a few months ago i compared the 2020 ipad pro to the galaxy tab s7 plus and a lot of you have asked me to do an update with the m1 ipad pro so is this even a contest can the tab s7 plus hold its own and which tablet is better for you the answer might surprise you so let’s talk about these two great tablets cover their features and see how well they do for multitasking content consumption gaming video calls and general office type work the m1 ipad pro and the tab s7 plus are flagship models so we’re getting the best that apple and samsung have to offer the larger m1 ipad pro has a beautiful 12.9 inch mini led display while the galaxy tab s7 plus has a spectacular 12.4 inch super amoled display the two tablets have a drastically different aspect ratio with the ipad pro being more squared off and the tab s7 plus sporting a more elongated design when you handle both tablets the ipad pro definitely feels a lot bigger because even though it’s a little bit shorter it’s a lot wider and of course
there’s a lot more real estate to work with if you’re watching content it doesn’t really matter because most of the content that we watched like this is 16 by nine so we’re just getting bigger black bars on the ipad pro but when it comes to productivity and creative work you’re able to see a lot more attacks you have a larger area for note-taking larger canvas for artwork and more real estate to work with in photo and video editing apps when it comes to portability the tab s7 plus is both smaller and lighter so in terms of size you’ll need to choose between the larger tablet and the more portable option now aesthetically things are pretty much exactly as they were with last year’s ipad pro and both tablets are very similar we’ve got a solid machined aluminum construction both are sleek and thin although the 12.9 inch ipad pro is about a half a millimeter thicker than last year’s model because of the new display looking at the tablets we see small bezels rounded corners squared off edges and a matte finish now both have a usb c port and the tab s7 plus has a usbc
3.2 gen 2 port with transfer speeds of up to 10 gigabits per second and the ipad pro received a thunderbolt slash usb 4 port upgrade with four times faster transfer speeds of up to 40 gigabits per second for the majority of users this isn’t going to be a significant change but if you’re transferring a lot of data to and from your tablet like maybe large photo and video files this is a nice feature the faster port will also allow for connectivity with more demanding accessories like the pro display xdr at 6k resolution now continuing around the edges we’ve got power buttons volume controls and four speaker grills an added feature on samsung’s tab s7 plus is the micro sd card slot which allows you to inexpensively expand the internal storage by an additional one terabyte now flipping the tablets over we see the ipad pro has a larger square camera module which includes two cameras a flash a microphone and the lidar scanner the tab s7 plus features an elongated design with two cameras and a flash now if you’re looking for color choices the tab s7 plus comes in mystic black silver bronze and navy and the ipad pro comes in silver and
space great now i chose to go with mystic navy for the tab s7 plus and silver for this year’s ipad pro because i like how it looks with the new white magic keyboard as far as biometric authentication the ipad pro offers face id and the tab s7 plus uses face recognition now both are responsive and accurate and worked pretty well for me with the ipad pro face id ultimately edging out samsung’s face recognition the tab seven plus also has an in-screen fingerprint sensor so in situations where you’re not able to use face recognition you could easily unlock your device directly by touching the display i was hoping that apple would add the newer touch id that we saw on the power button of the ipad air 4 but this was either going to add too much of the cost or it’s just a way for them to differentiate the error from the pro now overall i like the two forms of biometric authentication on the tab s7 plus better and i find that i’m less likely to need to manually enter my password next let’s talk about the display and if you remember from the 2020 ipad pro comparison i said that the tab s7 plus was the best display i’d seen on any tablet this year the biggest upgrade to the ipad pro in my opinion was the display and i know that we’re getting the m1 chip and i’ll get to that in a minute but i still think the display will be a more relevant upgrade to more users the 12.9 inch ipad pro comes with an excellent liquid retina xdr display and this is an area where apple differentiated between their two new ipad models so the 11 inch version still is using the same liquid retina display that we saw in 2020.
