iPad Pro 2021 (11-inch) Review: M1 power, iPadOS drawbacks

The Face ID sensor is back next to the front camera, offering an alternative to unlocking your tablet with a passcode. It works great in both well-lit and dark environments, although I did get a few "Face is too far away" messages sometimes, without really being that far. But at a close distance, it always works near instantly.

The Face ID setup is easy and fast – the iPad simply takes two scans of your face, which in my case took less than a minute. And unlike the generic face unlock option we've seen on some Android phones, Face ID won't be tricked by a photo of you, and is quite secure and reliable.

Speaking of unlocking the tablet, it's worth noting that unlike the 2020 iPad Air, there isn't a fingerprint (Touch ID) option here.

Audio

We recently published our list of phones with best speakers to get in 2021, and if we were to do a similar article on tablets, the 2021 iPad Pro would be the winner.

We get four speakers here, two on each side of the tablet (when in landscape orientation). Coming from the already fantastic dual speaker 2020 iPad Air, those iPad Pro speakers still managed to blow me away.

The speakers are loud, clear and have a good hint of punchy bass. At maximum volume, the 2021 iPad Pro can fill a room with music. It sounds pretty close to a small Bluetooth speaker, if not louder and better. Thanks to the speaker placement, the stereo separation is great, meaning you can clearly hear which sounds are coming from the left and which – from the right. This is particularly important when gaming or watching movies on your tablet.


Of course, if you were hoping to use wired headphones, there's no headphone jack to plug them into, but thankfully, movies and games will sound great when simply using the iPad Pro's built-in speakers. Alternatively, you'll need to do what Apple expects us to do and pick up some Bluetooth headphones such as the Cupertino company's own AirPods.

Software & Performance

This is where things get questionable. Is the 2021 iPad Pro a computer? When you pair it with a keyboard case it sure looks like one. But don't get tricked – iPadOS 14 is arguably still just a glorified smartphone operating system running resized iPhone apps.

Very few programs, such as the LumaFusion video editor or the Procreate drawing app actually feel like desktop-grade software. Students and even some professionals can get away with using an iPad and might be happy with the experience, but there's more to be desired.

That's where the upcoming iPadOS 15 comes in. It's speculated that Apple will start bringing MacOS apps to the iPad, such as the Logic Pro music maker and the professional video editor Final Cut Pro. In addition, we expect better multitasking and better file management, but this is all just unconfirmed speculations from our iPadOS 15 wishlist. Will Apple's iPadOS 15 be the biggest iPad upgrade ever or are we set for disappointment? All we can do is wait and see.

But for now we're on iPadOS 14.5, and compared to an Android tablet experience – it is still fantastic. Apps launch quickly and are all perfectly optimized. There's no lag to be seen, and as mentioned earlier, students are particularly likely to enjoy the iPadOS experience over Windows or Android, as it's smooth even on the cheapest iPad.

In iPadOS 14.5 the homepage can consist of a Today View panel on the left – which shows your chosen widgets, such as the date and weather. The rest of the screen is filled with your app icons, while at the bottom we have a very MacOS-like dock, which you can access from within apps too and helps with faster app switching. The dock is also used to enter Split View.

The latter means two apps running at the same time, both taking half of the screen by default. In addition, you can have more apps open in Slide Over, which is essentially a popup window that will obstruct one of the Split View apps but can be hidden when no longer needed. It's far from an ideal multitasking experience, so here's hoping it gets better with iPadOS 15.


And as for apps – you can essentially download or purchase the same App Store apps that you can on your iPhone, although many have been optimized for the iPad's bigger display and might look a bit different. If you're a video creator, musician, student, photographer or an artist, there's already an app for you, albeit what you find won't be quite on the same level as a desktop app, in terms of complexity.

An often underappreciated bonus when buying an iPad is that Apple actually gives you a bunch of great apps to get you started for free. Those include iMovie, for basic video editing, GarageBand, which is a really fun music-making app, Pages, for writing documents and more. So for basic tasks, you're all set as soon as you get this iPad.

And thanks to the Files app, you can download files from the internet via Safari, for example, then place them in folders, move or rename them, and so on. The iPad file management process is now better than ever, and ever so close to a desktop experience.

UPDATE: The iPad Pro 2021 will be getting Apple's newly announced iPadOS 17. The company lifted the curtain before its new mobile OS during the annual WWDC event, and there are some fresh new features. Interactive widgets now populate the home screen, there's better customization, and you can use Health on you iPad. Some cool new features are coming straight from iOS 17, such as the AirDrop over the internet, offline maps, better predictive text, and more.

iPad Pro 2021 (11-inch) Battery life

As per usual, you can expect up to 10 hours of battery life from the 28.65-watt-hour battery of this 2021 iPad Pro. If you're a light user you'll easily reach two or more days until needing to charge, as the standby power management on iPads is pretty solid.

In any case, this is a great full-day tablet, and if you're using it for school, you needn't worry about bringing a charger, so long as you charge it overnight.

Speaking of chargers, out of the box we get a meter-long USB Type-C charging cable and a 20W power adapter. You can, of course, alternatively charge your iPad from your PC or MacBook, albeit that will take longer.

Best iPad Pro alternatives

Currently, the 11-inch 2020 iPad Air is the most solid alternative to this 11-inch 2021 iPad Pro. It will not only cost you much less but it is compatible with the same accessories – the Apple Pencil 2, the Magic Keyboard for iPad and the Smart Keyboard Folio.

However, the new iPad Pro is powered by Apple's M1 processor, and there's a good chance that whatever big changes iPadOS 15 brings, such as desktop MacOS apps, those might only work on M1 iPads. That's just my speculation, but it's worth taking in consideration before buying the 2020 iPad Air over the new Pro model.

Other than that, the iPad Air 4 features a nearly identical premium build, albeit with just a single camera, slightly thicker bezels around the display and of course, it is powered by the older Apple A14 processor.