iPad Pro vs iPad Air vs iPad mini: Which tablet should you buy?

Since the iPad Pro arrived, choosing an iPad is now exactly 33.3%* trickier than before. You’ve now got to make your decision between the iPad mini 4, iPad Air 2 and the iPad Pro – and that’s not even taking into consideration the fact that you can still buy the iPad mini 2, iPad mini 3 and the original iPad Air.

In this article, we’ll run through the various members of the iPad family, and explain the key differences that you need to know about before taking the plunge. 

*This figure may not be mathematically accurate.

iPad mini vs iPad Air vs iPad Pro: Price

As you probably suspected, bigger is pricier when it comes to iPads. Of the new generation, the 16GB iPad mini 4 kicks off proceedings at £319, while the 16GB iPad Air costs £399. Upgrading from 16GB to 64GB storage costs £80 extra whichever you choose, and moving up to 128GB adds another £80 again. Fancy 4G? That’s a flat fee of £100 on top.

That’s pocket money in comparison to the iPad Pro, however – Apple’s 12.9in tablet starts at £679 for the 32GB model. Unusually, the iPad Pro only comes in 32GB or 128GB flavours, though, and the 4G-enabled 128GB model bumps the price to £899. Oh, and you’ll need to factor in extra for the Apple Pencil (£79) and more again for the Smart Keyboard (£139). Factor those in, and you’ll be looking at £897 for a 32GB model with Pencil and Smart Keyboard, or £1,117 for a 128GB 4G-equipped iPad Pro with all the accessories. Basically, when you’re buying an iPad Pro, you’re choosing between an Apple MacBook, Apple MacBook Pro or an iPad Pro – it’s in a whole different price category to the rest of the iPad family.

If this is all sounding just a tad too expensive, then fear not – the older iPad Air and iPad mini 2 are both sound alternatives. They might have inferior cameras, lack Touch ID fingerprint security, and are a tad slower overall, but they’re still great tablets. The 16GB iPad Air is £319, and £359 for the 32GB version, but the iPad mini 2 is a bargainous-sounding £219 and £259 respectively. Adding mobile broadband to the mix still costs an extra £100, though. Bear in mind that you can still buy the Touch ID-equipped 16GB iPad mini 3, but not direct from Apple – and while it is occasionally possible to pick it up at a bargain price, several retailers are sneakily selling it for the same price as the new iPad mini 4. Beware.

iPad mini vs iPad Air vs iPad Pro: Design

All three iPads share the same design – sleek, rounded metal bodies cast with toughened glass displays – and they’re all similarly thin, too, with the 6.9mm-thick iPad Pro proving only 0.8mm thicker than its smaller stablemates. If you’re worried about one looking better than the other, then you shouldn’t be. They’re all very handsome and feel fantastically well-built.

The iPad mini 4 is the most pocketable of the bunch by far. At 6.1mm-thick, 20cm tall and weighing in at 299g, this compact iPad is perfect for someone who wants a tablet they can sling in a small bag, handbag or a (large) jacket pocket. Given that it runs most of the same apps as its big brothers, you shouldn’t worry too much about making the compromise in screen size – and especially not if you plan to take it everywhere you go. However, if you already have a big-screened phone in your pocket, such as the iPhone 6 Plus or iPhone 6s Plus, then you may not find a 7.9in screen enough of an upwards leap to be really worthwhile.

The 9.7in iPad Air 2 adds another 3.5cm to the mini 4’s width, and is 4cm taller. At 437g, it’s still pretty darn light, but it is that much more bulky to carry around – trust us, you’re never going to get this in a jacket pocket. Unless, maybe, you’re a World’s Strongest Man contestant and you have your jackets made to order. You can get away with carrying it under your arm (although we’d recommend shelling out on a protective case, just to be on the safe side), but most people will want to pop the Air in a bag rather than have to handle it all-day.

The iPad Pro. It’s really, really big. As tablets go, it’s absolutely massive. With a 12.9in screen, and weighing a far heftier 713g, the iPad Pro sacrifices portability for a screen that’ll embarrass many laptops, and adds a range of accessories (magnetic keyboard and pressure-sensitive stylus, for instance) that make it much more suitable for serious work. Think of it more as a laptop substitute, though, and it’s actually pretty light and compact. It’s all a matter of perspective.

