Apple : iPad Pro rivals: 5 cheaper convertibles you can buy today |
| iPad Pro rivals: 5 cheaper convertibles you can buy today Posted:  Introduction
Apple is ready for the enterprise. Since the announcement of the iPad Pro, Apple is talking up the tablet's larger 12.9-inch high resolution display, support for a keyboard folio case and digital inking with the Apple Pencil as key components that will help users create content and stay productive. However, there are already tablets that offer all these capabilities, and the best part is that these slates are cheaper than the $799 (£520, AU$1,146) iPad Pro plus the added accessories. Another benefit of these five Windows-powered tablets is that they can be used as a replacement for your laptops. These convertible two-in-one notebooks can be used as your tablet for content consumption, as a laptop with the full power of Windows, and a few of them come with optional desktop docks that allow you to replace your desktop PC. These multi-form factor designs mean you can carry less gear when traveling and save cost. With the iPad Pro's more limited iOS 9 OS, you'll likely still need to have either a desktop PC or a laptop in addition to the tablet. Let's take a look at these tablets options:
1. Microsoft Surface Pro 3
The Surface Pro 3 is perhaps the closest competitor to the iPad Pro, but the Microsoft-brand slate edges ahead of the iPad Pro in several key areas. It runs a full desktop-class operating system, comes with expansion through a USB port and micro SD card slot and gives you a legacy display out port. Additionally, backed by Windows 10 and an Intel Core i series processor, the Surface Pro 3 offers more robust multitasking. Both slates start at $799 (£520, AU$1,146), but the Surface Pro 3 comes with a Surface Pen whereas the Apple Pencil is an optional $99 accessory. If you go with either tablet and want to convert them into a laptop form factor, be prepared to spend extra for a keyboard cover.
2. Microsoft Surface 3
If size doesn't matter and you're okay with a slightly smaller screen, the compact Microsoft Surface 3 is an excellent contender in this space. With a 10.8-inch display, the Surface 3's 3:2 aspect ratio makes it more productive, requiring less scrolling. It's got an Intel Atom processor, rather than the Core i series, but that should give you enough horsepower for your computing tasks. Like the Surface Pro 3, the smaller Surface 3 supports a keyboard cover and the Surface Pen. The Surface 3 starts at $499 (£324, AU$716), but the Surface Pen and Type Cover are optional add-ons.
3. Lenovo ThinkPad Helix 2nd Generation
This tablet starts at $944 (£614, AU$1,354), and the price includes both the Wacom-powered stylus and a keyboard dock that gives it an Ultrabook-feel. You also get more storage with the Lenovo model with a 256GB solid state drive. For comparison, the 32GB iPad Pro equipped with a pen and keyboard comes to $1,067 (£694, AU$1,531). The solid ThinkPad construction is a plus, and the tablet comes with two batteries, one inside the tablet and a second in the keyboard dock to help you get through your work day. The ThinkPad has an 11.6-inch full HD display, and the same Intel Core M processor that's powering Apple's MacBook. The Core M means that the Helix's performance is between the Surface 3 and the Surface Pro 3. If you're a touch typist, Lenovo's keyboard dock offers responsive keys, and you'll also get more expansion ports than on the iPad Pro. Lenovo also recently unveiled the ideapad MIIX 700, a tablet that's seen as a close competitor to the Surface Pro 3 with Intel's second generation Skylake-based Core M processor. Intel claims that this chip doubles the performance of today's tablets.
4. Dell Venue 11 Pro 7000 Series
Dell's flagship tablet starts at just $699 (£455, AU$1,003) and comes with an Intel Core M processor. With a 10.8-inch display and a 16:9 aspect ratio, the biggest complaint about the Dell Venue 11 Pro 7000 Series is a cramped screen that's not as conducive for multitasking, but the tablet should handle most tasks fine.
Like the iPad Pro, the keyboard dock and the pen are optional extras, but at least the Venue 11 Pro 7000 Series has a lower starting price. You can choose from two different keyboard docks, and Dell also has a desktop dock that gives you more ports and the ability to connect an external display to use the tablet as a desktop PC replacement.
