The 10th Generation iPad: A Mixed Bag of Upgrades and Disappointments

As we dive into our review of the latest Apple device, the 10th generation iPad, it's clear that this tablet is a mixed bag of upgrades and disappointments. One of the most notable features of this device is its floating design, which allows for a more portable and convenient typing experience. However, this design also comes with some significant drawbacks, including the need for counterweights to prevent the iPad from tipping over, making it heavier than the keyboard on the engine level.

The main downside of this design is that its footprint is quite massive, making it difficult to use on small tables or in tight spaces. Additionally, the device is expensive, only $50 less than the Magic Keyboard on the iPad Pro, and lacks a USB Type-C cable for battery charging, unlike the iPad Air's keyboard. Furthermore, the 10th generation iPad does not have any backlights, which can be a significant drawback for users who prefer to work or watch videos in low-light environments.

In terms of hardware, the new 10th generation iPad has also relocated the front-facing camera to a landscape orientation, similar to an actual MacBook. This change provides a more natural viewing angle during video calls and is a welcome upgrade compared to the portrait orientation on previous models. However, it's puzzling that Apple hasn't updated the Pro and Air models to adopt this new landscape orientation.

Now, let's talk about the Apple Pencil situation. On an iPad Air or iPad Pro, you get the second-generation Apple Pencil, which magnetically attaches to the side of the iPad for pairing and charging. However, on the 10th generation iPad, they kept the first-generation Apple Pencil, requiring users to use an adapter to connect it due to the USB Type-C port. The adapter does come with every new Apple Pen purchase, but if you already have an old Apple Pencil, you'll need to buy a new one separately, which costs $99.

The original Apple Pencil's Lightning-to-Lightning adapter, which was included in the box of earlier models, only supports charging and not data transfer. This means that even the old design was more convenient than what Apple has done now with the 10th generation iPad. We decided to test the Apple Pencil on the new device and found that it doesn't work, despite using the same adapter.

Moving on to audio, we conducted a quick speaker test to compare the sound quality of the 10th generation iPad with its predecessor, the 9th gen, as well as the M1 iPad Air. The 10th generation iPad's speakers sounded the worst of the three, only having two speakers on the bottom compared to the dual side speakers on the 10th gen iPads and the better sound quality of the iPad Air.

Finally, we conducted a transfer speed test to compare the performance of the USB-C port on the 10th generation iPad with that of the iPad Air. The 9th-generation iPad's Lightning Port made it impossible to perform this test, but the results were impressive: the 10th generation iPad took 11 minutes and 8 seconds to transfer a 9-gigabyte video file from an external SSD onto its internal storage. In contrast, the iPad Air transferred the same file in just 3 minutes and 33 seconds.

In conclusion, while the 10th generation iPad has some impressive upgrades, such as its floating design and improved camera, it also has some significant drawbacks. The device's massive footprint, lack of USB Type-C cable, and no backlights make it less convenient than its predecessor or competitors like the iPad Air. Furthermore, the Apple Pencil situation is frustrating, with users needing to use an adapter that only supports charging, not data transfer. Overall, the 10th generation iPad feels like a step backward compared to previous models, especially when you consider the availability of more affordable options like refurbished iPads or earlier models.

