The 2024 iPad Pro Costs More Than a MacBook Pro, Which Has to Mean Something, Right?
I use my iPad Pro every day. I have used it every day since I picked up the first generation of the device years ago. There is certainly value in the iPad, but now you can now easily spend more on one than a full-fledged MacBook Pro.
There is no denying that having an iPad is nice. It’s a lovely device that I absolutely enjoy using — it’s easily the most useful content consumption device that I own. Over the years, Apple has pushed the limits of the iPad higher and higher to the point that now in 2024, we have one that is straight up more powerful that many of the laptops in Apple’s portfolio.
It’s got some serious horses under the hood. A 10-core CPU with four performance cores and six efficiency cores. It has a 10-core GPU that supports hardware-accelerated ray tracing. it has a 16-core neural engine and maxes out at 16GB of RAM with 120GB/s memory bandwidth. Oh, and it has an OLED display (tandem OLED, to be specific). That’s a lot, and that’s before we even discuss that this thing is the thinnest device Apple has ever made — it’s thinner than an iPod Nano which, for the kids who weren’t around for it, was ridiculously thin. Spec for spec, the new iPad Pro beats the baseline M3 MacBook Pro and probably outperforms versions of the M3 Pro.
I’ll admit, Apple has done a phenomenal job adding as much value to the iPad as possible without changing iPadOS much. Final Cut on iPad is very good and yesterday’s Final Cut Camera announcement along with the multicam feature baked into Final Cut with it can turn a set of iPhones and an iPad into a mobile production unit. I’m not sure how much power this really takes and if the new M4 is really necessary, but the functionality is great. But as nice as it can be, there are still limitations with iPad that can frustrate. File management is still one of the weak points, for example, and it makes all that performance feel difficult to access and take advantage of.
.jpg)
