Kevin C. Wong

New iPad Pro and MacBook Air

Apple's newest iPad Pro is a mostly incremental upgrade over the previous version. A12Z CPU is identical to the previous one except all 8 cores are enabled (that doesn't mean that you can take the previous chip and enable that 8th core; testing probably only checks to see if seven cores are good and only tests 8th core if a previous core is bad; with a few months better manufacturing experience yields are probably good enough that all 8 cores work consistently).

There's a LiDAR which can measure distances to 15 feet and will make AR pretty instant.

The companion Magic Keyboard looks pretty cool. You can put the iPad on a mount that can swivel vertically which is something I've found would be convenient. Better keyboard than before and it has a trackpad (and iPad OS has trackpad support). I'm always excited about features that make an iPad a better on-the-go laptop replacement.


iPad Pro 12.9 inch 1TB ($1500), Magic Keyboard ($350)

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I'm not familiar with MacBook Air because I like powerful laptop computers. MacBook Air is light but is that good enough for lack of processing and storage?

The best MacBook Air:

Intel Core i7, quad-core, 1.2 GHz
16 GB RAM
2 TB SSD

Intel Iris Plus Graphics (no discrete GPU)

==> $2250

Currently I have a MBP 2015 with max upgrades.

2 TB SSD is a great size, I have 1 TB and wish I had 2 TB so I can load all my music. 16 GB is good, same as my current MBP and I don't think I'm memory constrained.

I have an i7 quad core at 2.8 GHz. Half speed would kind of suck. Also I'm often using the graphics card for games so staying on built-in GPU would so be cramping. As it is now, sometimes my computer feels sluggish streaming 4 Twitch channels, downloading stuff and doing normal work.

I have two monitors but MacBook Air supports two 4K monitors (and I don't have high resolution monitors). You can also attach an eGPU if you really need it which is ok if I only use it at my home desktop environment and don't have to lug it around.

In the end I actually think I could live with the latest MacBook Air as my main computer. Still, a bit of a sacrifice for a lighter computer when I don't value that metric.