5. Acer Aspire R13
With a 13.3-inch display, the Acer Aspire R13 is a versatile tablet that allows you to flip and use your screen in a number of different orientations. You can use the device as a laptop, swivel the screen around and use it as a tablet, or use it as an easel for artistic creation.
The Aspire R13's display doesn't detach from the keyboard, so its $999 (£650, AU$1,433) price means you'll get the keyboard included. It comes with 256GB of storage, or double the storage capacity of the largest iPad Pro configuration, and the pen is included.
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| 5 reasons Surface Pro is a better tablet for businesses than iPad Pro Posted:  Introduction
After much hype, speculation and plenty of anticipation, Apple finally announced the iPad Pro. Yet, despite all of the slate's pro features, and the slew of software and accessories that were highlighted during the keynote, the iPad Pro fails to live up to its Pro moniker. Instead, the tablet appears to be a super-sized and super-charged iPad Air that Apple is pushing into the enterprise. What Apple should have done is start from the ground up with an OS X-powered tablet that addresses the needs of mobile professionals, creative digital artists and power users everywhere.
As it stands, the iOS 9-powered iPad Pro lacks a truly powerful multitasking interface, requires users to create a new workflow, lacks ports for expansion, doesn't support mouse-based input and is an expensive additive to your existing laptop or desktop rather than a suitable PC replacement. Many of these concerns could have been addressed had Apple chosen to release a pro version of the iPad Pro with OS X instead.
1. Small fish competing against bigger fishes
An OS X-powered tablet is the stuff that unicorn dreams are made of, and despite years of endless hoping, Apple still has not delivered on this front. The lack of a high-powered, performance-packed slate opened the doors for Axiotron to retrofit existing Apple notebooks into tablets called the Modbook, but those devices are generally power-hungry and bulky. With Intel's announcement of the sixth generation Skylake processor, Apple could have easily used a Core M processor and loaded a pro-targeted slate with OS X Yosemite. Apple has shown that it can use Intel's Core M chip in a thin, fanless design with the 2015 MacBook, a laptop that weighs just 2.03 pounds (0.92kg). The iPad Pro's 12.9-inch form factor weighs 1.57 pounds (0.71kg), a number that is obtainable if Apple sheds the keyboard portion of the MacBook. A pro iPad Pro with OS X and an Intel Core M processor could deliver similar performance numbers as the A9X processor on the iPad Pro. Apple says that its processor delivers 80% of the processing power and up to 90% of the graphics power of today's PCs, and Intel claims that its newest Core M chips can deliver twice the computing performance of today's tablets, 80% of the power of discrete GPUs and a similar 10-hour long battery life. Even though the iPad Pro has a pixel-packed display, Skylake can drive up to three 4K displays simultaneously, each at 60 frames per second. As it's priced, the iPad Pro starts at the same price as the Surface Pro 3 ($799, £510, AU$1,141), which comes with more storage to start, a more powerful processor and more expandability. Add in the Apple Pencil $99 (£64, AU$141) and the keyboard cover ($169, £110, AU$240) and the total cost of ownership (TCO) rises quickly, but the iPad Pro can't do everything that a laptop or Surface Pro can do. Going with a Core M architecture would allow Apple to use OS X instead of iOS 9, and this opens the doors up to more robust computing gains. 2. A mouse trap
If the iPad Pro is the future of convertible computing, allowing users to switch between laptop and tablet form factors, then did Apple just kill the mouse? The iPad Pro comes with better software keyboard support and has an optional keyboard cover. However, Apple made no mention of mouse support. In fact, the Apple-branded folio keyboard shown comes with a standard key arrangement, similar to third-party offerings available for the iPad Air 2 and iPad Mini 3 from partners like Zagg and Logitech, but no trackpad. The irony here is that even the iPhone 6S comes with mouse-like support. The 3D Touch display on the smartphone brings controls that are similar to right-clicking on a desktop, but this display was not mentioned for the iPad Pro. Without proper mouse support, users would have to reach out and touch the display, even while in laptop mode, or poke at the display with their pens. This makes it less ergonomic and more imprecise than having a mouse cursor. And without 3D Touch, you don't have additional menu commands that a right-click would bring. 3. Re-learning the basics
To highlight the productivity potential of the iPad Pro, Apple brought partner Adobe on stage to demonstrate new software that's designed specifically for iPad. The software demo is impressive, showing how you can touch up a photo, create a magazine layout and draw digital sketches. Adobe Com is a simple design tool that allows users to layout a design for a magazine. By drawing simple shapes, users add placeholders for the various content, and then the copy and style can be edited and applied later. Adobe showed that you can multitask and send an image from Com to Adobe Photoshop Fix for retouching. Once the retouching is finished, it is sent back to Com. Artists can also add sketches and drawing from Adobe Sketch.