As we move forward in our review, we'll be testing the M2 iPad Pro to see if it's worth the investment for those looking for a premium device with improved performance and features. Stay tuned for that video next!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enso we just got the new iPads in the studio and in this video we're going to focus on the new 10th gen iPad and with the iPad Pro in the next video and answering the question is the tangent iPad really that bad oh and just a quick one we've just received the new and improved paper like 2.1 we've always loved favorite like for using the apple pencil with any other iPads and this new version manufactured in Switzerland keeps the same papery feel but increases the transparency for a clear viewing experience it's a brilliant addition to your iPad check it out by using the link below taking a quick look at a box this is how it compares to the 9th gen box so the 9th gen had an image of the side compared to the front which is just how the box of the iPad Air looks like and since we got the yellow color uh the iPad branding matches the color that's inside and the Apple logo matches it as well okay so let's break the seals and reveal the completely redesigned base iPad there we go in terms of what we get inside the Box is pretty much the same as always we get this booklet designed by Apple in California inside of which we get the instruction manual interesting enough it doesn't seem to tell you anything about that apple pencil adapter that you need would you get a pair of Apple stickers which unfortunately do not match the color of the iPad other than that we now get a USBC tsbc cable because this iPad now has USBC and this cable is also braided so it's super super nice quality and then we also get a power adapter which is a 20 watt charger okay so let's uh remove the plastic or in this case the paper wrap and reveal the new yellow 10 generation iPad and I gotta say I do really like this color so it's a very vibrant yellow in a way it kind of looks like a mustard I would say so it's a mustardy yellow but it is really nice and it's also very similar to an iPad Air in fact if we compare it against an iPad Air you can see that they are pretty much identical from the back the only difference being that uh well the text just says iPad compared to iPad Air and we also lack uh the SMART connector now this iPad still has a SMART connector it's only that now we have it on the frame on the side instead of it being on the back now compared to the iPad Air this new entry level iPad is actually thicker and heavier and when I was holding it I could actually tell that it did feel chunkier than an iPad Air or an iPad Pro for that matter but fun fact the iPad Pro is actually thinner than both the iPad Air and the entry level iPad by quite a bit now when it goes to the display differences between the tension iPad and the iPad Air the sizes are exactly the same 10.9 inches on both however the bezels are a bit thicker on the entry level iPad I don't know if you can sell compared to the iPad Air they're about I would say 0.5 millimeters thicker however the biggest difference between these two displays is that like you probably know the tension still does not have a laminated display so we have this air gap between the LCD panel and the glass on the top and the thing is when you're using it it doesn't feel as if you're touching the pixels it feels as if you're touching a very thick screen protector that sits on top of the display kind of reminds me of those ATMs now something else that the 10 generation iPad lacks is an anti-reflective coating so if you take a look at both you can probably see that the tension is more reflective than the iPad Air is so if you take a look at how it reflects the light it is way more visible on the tension compared to the iPad Air so just reading through the Verge um I gotta say it's not as great of a reading experience as it is on the iPad Air because of that increased reflectivity however I wouldn't necessarily call this a deal breaker uh same for the air gap so the nominated display it's not as bad in person uh as it used to be with the older iPads still bad that we have this in 2022 but just I wouldn't really call this unusable or anything like that now compared to the previous model the 9th gen iPad as you can tell the difference is gigantic so the design is completely new on the front we no longer have the home button uh the top and the bottom bezels are significantly thinner also the new model is a quite a bit shorter than the old one used to be as you can probably tell however the new model is also wider than the old one used to be now going back to the front uh the display is 10.9 inches compared to 10.2 so we do get a larger display however the bezels on the side as you can probably tell are actually thicker than they used to be on the previous model the brightness is pretty much the same on both models and same goes for the non-laminated display and just a very quick bezel comparison between all the iPads with the skoda form factor so the end travel has the thickest bezels the iPad Air has slightly thinner bezels in the entry level and then the iPad Pro has slightly thinner bezels than the iPad Air now alongside the 10th generation iPad Apple has also released a brand new magic keyboard specifically designed for this new iPad in some ways it is