Now back to the larger xdr display it’s powered by 10 000 mini leds with 600 nits of max brightness it has a thousand nits of full screen brightness 1600 nits of peak brightness in hdr and it offers one million to one contrast ratio we’re still getting apple’s adaptive refresh rate of 120 hertz called pro motion and it automatically adjusts the refresh rate to save battery and provide the best experience and that depends on what you’re doing so for example if you’re reading and there’s very little movement on the screen there’s no need to refresh it 120 times in a second because again there’s no movement so the ipad can conserve battery life but if you’re playing a game or watching a movie or even if you’re just navigating the ui then it will switch to the faster refresh rate now moving on to the tab s7 plus we’re getting an absolutely fantastic super amoled 120 hertz display this display is not adaptive but you do have the option to manually set it to 60 hertz to help with battery life now both displays are fantastic when you’re playing games when you’re watching movies or doing work they’re the best displays that i’ve seen on any tablets and it was almost impossible for me to pick my favorite where the ipad pro separated itself was with hdr content which looked better was more crisp and had better dynamic range now the tab s7 plus has a 16 to 10 aspect ratio and has a resolution of 2800 by 1752.
The 12.9 inch ipad pro has a 4 to 3 aspect ratio with a resolution of 2732 by 2048. there’s also some discussion online about blooming on the 12.
9 inch ipad pro where there is like a white halo around brightly lit white pixels against a black background i ran some tests and maybe i could see a difference when i compared it to the 11 inch ipad pro and the tab s7 plus but it would be extremely minor at best and it’s never something that i would notice when actually using the ipad there’s also talk about an inner shadow along the edge of the ipad when you’re looking at a white background it’s there but it wasn’t something that i felt took anything away from my experience now you can’t really go wrong with either of these they’re absolutely incredible displays my choice would be the ipad pro because it’s larger it works just as well for sdr content and it was noticeably better for hdr if you’ve gotten value from this video give it a thumbs up it lets me know what kind of content you like so that i can make more of it and i still see that over 90 of you are new viewers so hit that subscribe button next let’s talk about the camera and the audio system now starting with the front facing cameras the ipad pro has a new 12 megapixel true depth camera with ultra wide this enables a new
feature called center stage where the ipad pro can use this new ultra wide camera to track a subject and then it automatically zooms in and out to keep the subject in the frame it’s actually a really cool feature and i hope that they expand the functionality beyond facetime the front-facing camera on the tab s7 plus is eight megapixel both will work just fine for video calls but i like the one on the ipad pro better both in terms of image quality and features an area where i always give the tab s7 plus the edge is camera placement on the ipad pro the camera is on the short side so when you have it on something like the magic keyboard like right here the camera is to the side and if you’re sitting right in front of it it looks like you’re being framed from the side and it doesn’t look like you’re looking at the person who you’re talking to now the new ultra wide angle helps a little bit but it’s still definitely noticeable and it’s definitely on the side with the tab s7 plus the camera is right here on the longer edge so when you have it on the book cover keyboard it’s right in the center just like a laptop and then you’re perfectly framed now moving on to the rear facing cameras the ipad pro has a 12 megapixel main camera a 10 megapixel ultra wide camera and a lidar scanner the tab s7 plus has a 13 megapixel main camera and a 5 megapixel ultra wide i know most of you don’t really use your tablet cameras because you
always have your phones so without putting you through detailed side-by-side comparison let me just tell you that the ipad camera system is just better than the tab s7 plus and that’s both in terms of overall image quality low light performance and then also frame rate options for video i always bring up the lidar scanner when i’m talking about the ipad pro i think it’s still a cool feature but it’s not a feature that i’ve incorporated into like what i do every day i just haven’t found a consistent practical use for it so i’m still waiting to see what apple comes up with as far as speakers both tablets have a four speaker system and both sound fantastic i might actually give the tab s7 plus a slight edge in this area but it’s very close another tablet offers a headphone jack so you can either use wireless headphones or you can use an adapter for your wired headphones or gaming headset personally i use wireless headphones for music and content but i use a wired headset for gaming next let’s talk about the stylus and keyboard options the ipad pro is compatible with the second generation apple pencil and the tab s7 plus uses the s pen and the apple pencil costs 130 bucks and samsung actually includes the