Continues on page 2: iPad mini vs iPad air vs iPad Pro: How do the displays differ?

iPad mini vs iPad air vs iPad Pro: Display

To be honest, they’re all very, very good. Since Apple upgraded the display on the iPad mini 4, the differences between the three devices mainly come down to size. The iPad mini does have the sharpest screen of the bunch (324ppi, if you’re wondering), as it packs its pixels into a compact 7.9in screen, but you’ll struggle to see a difference. While the iPad Air 2 and iPad Pro have a slightly lower 264ppi, this will make no appreciable difference in everyday use. Whichever you choose, your eyeballs will be pampered with all the pixel-packed sharpness they can handle.

From our testing, the iPad mini 4 is a tad brighter than than the 9.7in iPad Air 2 – just over 12% brighter, in fact – but again this isn’t a reason to choose between them. Both reproduce a very similar range of colours, and have a similar contrast ratio, so photographs and videos look great on either device. As for the iPad Pro, it’s impossible to say exactly how it’ll stack up, but rumours suggest that the Pro may get a ‘wide-gamut’ display that’s capable of producing a larger range of colours than its stablemates. Given its ‘Pro’ moniker, and potential applications for photography and design work, this would make a lot of sense.

Tempted to save some money and buy an iPad Air or iPad mini 2 or 3 instead? There are a couple of things to bear in mind. Firstly, the iPad Air has similar image quality to its successor, but as there was a larger gap between the LCD display and the glass covering it, and an inferior anti-reflective coating, it is much more prone to glare and reflections. A minor thing, but worth mentioning. On the other hand, though, the iPad mini 2 and 3’s displays are noticeably inferior to the iPad mini 4, which introduced a completely new panel that covers a much, much wider range of colour. Compare the three, and the older two models look washed out by comparison. Consider yourself warned.

iPad mini vs iPad air vs iPad Pro: Performance & battery life

You can summarise this entire section with the following phrase: bigger is better. The iPad mini 4 uses Apple’s dual-core A8 processor alongside 1GB of RAM, but the iPad Air 2 ups the ante with double the RAM and a triple-core A8X processor. What does this mean in practice? Well, not a huge amount, really. We’ve tested iOS 9’s split screen and multi-tasking features and, side-by-side, the iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 4 perform very similarly indeed. The only likely differences you’ll see will be in apps that actually push the processor and RAM really hard – for instance, music-making apps such as iMPC Pro may run out of horsepower if you load up too many samples and use too many sound-mangling audio effects.

The iPad Pro is in a completely different league to its stablemates. With the latest Apple A9x processor taking the helm alongside a rumoured 4GB of RAM, it’s an absolute beast in performance terms. Apple may not have been joking when it said the Pro was going to be faster than “80% of portable PCs”. Going by the results in the Geekbench 3 benchmark, the Pro is about 77% faster than the iPad Air 2 in single-core tests, and around 20% faster than in multi-core applications. Graphics performance is dramatically better, too, with double the raw power of the iPad Air 2. This bodes very, very well for Apple’s promises of professional-class applications for the iPad Pro. 

What about the iPad mini 2 or 3 and iPad Air? Well, as these use the older Apple A7 processors, they aren’t up to the standards of their more recent peers, and compared to the latest models are around 20% slower in the Geekbench 3 multi-tasking tests. This really doesn’t matter much for most tasks, but get stuck in with iOS 9’s latest multi-tasking features and the old models stutter and pause far more regularly.

Battery life is pretty similar across the board. In our battery tests, we loop a high-definition video until the battery runs out, and all of the iPads new and old lasted between 9 and 11 hours. The new models are a tad more efficient, however: the new A8 processor in the iPad mini 4 helped it last one and a half hours longer than the iPad mini 2 and 3. Given that Apple quotes the same 10 hours of Wi-Fi-connected web surfing for all three models – iPad Pro included – there’s likely to be nothing to choose between them.

Continues on page 3: iPad mini vs iPad air vs iPad Pro: What features do they have?

iPad mini vs iPad air vs iPad Pro: Features & accessories

A whole industry is sustained by the insatiable demand for iPad accessories. Whether you want waterproof, shockproof cases to turn your mini or Air into a go-anywhere wonder-tablet, or you just want to prettify and personalise your tablet, then there are countless accessories to choose from. It’s also possible to turn your iPad into a miniature laptop-substitute by adding a bluetooth keyboard or keyboard case, if you’re so inclined.

