 This is the iPad Pro with a 9.7 inch screen. It looks a lot, well, like the iPad Air 2, but the difference is this iPad has enough computing power in it to replace a lot of cheap laptops, and Apple says it could actually do that. Then again, Apple said that before about this giant iPad, and I don't think that making it smaller is going to make that case any better. So, remind me, what is this thing for again? Let's start with maybe the most important thing to know about this iPad. It starts at $599 for the 32 gig model. The next step up, a more reasonable 128 gigs, costs $750. This is not a cheap iPad. You'd better know what you're going to use it for if you're going to buy it. It has a 9.7 inch screen that's actually better than any other tablet screen I've seen before. Part of that is it has this new anti-reflective coating, but the big deal is this clever new technology called True Tone. There are hidden sensors in the face of the iPad that detect the color temperature in the room, and then it automatically adjusts the color temperature of the screen to match it. The idea, Apple says, is that it's supposed to act more like a physical piece of paper. It reflects the color in the room. So, if you're in a yellow room, the screen is going to get a little bit more yellow. Now, that sounds kind of dumb. Why would I want my screen to get more yellow? But, I've turned it on and just ignored it, and it actually is pretty great. When you turn it off, all of a sudden your screen looks really, really blue, and it's actually kind of ugly. So, my suggestion, if you get this, is turn the thing on, and unless you're doing color correction, it's just going to look better, and you're going to be way happier. It's really neat. But, what really makes this iPad a pro is a constellation of a bunch of features. It supports this $99 pencil if you want to draw. You can also get this $150 smart keyboard if you want to type, and it has four very loud speakers, one on each side, and a new 12 megapixel camera. But, what really makes this thing a pro is that it has a powerful new processor, the A9X, the same one that's in the big iPad Pro. It keeps things moving along at a really fast clip. I never really thought my old iPad Air 2 was all that slow, but you can really see the difference on the Pro, especially when you're doing split screen with a couple of apps. It's faster, but it's not so much faster that I suddenly feel like my old iPad Air 2 is a piece of junk. Is all that worth a couple hundred dollars more than the iPad Air 2? I'm honestly not so sure. You can split screen on the iPad Air 2, and you can get a decent enough Bluetooth keyboard. And, if you ever encounter lag on the Air 2, you can spend that time imagining what all that extra cash is doing in your 401k. And, the other thing is this Pro has the same two gigs of RAM as that iPad Air 2, as opposed to the larger Pro's four gigs. And, that makes a difference, especially when you have a lot of Safari tabs open or you jump between apps a lot. Okay, maybe a reason to get this iPad Pro is the pencil, which is pretty neat, but I found that most of the things that support it are illustration apps and drawing apps and professional photography apps. There's not a whole lot you can do with productivity, and for me, it just doesn't seem worth it to carry it around and keep it charged. Now, I'm of two minds about the smart keyboard. The first thing I'll say is, once you've got it set up, it's actually one of the best typing experiences I've ever had on a keyboard of this size. The keys are just really well separated and they're great to type on. I seriously got used to it in just a few minutes. But, it only works at this one angle, and there aren't any function keys across the top for playing music or doing other stuff. You have to learn a whole bunch of arcane shortcuts in order to figure everything out. And so, at $150, you're probably going to be able to find a better option. Now, the camera is easily the best I've ever seen on a tablet. It's 12 megapixels, which is the same as the iPhone 6S, but honestly, I find it kind of baffling. It causes this camera bump on the back, and the good news is that it doesn't wobble on the table, but I just can't see that it's worth it. For iPad photographers, and yes, that's a thing, sure, I think it's worth it, but otherwise, it's document scanning, and I don't know, do you really need 12 megapixels for that? These speakers though, damn, but they are loud. If you watch a ton of movies that let headphones on your iPad, you're really going to like them. It's almost enough to make you think you won't need a Bluetooth speaker, except that the bass on them isn't very good. I'll tell you the truth, I would like to believe that this iPad, even more so than this huge one, is the one that you can carry around with you all day and make your main computer. And the battery life is actually good enough to make that happen. It's also fast enough for switching apps and going to split screen too. Apple says that this is its vision for the future of computing, and there's a lot to like about that vision. This iPad Pro can't do everything that you'd expect a future computer to do. Partially, it's that Safari on the iPad Pro just isn't as good as a desktop class browser. And yes, you can do two apps at once, but you know what? Sometimes you want three. And there are times when you want to be able to plug in a USB stick or some other peripheral. And you know what? Honestly, sometimes you just want a regular old file system and Windows and a desktop. The iPad can't really do those things. It does other things. It's the things that make it an iPad, some productivity and movies and ebooks and some light web browsing. It's really good at that stuff. Those are the things that Steve Jobs said the iPad was good at when he introduced the very first one. And the question has arisen lately. Is there room for a third category of device in the middle? Not a computer and not a phone. Something that's between a laptop and a smartphone. The iPad is its own thing, and this is without a doubt, and even though it's pretty expensive, a stupefyingly good iPad, but it's still an iPad. God, this thing is such a ridiculous device. It's just so crazy. You're crazy. You're crazy.