful (and pretty good) drawing app is "Concepts":
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/concepts-sketch-design-illustrate/id560586497
Works well. Haven't found a good way to export data though, apart from emailing the drawings to myself (which works). The dev's have talked about creating a "Cloud" for people to upload their drawings, which might be useful for some people (not me personally).
On the topic of their dev's, even though I'm a paying customer they ignore all support requests. So, bear that in mind when thinking about in-app purchases. If you need assistance, you're likely on your own.
Still, it's a good drawing app, and light years ahead of anything that was on my old Samsung.
Don't do it. Just don't. You will regret it.
I've tried several 'cheap' tablets, and they proved that the "Landfill Android" moniker is justly deserved. They were barely suitable for even the most basic purposes. A couple were so bad that they weren't even good enough to suffice as a basic e-reader. You're also virtually guaranteed to get zero updates. What you got in the box is what you're stuck with.
There have been some important changes in the droid-verse since I last used one... The latest versions of android are significantly improved, especially in the realm of power/process management. Also, there is now an official-ish agreement between several of the major manufacturers to provide at least a couple years worth of updates. I can't remember the details, and they still don't come close to the avg 5 years of updates that Apple provides, but the situation is a heck of a lot better than it used to be.
Oh, another nice feature in recent androids... If your device supports SD cards, you can configure the device to (essentially) group the storages together into one cohesive volume, so you no longer have to play the "Can I move this app to my sd card?" game.
Or I can get a Samsung with their stylus that does work properly - but on a version of Android now 2 out of date (even though it's brand new), and not much hope that Sammy will update it - or even give me security fixes.
In my experience, Sammy does not update their tablets. That's why I bought an iPad.
Unless you really need the Apple Pencil support, the 2017 non-pro iPad is quite nice for half the cost. Paired with a basic Bluetooth keyboard, it can serve quite well as a lightweight mini PC replacement -- way more capable than a ChromeBook IMHO.
My old, unsupported-from-birth Galaxy Tab Pro 10.1 allegedly had a higher pixel density, but in actual usage I can't see any image quality difference between it and the iPad.
I've received two iOS updates for the iPad in 4 months -- that's double the number that the G-Tab Pro got in 3+ years.
No, it's just that nobody treats them with the reverence they (or seemingly you) feel they deserve. El Reg are equally rude to everybody.
Even when Apple act like spoiled children and refuse to invite them to their press events. The Register are still happy to say their kit is the best when that's fair, and have a go when it isn't. I'm fine with that.
I hold no reverence for any company. My iPads have been brilliant, the iPhone 5 was mechanically unreliable, and not well designed enough for the premium price charged. And anybody who designs a phone with a glass back is an incompetent fuckwit, however pretty they might think it makes it. I try to use the best tool for the job, whoever makes it.
El Reg as a whole may be fairly impartial, but certain writers have very clearly nailed their colours to the anti-Apple mast and take any opportunity they can to snark. Specifically, I have a personal problem with Cupertino Idiot Tax - that's not anti Apple, it's anti Apple owners. Puerile, unoriginal and insulting to a large proportion of the readership; hence my regular retort of grow the fuck up (or variation thereupon).
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