actually better than the magic keyboard for the iPad Pro while in otters it is way way worse by far the best thing about this new keyboard is that we have a full row of function keys which work just like on the Mac so we have an Escape key brightness controls Mission Control search basically everything works the same as on a Mac this row is completely lacking from the iPad Pro's magic keyboard another advantage of this new design is that a trackpad is considerably larger as you can tell compared to the one on the iPad Pro's keyboard third because of the way it works with this kickstand you also get more angles more viewing angles compared to the iPad Pro so this is the maximum angle on the iPad Pro whereas uh on the tangent iPad this is the maximum angle and the fourth advantage of this new keyboard is that it is significantly lighter than the one on the iPad Pro and that's because since we have this floating design on the iPad Pro it also needed to add some counterweights to keep it from tipping over which does make it significantly heavier than the keyboard on the engine level however the main downside is that its footprint is quite massive so if you're traveling and you're on a plane and you're trying to use this on that small uh table seats uh you will need a lot more space than what you would with the iPad Pros keyboard and of course it is also very expensive only 50 less than the magic keyboard on the iPad Pro and it is also lacking that USB type-c cable uh for battery charging like the ibupro's keyboard has and another downside that we literally just discovered is that it doesn't have any backlights uh like the iPad Pros keyboard does now the new 10 generation iPad has also relocated the front facing camera to a landscape orientation now compared to the portrait orientation that we have on the iPad pros and the iPad Air and because of this when you're in the video call and you have the magic keyboard attached the viewing angle is going to be much more natural so more similar to how it is on an actual MacBook compared to this weird side angle that we have with the iPad pros and the iPad Air so it is a bit weird how Apple hasn't updated the pros and the errors to this new landscape orientation but now we need to talk about that apple pencil situation and see if it's really that bad so on an iPad Air or an iPad Pro you get the second gen apple pencil which magnetically attaches to the side of the iPad for pairing and for charging however on this 10 gen they kept the first gen apple pencil but because the iPad itself now has USB type-c port you need to use an adapter to connect the apple pencil which still uses lightning the adapter does come with every new Apple pen to let you buy however if you already have an old apple pencil you need to buy it separately which costs 9.9 pounds it wasn't in stock by the way but interesting enough the original apple pencil did come with a lightning to lightning adapter in the Box we're actually going to try and quickly use this and see if it works with a 10 gen iPad so even though the adapter does actually fit uh sadly the pencil doesn't work so I'm assuming that this adapter that the original apple pencil came with only supports charging and not actual data transfer which would be required for you know pairing and communicating with this iPad and it's honestly such a shame as even the old design which was very controversial where you plugged uh the apple pencil directly into the eye but to charge it even this was a much better approach than what Apple did now with the tangent iPad now let's do a quick speaker test and see how the speakers compare between the tension iPads the old 9th gen and also the M1 iPad Air okay so the next gen definitely sounded the worst as it only has two speakers on the bottom compared to the Dual side speakers on the tension which sounded much better however the iPad Air actually sounded better than the base iPad although I was expecting these two to sound the same and lastly we want to do a transfer speed test to see if the USB C port on the 10th generation iPad is as fast as the one on the iPad Air and by the way we couldn't do this at all on the 9th generation as that one has a lightning Port so we're going to transfer a 9 gigabyte video file from our external SSD onto the iPad internal storage so the 10th generation iPad took 11 minutes and 8 seconds and now let's see if the iPad Air is any faster and there was actually a huge difference the iPad Air transferred the file in just 3 minutes and 33 seconds compared to over 11 on the iPad so it looks like even though they both have a USB C Port the speeds on the tension are significantly slower so in the end is the 10gen iPad really that bad well I think in a vacuum it is a pretty good upgrade over the 9th gen however when you consider that you also have the iPad Air which you can now buy refurbished for the same price or even a lower price than the tension iPad same goes for the 2018 and the 2020 iPad Pros then there's literally no point uh in this device even existing Now you kind of get why Apple has done this thing with the apple pencil because they want to push users to upgrade to the iPad Air which has a much better experience but at the same time I just feel like it ruins a device which could have been much much better but let me know in the comments what you guys think and stay tuned for our next