Ipad pro 9.7 review 2023 năm 2024

Released at the same time as the iPhone SE, you could be forgiven for thinking the iPad Pro's little brother is an afterthought from Apple. But after a short time with the Pro 9.7 you realise this is not the case at all. In fact, it's a very smart move.

Much in the same way as it was cunning to shoehorn the power of the 6s into the diminutive casing of the SE, here Apple has pulled the same trick with the 9.7 by squeezing the capabilities of the full size iPad Pro into the dimensions of an iPad Air 2.

What you get is all the considerable power of the 12.9in Pro version but with the extra portability of a standard iPad. This is a very good thing indeed.

Testing in the field

Waving goodbye to London, WIRED decamped to a campsite in Dorset to see if it was possible to work entirely on the iPad Pro 9.7 for two days and then compare this experience to filing copy, dealing with emails and web research from a desktop PC. What's more, the evening entertainment – music and video – would have to be provided by the tablet, too.

It is almost impossible to tell the difference between the Air 2 and the Pro 9.7 – same weight, same dimensions – but the four speaker grilles on the top and bottom of the casing inherited from the first Pro give the game away. There's also the addition of the keyboard cover with corresponding trio of magnets on the side edge for connection. Oh, and the camera lens sticks out a touch on the Pro, too, of course.

Once opened up and placed on the table in the middle of WIRED's (mercifully sunny) camp site, the Pro's 2048 x 1536 display with its pixel density of 264ppi coped admirably in the glare of the day. Apple's claimed tinkering to reduce reflectivity on this tablet by some 40 per cent can'y be verified, but in our tests reflections were much less prevalent. This made long bouts of screen-based activity in the open air was not only possible, but almost pleasurable.

Jeremy White

The 9.7 Pro also has the new True Tone feature, which brings into play sensors on the front of the tablet to monitor ambient light and adjust white balance to make the screen easier to see in any surrounding. This is superb for reading, but might be off-putting for cinephiles as once turned on it doesn't take into account what you're using the iPad for. The result is, if activated, the Pro alters colours on movies and pictures from what was originally intended. That said, if you're a cinephile yet still choose to watch a film on a tablet, then you have no right to get too upset.

Around the campfire at night True Tone didn't spoil our viewing pleasure. In fact, thanks to those four speakers that automatically orientate the sound output depending on whether you are holding the iPad in portrait or landscape, movie night in WIRED's yurt was a breeze. Four of us could behold the majesty of 2012's Dredd (if you haven't seen it, watch it) without the need to link the Pro to our standby Bluetooth speaker. In fact, it was a good while before WIRED realised we hadn't even bothered to pair the waiting standalone speaker. It simply wasn't needed. While impressive, the smaller dimensions of the 9.7 Pro mean this isn't the same quad speaker system that graces the big iPad Pro.

Jeremy White

Remote working

The A9X and M9 coprocessor taken from the 12.9 Pro make multitasking on the 9.7 Pro a joy. The RAM has been dropped from 4GB to 2GB, but this was hardly noticeable, and the little Pro coped with literally everything WIRED could throw at it. This machine can edit three streams of 4K video at the same time, for example. The smaller screen also meant the urge to reach for the Apple Pencil was greatly curtailed. While you can use it, the larger screen feels more suited to stylus control.

Jeremy White

The Smart Keyboard looks like it would be a pain type on, but is in fact surprisingly responsive. Although the folding design means that for long typing sessions your hands feel a little too close to the screen, it's still perfectly possible to touch type at some speed.

The downside is there's no trackpad and the keyboard itself is nowhere near sturdy enough to be used on the lap. One other gripe is the folding design of the keyboard itself is not as beautiful as one has come to expect from Apple, with its extra fold to accommodate the keys. It's clever, but not stylish – and it's odd to be saying such things about a Cupertino creation.

WIRED is going to go out on a limb here and say that this iPad (paired with a sturdier Brydge keyboard perhaps?) could indeed replace a laptop for everyday use – and we certainly found this to be the case over the two days in the sticks in South West England. The ability to bounce between side-by-side apps such as web and email or notes and word processing meant that it was almost a more-than-passable replacement for working on a full computer. WIRED didn't miss the laptop one bit – especially when it came to battery life. One gets a few hours of work time out of a laptop, with the iPad Pro 9.7 it was more than a day's use on each charge.

Conclusion

Starting at £500 this is pricier than the other standard-size iPads – but rightly so. This tablet has prodigious power and if you are looking for something that can take over from average laptop usage (such as writing, surfing, media playing, art programs, etc.), the Pro 9.7 has the chops, and the screen, to see you right.

Pulling off that all-important trick of packing in the capability of the big Pro into the handy, portable dimensions of the familiar Apple tablet quite simply makes this WIRED's favourite iPad, and favourite tablet, yet. Top marks.

Is iPad Pro 9.7 still supported?

iPadOS 17 dropped support for 2016 iPad Pro 9.7-inch (A9X chip), 2015 iPad Pro 12.9-inch (1st generation) (A9X chip) and 2017 iPad (5th generation) which runs on an even slower A9 processor.

Is iPad Pro 9.7 compatible with iOS 17?

The original iPad Pro 9.7 in and the iPad Pro 12.9 inch 1st generation cannot be updated beyond iPadOS 16.7 but all other newer iPad Pros can update to the current iPadOS 17.0.

Will there be a new iPad Pro in 2023?

New iPad Pro release date: When will the M3 iPad Pro arrive? Following no iPad updates at all in 2023, it looks like there will be a new iPad Pro in 2024. With the last update to the range being in October 2022, and iPad Pro launches tending to happen every 18 months, a spring 2024 update could be on the cards.

When was the last 9.7 inch iPad?

The iPad is also marketed towards educators and schools. It was replaced in September 2019, by the seventh-generation iPad. This is the last iPad to have the original 9.7 inch display.