s pen when you buy the tab as seven plus so that’s definitely something that you should consider when you’re looking at your total cost i’m a big fan of this because i think some users wouldn’t think about getting a stylus but since one is included they end up getting more out of their tablets and when it comes to actually using these two options the second generation apple pencil has a more rigid feel to it when it’s actually hitting the ipad pro display now the s pen tip is softer and almost gives a little on context so it’s more like writing on a notepad where the pages would compress as you press down now the apple pencil is more like taking a single sheet of paper and placing it on a hard surface and then writing on as with a lot of tools this is going to come down to personal preference so if you have the option of trying both i definitely recommend it and moving on to the keyboard cases the ipad pro is compatible with the older magic keyboard if you don’t use a screen protector and then there is a new magic keyboard that accommodates for the slightly thicker design now the tab s7 plus uses samsung’s book cover keyboard which has some different features and design elements
here’s how i look at the two the magic keyboard has a more solid feel to it because there’s no give in the rear hinge it has much better keys with a good amount of travel and feedback so it’s more comfortable to type on the trackpad is definitely better it’s more responsive and it’s more accurate now the first thing i like about the design of the book cover keyboard is that the s-pen is always protected by a dedicated bump out when it’s stored so when i put it away in my bag or if i’m just carrying it the s-pen doesn’t get knocked off like the apple pencil does when you close the magic keyboard the apple pencil kind of sticks out so then even a light touch will cause it to fall out now back to the book cover keyboard the actual keyboard can be detached from the back so when you want to use the tab s7 plus as a tablet you still have protection for the back just like right now this way you can put it down without having to worry about it getting scratched and you always have the s pen with you since it’s stored on the back finally i like that samsung includes a row of dedicated function keys at the top of the keyboard these let me do things like
change the brightness and the volume levels control media playback functions switch to decks and then a few other functions now let’s get to one of the major upgrades we got to the new ipad pro the m1 chip this is the same chip that apple used with the macbook air macbook pro mac mini and the new imac there are two versions the 128 256 and 5 gig models comes with eight gigabytes of ram and the one and two terabyte models come with 16 gigs of ram now the tab s7 plus uses the snapdragon 865 plus qualcomm chip and it comes with six gigs of ram if you get the 128 gig version if you go with 256 or 512 then you’re getting eight gigs of ram there are a couple of ways you can look at processing power benchmarks and actual user experience i did everything from playing games working with multiple apps streaming content and then editing photos and videos on both tablets and they both performed very well if you’re interested in benchmark scores then the ipad pro just crushed the tab s7 plus in geekben for single core it scored 1717 versus 957 and for multi-core it was 7311 versus 31.35 and in both cases a higher number is better if you’re just looking at that number then it’s not even close but personally i don’t really pay much attention to
benchmarks and i’m much more interested about actual user experience for everything that i tried to do there wasn’t a time with either tablet where i felt like i really needed more power so think about what you plan on doing and whether the ultimate processing power is a deciding factor for you if it is then you definitely want to go with the m1 ipad pro and moving on to multitasking we continue to see upgrades with ipad os and i hope that we have even more coming soon we can use split view slide out windows and we have full mouse support but the tab seven plus still wins the multitasking battle because of decks this is a really cool feature which also works on samsung phones like the galaxy s 21 plus and it lets you use the tab s7 plus as a laptop replacement with a very familiar desktop like interface you have a taskbar at the bottom a desktop with icons you can open multiple floating windows or even snap them to the side you also have full mouse support and you can use an external display as a full secondary display with the ipad for now you can connect an external display but it will only mirror what you’re already seeing on the ipad pro and will still have black bars on the sides unless you use a special app which still won’t give you a true secondary display with full functionality now let’s talk about the os and the apps and as far as the os goes this is your typical ipad os versus android and there are clear differences between the two approaches i don’t consider one to be
inherently better than the other i see strengths and weaknesses with both and ultimately it comes down to personal preference i’ll give you an example if you take two users one that wants to customize their experience and the other one that wants something that’s simple and familiar they’re going to have different priorities when it comes to apps i really think it’s down to what you need i go into this in more detail in my dedicated tab s7 plus review but i did run into issues with the browser being a mobile browser so some website serves me like the stretched out mobile version even when i changed that setting chrome worked perfectly with the request desktop version of website settings and samsung’s browser was okay if i was using dex most of the time but like i said in the past it’s just not as clean or as streamlined as what i get with the ipad several apps like twitter used a stretched out mobile interface which is definitely less than ideal on a wide tablet some apps i used didn’t work in full screen i had issues with apps not working in landscape