video in which we'll be testing the M2 iPad Pro I'm Daniel this means enough technology you guys in the next one the Nerf Tech picturesso we just got the new iPads in the studio and in this video we're going to focus on the new 10th gen iPad and with the iPad Pro in the next video and answering the question is the tangent iPad really that bad oh and just a quick one we've just received the new and improved paper like 2.1 we've always loved favorite like for using the apple pencil with any other iPads and this new version manufactured in Switzerland keeps the same papery feel but increases the transparency for a clear viewing experience it's a brilliant addition to your iPad check it out by using the link below taking a quick look at a box this is how it compares to the 9th gen box so the 9th gen had an image of the side compared to the front which is just how the box of the iPad Air looks like and since we got the yellow color uh the iPad branding matches the color that's inside and the Apple logo matches it as well okay so let's break the seals and reveal the completely redesigned base iPad there we go in terms of what we get inside the Box is pretty much the same as always we get this booklet designed by Apple in California inside of which we get the instruction manual interesting enough it doesn't seem to tell you anything about that apple pencil adapter that you need would you get a pair of Apple stickers which unfortunately do not match the color of the iPad other than that we now get a USBC tsbc cable because this iPad now has USBC and this cable is also braided so it's super super nice quality and then we also get a power adapter which is a 20 watt charger okay so let's uh remove the plastic or in this case the paper wrap and reveal the new yellow 10 generation iPad and I gotta say I do really like this color so it's a very vibrant yellow in a way it kind of looks like a mustard I would say so it's a mustardy yellow but it is really nice and it's also very similar to an iPad Air in fact if we compare it against an iPad Air you can see that they are pretty much identical from the back the only difference being that uh well the text just says iPad compared to iPad Air and we also lack uh the SMART connector now this iPad still has a SMART connector it's only that now we have it on the frame on the side instead of it being on the back now compared to the iPad Air this new entry level iPad is actually thicker and heavier and when I was holding it I could actually tell that it did feel chunkier than an iPad Air or an iPad Pro for that matter but fun fact the iPad Pro is actually thinner than both the iPad Air and the entry level iPad by quite a bit now when it goes to the display differences between the tension iPad and the iPad Air the sizes are exactly the same 10.9 inches on both however the bezels are a bit thicker on the entry level iPad I don't know if you can sell compared to the iPad Air they're about I would say 0.5 millimeters thicker however the biggest difference between these two displays is that like you probably know the tension still does not have a laminated display so we have this air gap between the LCD panel and the glass on the top and the thing is when you're using it it doesn't feel as if you're touching the pixels it feels as if you're touching a very thick screen protector that sits on top of the display kind of reminds me of those ATMs now something else that the 10 generation iPad lacks is an anti-reflective coating so if you take a look at both you can probably see that the tension is more reflective than the iPad Air is so if you take a look at how it reflects the light it is way more visible on the tension compared to the iPad Air so just reading through the Verge um I gotta say it's not as great of a reading experience as it is on the iPad Air because of that increased reflectivity however I wouldn't necessarily call this a deal breaker uh same for the air gap so the nominated display it's not as bad in person uh as it used to be with the older iPads still bad that we have this in 2022 but just I wouldn't really call this unusable or anything like that now compared to the previous model the 9th gen iPad as you can tell the difference is gigantic so the design is completely new on the front we no longer have the home button uh the top and the bottom bezels are significantly thinner also the new model is a quite a bit shorter than the old one used to be as you can probably tell however the new model is also wider than the old one used to be now going back to the front uh the display is 10.9 inches compared to 10.2 so we do get a larger display however the bezels on the side as you can probably tell are actually thicker than they used to be on the previous model the brightness is pretty much the same on both models and same goes for the non-laminated display and just a very quick bezel comparison between all the iPads with the skoda form factor so the end travel has the thickest bezels the iPad Air has slightly thinner bezels in the entry level and then the iPad Pro has slightly thinner bezels than the iPad Air now alongside the 10th generation iPad Apple has also released a brand new magic keyboard specifically designed for this new iPad in some ways it is actually better than the magic keyboard for the iPad Pro while in otters it is way way worse by far the best thing about this new keyboard