10 hours Ago By Paul Thurrott
It is personally embarrassing to me to admit that I’ve purchased three iPads in less than a year, but I will rationalize this waste of money by telling myself that you sometimes need to make mistakes to learn. And in this case, I learned something that maybe should have been obvious. was too big, was too small, and .
The Goldilocks of iPads, if you will. This is hardly worth discussing, so I’ll be brief. Plus, I’ve already written about the various machinations that Apple has gone through–or, maybe more accurately, ignored–with the iPad many times, most recently in (Premium) a few weeks back.
Long story short, things could go differently if Apple would just allow it, but for now, at least, the iPad is a consumption device. And that’s what I use it for, mostly for reading. Sign up for our new free newsletter to get three time-saving tips each Friday — get free copies of Paul Thurrott's Windows 11 and Windows 10 Field Guides (normally $9.
99) as a special welcome gift! Modern iPads all support USB-C, finally, and have similar, modern designs with flat edges, curved corners, and gorgeous screens. The problem is that there are too many iPads models, with different price points and capabilities, which is fine, and different Magic Keyboard/Apple Pencil compatibility, which is less fine. But whatever.
There is a single iPad Mini with its 8.3-inch LED display, a base iPad with its 11-inch LED display, 11-inch iPad (LED) and iPad Pro (tandem OLED) models, and 13-inch (LED) and iPad Pro (tandem OLED) models. Last year, I gave the 13-inch iPad Air a shot, vaguely hoping that Apple would improve iPadOS to the point where this device would make sense as a laptop replacement.
That never happened, and returning home to this device this past weekend, this model seems almost comically large. And it’s thick and heavy to boot; the iPad Pros are thinner and lighter, but much more expensive. Tired of that overly big iPad, I gave the iPad Mini a shot, now just hoping that it would be big enough for my middle-aged eyes to deal with.
Sometimes it was fine, but sometimes it wasn’t, and in certain apps, it was just unbearable. First thing in the morning, still wearing glasses, I could barely see the clue text in the New York Times mini crossword on some days. By the time , I was already ready for change.
Another change. Had Apple made the newest base iPad compatible with Apple Intelligence, I would have likely saved some money and just purchased one of those. But it didn’t do that, incredibly.
So I started doing some math. And I waited for our return home from Mexico in early May. We flew home over the weekend, and an 11-inch iPad Air was among .
A Smart Folio arrives Monday, the only item I ordered last week that didn’t come early. Look, this thing is stupid expensive, I get it. But the 256 GB/Wi-Fi model I ordered in Starlight dropped from $600 to just $130 with the $470 trade-in value of my 13-inch iPad Air, and I can pay for it with no interest over 12 months for just $12-ish per month.
And my wife is going to use the iPad Mini. So all’s well that ends well. Or something.
The 11-inch display is a relief, and it is precisely what I need and what I should have purchased last summer. So that was dumb. Compared to my M2-based iPad Air, the M3 version doesn’t have any immediate real world advantage that I’ve noticed yet, but then it’s only been the better part of a day so far.
I don’t expect the processor shift to change anything, but perhaps it will be a bit more future-proof. Now that I’ve done this, Apple will of course dramatically change iPadOS, finally, and I’ll want a bigger device again. Like an idiot.
Aesthetically, there’s no difference. It’s the same design, the same form factor, in the same colors, and with the same promised battery life and so on. There are finally new Magic Keyboards, but those–wait for it–work with older iPad Air models too.
Of course they do. So I’m just going to use this thing each morning and shut up about it. The less said about this year of stupidity, the better.
Paul Thurrott is an award-winning technology journalist and blogger with 30 years of industry experience and the author of 30 books. He is the owner of and the host of three tech podcasts: with Leo Laporte and Richard Campbell, , and with Brad Sams. He was formerly the senior technology analyst at Windows IT Pro and the creator of the SuperSite for Windows from 1999 to 2014 and the Major Domo of Thurrott.
com while at BWW Media Group from 2015 to 2023. You can reach Paul via , or . Join the crowd where the love of tech is real - become a Thurrott Premium Member today! Sign up for our new free newsletter to get three time-saving tips each Friday.