mode and some randomly alternated between landscape and portrait mode and just to be clear i’m not talking about apps like instagram that only work in portrait mode on all devices these were apps that should adapt and of course samsung isn’t to blame for this they’re not the ones making the apps or android but it is something that you should be aware of i also had some frustrating experiences with the spell check feature something else that you should think about is whether you have specific apps that you need like some creative users want things like lumafusion or procreate which are only available on the ipad there are plenty of other great options on the google play store so you’ll need to decide for yourself and when it comes to note-taking if we’re using the included apps there’s no question that i prefer samsung’s notes app it’s extremely powerful it syncs between devices and it has outstanding s pen support now samsung has also been making ecosystem improvements with features like quick share to rival apple’s airdrop and then app continuity which lets you begin a web browsing session on one device and then continue on another one you can do the same thing with a note-taking session now overall i still find the apple app ecosystem and their
hardware ecosystem to be more streamlined and at the same time i appreciate that samsung is continuing to move forward and add features as far as battery life both tablets did quite well i got slightly better battery life on the tab s7 plus than on the ipad pro and whenever i get 10 hours of battery life on any tablet i count that as a win if i’m going to be working remotely i’m always going to bring a power bank because i never want to get stuck without power and remember that the reported battery life for these tablets is for wi-fi web browsing not for things like photo editing video editing or gaming as far as cellular service both tablets offer 5g support if you buy the cellular model now i don’t because i usually just tether off my phone if i need it but if you plan on using 5g a lot then having a dedicated data plan is the right move now let’s talk about gaming and then we’ll get to the configuration options and what i recommend both tablets easily handled every game that i played i didn’t notice any type of lagging and having a 120 hertz refresh rate on two of the best tablets displays i’ve ever used was a ton of fun now apple includes apple arcade as a subscription service and if it includes the types of games that you want to play it’s a good option for me and the types of games that i like to play i absolutely love the xbox game pass app on the tab s7 plus i can play madden nba 2k and a ton of other games via the cloud anywhere i wanted to and all i needed to do was pair my xbox controller as far as configuration options samsung’s pricing changes here and there but right now the 128 gig tab s7 plus is selling for 750 bucks 256 for 820 and then 512 for 900.
The 12.9 inch ipad pro starts at 10.99 for 128 gigs 256 for eleven hundred and ninety nine dollars five hundred and twelve gigs is 13.
99 one terabyte at seventeen hundred dollars and ninety nine dollars and two terabytes is twenty one hundred and ninety nine dollars for a tablet remember that the tab seven plus with 128 gigs comes with six gigabytes of ram and the 256 and 512 come with eight gigs of ram on the ipad pro 128 256 and 512 come with eight gigs and then one and two terabytes bump you up to 16 gigs of ram the tab s7 plus does have a micro sd card slot so you can expand the internal storage i added a 512 gig sandisk ultra which cost me about 70 bucks but you can go as high as an additional one terabyte for me the choice between which tablet to get doesn’t come down to processing power yes the m1 chip is more powerful but i still don’t max out the potential on my 2020 ipad pro so all this does is give me additional headroom at least for now i would look at your specific needs and the gear you already own as far as updates apple offers much longer support for their devices whereas samsung usually offers about three years of os updates i always think it’s a good idea to look at what other devices you’re using and then consider the
implications of staying or going outside of your current ecosystem the tab s7 plus has a beautiful display an excellent laptop-like experience with decks streamlined multitasking it’s less expensive offers two forms of biometric authentication and it comes with the s pen which is 130 value if you compare it to the second generation apple pencil i prefer some of the features of the samsung book cover keyboard and i like the micro sd card slot for added storage the inexpensive internal storage upgrades and definitely don’t sleep on the xbox game pass for cloud-based gaming the m1 ipad pro is absolutely more powerful in terms of processing power it has higher maximum ram a better camera system a better keyboard and trackpad option with the magic keyboard and a better display for hdr content the ipad pro also has a more refined app ecosystem and it’s part of a more complete hardware ecosystem with components like the iphone apple watch macbook and mac desktops remember that i have links in the description to all the products i talked about hopefully this video was helpful click on my face to subscribe and then watch one of these videos you know what i always say buy it nice or buy it twice good luck and see you soon
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