is that we have a full row of function keys which work just like on the Mac so we have an Escape key brightness controls Mission Control search basically everything works the same as on a Mac this row is completely lacking from the iPad Pro's magic keyboard another advantage of this new design is that a trackpad is considerably larger as you can tell compared to the one on the iPad Pro's keyboard third because of the way it works with this kickstand you also get more angles more viewing angles compared to the iPad Pro so this is the maximum angle on the iPad Pro whereas uh on the tangent iPad this is the maximum angle and the fourth advantage of this new keyboard is that it is significantly lighter than the one on the iPad Pro and that's because since we have this floating design on the iPad Pro it also needed to add some counterweights to keep it from tipping over which does make it significantly heavier than the keyboard on the engine level however the main downside is that its footprint is quite massive so if you're traveling and you're on a plane and you're trying to use this on that small uh table seats uh you will need a lot more space than what you would with the iPad Pros keyboard and of course it is also very expensive only 50 less than the magic keyboard on the iPad Pro and it is also lacking that USB type-c cable uh for battery charging like the ibupro's keyboard has and another downside that we literally just discovered is that it doesn't have any backlights uh like the iPad Pros keyboard does now the new 10 generation iPad has also relocated the front facing camera to a landscape orientation now compared to the portrait orientation that we have on the iPad pros and the iPad Air and because of this when you're in the video call and you have the magic keyboard attached the viewing angle is going to be much more natural so more similar to how it is on an actual MacBook compared to this weird side angle that we have with the iPad pros and the iPad Air so it is a bit weird how Apple hasn't updated the pros and the errors to this new landscape orientation but now we need to talk about that apple pencil situation and see if it's really that bad so on an iPad Air or an iPad Pro you get the second gen apple pencil which magnetically attaches to the side of the iPad for pairing and for charging however on this 10 gen they kept the first gen apple pencil but because the iPad itself now has USB type-c port you need to use an adapter to connect the apple pencil which still uses lightning the adapter does come with every new Apple pen to let you buy however if you already have an old apple pencil you need to buy it separately which costs 9.9 pounds it wasn't in stock by the way but interesting enough the original apple pencil did come with a lightning to lightning adapter in the Box we're actually going to try and quickly use this and see if it works with a 10 gen iPad so even though the adapter does actually fit uh sadly the pencil doesn't work so I'm assuming that this adapter that the original apple pencil came with only supports charging and not actual data transfer which would be required for you know pairing and communicating with this iPad and it's honestly such a shame as even the old design which was very controversial where you plugged uh the apple pencil directly into the eye but to charge it even this was a much better approach than what Apple did now with the tangent iPad now let's do a quick speaker test and see how the speakers compare between the tension iPads the old 9th gen and also the M1 iPad Air okay so the next gen definitely sounded the worst as it only has two speakers on the bottom compared to the Dual side speakers on the tension which sounded much better however the iPad Air actually sounded better than the base iPad although I was expecting these two to sound the same and lastly we want to do a transfer speed test to see if the USB C port on the 10th generation iPad is as fast as the one on the iPad Air and by the way we couldn't do this at all on the 9th generation as that one has a lightning Port so we're going to transfer a 9 gigabyte video file from our external SSD onto the iPad internal storage so the 10th generation iPad took 11 minutes and 8 seconds and now let's see if the iPad Air is any faster and there was actually a huge difference the iPad Air transferred the file in just 3 minutes and 33 seconds compared to over 11 on the iPad so it looks like even though they both have a USB C Port the speeds on the tension are significantly slower so in the end is the 10gen iPad really that bad well I think in a vacuum it is a pretty good upgrade over the 9th gen however when you consider that you also have the iPad Air which you can now buy refurbished for the same price or even a lower price than the tension iPad same goes for the 2018 and the 2020 iPad Pros then there's literally no point uh in this device even existing Now you kind of get why Apple has done this thing with the apple pencil because they want to push users to upgrade to the iPad Air which has a much better experience but at the same time I just feel like it ruins a device which could have been much much better but let me know in the comments what you guys think and stay tuned for our next video in which we'll be testing the M2 iPad Pro I'm Daniel this means enough technology you guys in the next one the Nerf Tech pictures\n"