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In this article, I give you my Apple iPad 6th Gen (2018) review with specs included. As the name suggests, this is the 2018 iPad the 6th generation model and it’s a lot like the 2017 model, no surprise about this.

Two big changes here, first is the CPU moves up to the Apple A10 CPU which is about 33% faster than the previous 2017 model.

For those who play games, that want to use art tools like Procreate, particularly with bigger canvases, that does make a difference.

Also, it works with the Apple pencil. This is just a slick wrap skin that I happen to have on this. This is an abnormal Apple pencil here. So you don’t have to go into the Pro models, that’s kind of nice.

I know a lot of people wanted something that they can sketch on with a really good pencil or drawing experience but the pros were just too expensive and a lot of windows convertible laptops with pens are expensive too. So, now for $329 or $299 if you’re a kid or you can get any kind of education on this kind you can get into the drawing experience. The only drawback is the pencil is still $99 educational discount on this one is $10 so it’s $89.

Now Logitech is gonna have the crayon, they call it, which is a more kid-friendly form factor it’s a squat little pencil and it’s gonna be 50 bucks so that’s nice but that Logitech one doesn’t support pressure sensitivity. So for those of you who are using it for art that’s probably not gonna be an option. I’m also not sure if it’s gonna be widely available or if they’re just gonna sell that directly in the schools.

The base iPad for 2018 starts at 329 like I said, $30 cheaper if you’re getting an educational discount on. That’s 32 gigs of storage and that’s the Wi-Fi only model.

Tt’s available in silver space grey and gold nothing new or surprising there. Still weighs around a pound and it’s pretty slim though not as slim as the pro model it’s not a surprise. You can go up to 128 gigs of storage as the highest capacity. There are only two capacities available. That raises the price by $100 so then you’re looking at four-hundred-and-twenty-nine dollars if you want to get it with Wi-Fi plus LTE then you’re looking at the usual around 130 dollars up charger. So it’s 329 base and then you go up to 459 so that’s a little bit of an expensive option but that one is still available as well.

Again, if you want something higher than the base retina display resolution, you’re looking at the pro model, so this is 2048 by 1536 resolution which is perfectly respectful of a resolution. It matches the Samsung Galaxy Tab s 3 for example which also supports a pen but does cost more money.

You gotta get that Apple A10 CPU which is the same thing you would have in the iPhone 7. The previous 2017 model had the Apple A9 CPU we’re moving up to the a10 the pro is at the 8th 10x which is a bit faster and the latest generation iPhone 10 + 8 + 8 + use the A11.

What that means as you can see the benchmark comparison here for Geekbench 4 on screen is that it’s faster actually than the iPhone 7 despite having pretty much the same CPU there but not as fast as say the iPhone 10 or the pro models.

Given the pricing and where that fits, that’s fine. Given the performance levels here it’s fast enough to handle doing procreate with large canvases. Yt’s fine for playing games you can see punji mobile on screen they’re playing awesome and sweet.

A lot of people use an iPad for a multimedia device and for a game-playing device and that’s a nice CPU jump from last year’s model. I don’t think a lot of people with the 2017 model are gonna jump on this upgrade unless you want the pencil then there’s certainly a compelling difference there. If you really coveted the pros but you couldn’t afford them this might be an option. Especially you can do some kind of trade-in or sell your although on Craigslist or whatever it is that’s sort of thing.

Typical with iPads what the cameras you’re getting here are there a couple of generations ago from whatever the top iPhone was. You have an 8-megapixel rear camera that shoots 1080p video it has an F 2.4 lens that it can do 120 frames per second slow motion as well.

You’ve got a 720p front 1.2 megapixel FaceTime HD camera on your front camera.

So, they’re decent enough cameras, they’re not show-stopping the good cameras but then again how many of you do use your tablets for your main photo device anyway.

So obviously the big selling point of this model for the previous models is the fact that it works with the Apple pencil like I said. It’s a perfectly wonderful note-taking experience the Apple pencil is one of my favorite solutions and it’s great that it’s more affordable now other than the fact the pencil itself is expensive.

So, if you need a note-taking device this is fine in fact this is better than fine and the only sorta drawback here is that this is not a laminator bondic last display so there’s an air gap that means that it’s sort of like the glass looks like it’s a little bit above the actual display so there’s a slight disconnect.

