


The dock is more compact than it needs to be and apps often look overly large with too much unused space. The 12.9-inch iPad Pro, on the other hand, feels underutilized. It’s a bit cramped when held in portrait, yet feels underutilized in landscape orientation, and text is often very small. The iPad Mini’s home screen feels awkward. The iPad’s 10.2-inch lands comfortably between these extremes and feels like the “right” display size for the operating system. IPadOS, Apple’s tablet-centric spin on iOS, currently ships on five iPad tablets with a screen size from 8.3 to 12.9 inches. However, the iPad is good enough at all these tasks to handle the job for most people. A Nintendo Switch is better for gaming, a beefy desktop is better for video editing, and a Wacom tablet connected to a workstation PC (or Mac) is better for digital artists. This isn’t to say the iPad is the best at any of these tasks.

Need to write a term paper or a business plan? Pair a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse or buy a keyboard case. Buy the first-gen Apple Pencil, a $99 accessory, and the iPad becomes a capable note-taking machine and a great entry-level device for creating digital art. It feels fast and fluid when editing all but the largest photos and videos. The iPad is a solid gaming device, especially if you sign up for Apple Arcade or use a cloud gaming service like Google Stadia.