While these apps are powerful in their own right, creative professionals who work on the desktop are probably more familiar with Adobe InDesign, Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator, all sorely lacking on the iPad Pro. These software packages are available on desktop OSes, like OS X and Windows, and are available natively on the Surface Pro 3. On the iPad, you'll need to readjust your workflow by finding comparable alternatives and suitable replacements to the familiar experiences you've grown accustomed to on your desktop or laptop. 4. A tablet that wants to grow up
If you buy an iPad Pro, you're trapped. Even though it has a powerful A9X brain to deliver faster compute and graphics capabilities, it doesn't address the needs of real-world computing. Without support for legacy ports, the iPad Pro's potential in the enterprise space is severely limited, unless IT administrators fully commit to Apple's ecosystem. The iPad Pro lacks a USB port, which means you can't readily backup, transfer or share data via a USB flash drive. It also lacks a native DisplayPort, mini DisplayPort or HDMI port for video output, meaning you'll need an Apple TV and Wi-Fi to mirror your tablet's screen to a larger display to give presentations. And without a proper video output port, it also means you can't use it as a desktop replacement by connecting an even larger monitor to your tablet.
These are all basic capabilities that Microsoft has built into the Surface Pro 3. Beyond just legacy connectivity, Apple didn't address enterprise security needs beyond the Touch ID fingerprint scanner, such as support for Smart Card readers or TPM. The good news is that there is a POGO port built into the side of the iPad Pro to connect the keyboard folio. Apple revealed that the POGO port can accommodate power and data transfer, so likely we'll see some limited expansion capabilities, like a battery-powered cover. However, lacking a true file system, don't expect to plug in a USB flash drive or external hard drive. 5. Learning how to juggle
As part of my workflow, I have multiple browser windows, each with multiple tabs, and multiple apps open in cascading windows spread across my display. I use a laptop with a 12.5-inch screen, so my screen size is roughly comparable to the 12.9-inch display on the iPad Pro. This isn't possible on the iPad Pro. Multitasking on iOS 9 would only allow me to open two windows side-by-side. On the other hand, if Apple used OS X on the iPad Pro, I would be able to bring desktop-class multitasking to a tablet form factor. Because Apple is pitching the iPad Pro as a laptop alternative or replacement with the optional folio keyboard, it seems that that iOS 9's limitations cripple the productivity potential of the iPad Pro in its current state. Microsoft delivers much better multitasking thanks to the new snap feature of Windows 10. With Windows 10, you can have a cluttered array of cascading windows, you can snap up to four windows together or you can have multiple desktops to help you keep focus. In this respect, the Surface Pro 3 still reigns king in productivity. Lacking these capabilities, Apple's iPad Pro can't come close to being a tablet that can replace your old iPad, MacBook and iMac. On the other hand, Microsoft has built its Surface Pro franchise on this very capability. The Surface Pro, and similar Windows tablets, can replace a laptop with a keyboard dock, and if you add a desktop dock you can also replace your desktop. |
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