When you’re taking notes honest-to-goodness it really doesn’t matter that much when you’re doing art it’s only ever so slightly distracting it makes for less pretty display but then again this is not that more expensive model. I don’t find it that bad. Sure, you don’t know the probe motion display which is Apple’s fancy word for the hundred twenty Hertz refresh rate so the pencil looks like it’s even more immediate with less lag when you’re writing on but you know the first generation iPad pro has had 60 Hertz refresh displays like this too and people were not complaining. Everybody thought it’s pretty fast and pretty fluent.

So, for note-taking this is fantastic and I can rest my hand on the screen. Palm rejection on the iPad iPad pro are actually better than on entering and Wacom 80s digitizers which are the ones that are used in most windows convertibles and tablets.

Now one thing to note though is that because this isn’t laminated glass, there is an air gap in there so that means more noise. You can hear it even when you tap on the screen but that’s not so much because your finger is a nice cushioning thing. When you do the pencil on the screen you can just listen to this. That’s pretty loud. Now imagine this in the classroom with 30 kids going clack clack clack clack it’s gonna be like it’s gonna be noisy in that classroom so well that there is the drawback of having this this lower end display on the device.

Now this is Procreate for and this is a screen resolution sized canvas here and it’s a really enjoyable and still very fluid experience here. Procreate is just a fantastic application if you want to do a drawing.

So here I’m using a 6b pencil and I’m gonna put in some shading on my mountains to be here so I’m using the tip of the pencil now to make my dark lines and if I turn it sideways there’s my shadows right there so you see you’ve got the same tilt capabilities that you would with an iPad pro which is pretty darn nice the same levels of pressure sensitivity it’s a fantastic thing.

And, in terms of multitasking in iOS 11, you want to say I want to have a picture of some mountains to help me along looking at. So we’ve got the multitasking thing going on here and it works very well as I mean you’ve got an A10 CPU in here the speed is good it’s it’s really it’s quite nice honestly.

What they’ve done with Iowa 11:4 the iPads in particular in terms of multitasking is just really sweet so there we’ve got all my programs I can switch between them I’ve been playing PUBG mobile you can see that it’s all good stuff.

So, yeah, you could say this isn’t the most exciting iPad release ever look at it it still looks like the same old iPad from last year all that sort of thing but I would say the pencil and the speed improvements are pretty reasonable.

For 329 bucks you’re getting a lot of nice tablet here with the whole iOS ecosystem and experience and all the accessories that are available too.

I’m pretty positive about it I can’t really say that I’ve got complaints about it because if you want higher-end stuff there is the more expensive iPad pro model. I think it’s very pretty fair what you’re getting for the money here.

Battery life so far seems to be about the same as the last generation and it meets Apple’s claims. So what do they say on their website actually is the truth which is pretty nice and refreshing compared to a lot of other manufacturers.

As a laptop replacement you know this has been done and talked about again and again and I’d leave it up to you as to whether you think this is a viable laptop replacement. I personally find that a little bit small I still need my desktop programs but other people don’t. I mean you’ve got Safari here you’ve got your full web browser, you’ve got an email client, and you’ve got mobile versions of Photoshop which are much pared down but still pretty decent.

Abviously all the apples sweet the I work sweet they’re adding pencilled friendly features to this all the time as well so if you want to do annotations or markup on your keynote presentations or in your pages you can do that as well you’ve got GarageBand you can make your music.

There’s a lot of stuff you can do it this even good iMovie to edit your movie footage with the a10 CPU it’s perfectly capable especially with 1080p video though this itself shoots.

So, that’s the 2018 iPad. Again, it’s the 6th generation for those of you who are counting and for 329 it’s a really nice iPad right just like the 2017 was but this is even better because it’s faster and since a lot of you out there I think use these to play games fast does make a difference.

Also because Apple has done a very good job with multitasking in iOS 11 making it easy to juggle applications back and forth it’s nice if you can actually take advantage of that without it slowing down.

The two gigs are RAM like I said. It would be nice to have more wouldn’t it? I mean it’s not a showstopper but I know a lot of people like that but that’s what the pro models are for obviously if you want a better display if you want higher performance still more RAM all that stuff there are the iPad pro models.

The most exciting thing about it and the whole reason why Apple attended this is an education product they could have touted as an art product or a note-taking product but whatever is the pencil. So you’ve got an awesome note-taking device an awesome art device and something that’s fun for education too. As long as you can stand a classroom of people going you know hold that long.