That’s not all, however. There’s a hugely impressive array of more ingenious accessories for the standard iPads, such as MIDI piano keyboards, guitar interfaces for recording into audio apps, pressure-sensitive drum pads and field-recording microphones. That’s not counting the emerging breed of professional-class video and audio hardware which use iPads as handy touch-sensitive control panels. The iPad is a very versatile device.

However, it’s the iPad Pro that’s the undisputed business accessory heavyweight – at least for the moment. Where the other iPads have to make do with third-party keyboards, the iPad Pro gets the Apple-designed Smart Keyboard (£139) – a magnetic docking keyboard which folds up and over the Pro’s screen when it’s not in use. It’s much, much bigger and more spacious than the third-party equivalents on the smaller iPads, too, so promises to help the iPad Pro pull a far more convincing laptop impression.

The other big news for the iPad Pro is the Pencil (£79). Apple claim that this pressure-sensitive stylus is capable of doubling as a fountain pen, watercolour brush, calligrapher’s nib and magic wand. (NB: one of these is not true.) For precise, exact control which just isn’t possible with a fingertip – which is exactly what you need in the design, photographic and CAD apps which Apple touted at the launch event – it’s set to make the Pro a far more capable companion than its more petite family members.

Oh, and don’t forget – you only get Touch ID fingerprint security and 802.11ac Wi-Fi on the newest generation of iPads. The iPad Air, iPad mini 2 and iPad mini 3 all make do with 802.11n – if you want the very bestest Wi-Fi performance with your shiny new 802.11ac router, then it’s something to bear in mind. 

iPad mini vs iPad Air vs iPad Pro: Cameras

Although many UK tourists would probably disagree, the iPads (with perhaps the notable exception of the iPad mini) are not something you’ll want to use as a camera very often – they’re far, far too big. But although you’re unlikely to buy a tablet for its camera, the iPads really are quite capable.

The newer iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 4 improved significantly on the previous models, upping the sensors from 5 to 8 megapixels, and adding the quick-shot Burst features and ultra-slow-motion video capture features which Apple introduced with the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. If you really can’t resist the temptation to whip out your tablet and capture some multi-megapixel moments, then they’ll do a surprisingly good job, serving up detailed, colourful photos in a wide range of shooting conditions. And if the Air and mini just aren’t big enough for you, well, the iPad Pro serves up the same camera sensors in a much bigger package.

But what about selfies? Ah, yes. All the iPads also have a 1.2 megapixel front-facing camera for ‘selfies’.

Good grief.

iPad mini vs iPad Air vs iPad Pro: Verdict

The sweet spot for most people will be the iPad Air 2. It’s good-looking, long-lasting, offers enough performance to make the most of iOS 9’s new features, and it strikes a great balance between screen size and portability. By comparison, the iPad mini 4 may not feel like enough of a jump from a big-screened phone – I love mine, and also own an iPhone 6 Plus, but not everyone will feel the same.

The iPad Pro, however, is a different league entirely – unless you genuinely need the pressure-sensitive stylus, and will take advantage of the forthcoming ‘professional’ apps, it’s likely to prove overkill. And it’s pretty darn expensive, too. But there’s no doubt that it isn’t absolutely the pinnacle of the range – click here to read our full review.

Want a quick overview of the different models, prices and specifications? Then head on over to the next page where you can compare all the details side by side.

Want a quick overview of the prices and specs for all the Apple iPads that you can currently buy? Then check out the prices and essential specifications in the list below: 

The iPad family at a glance: Specifications and current prices

• Apple iPad mini 2 – SPECS: 7.9in, Apple A7 CPU, 1GB RAM, 5MP rear camera. PRICE: Wi-Fi model with 16GB storage, £219; 32GB storage, £259; 4G +£100

• Apple iPad mini 4 – SPECS: 7.9in, Apple A8X CPU, 2GB RAM, 8MP rear camera. PRICE: Wi-Fi mode with 16GB storage, £319; 64GB, £399; 128GB £479; 4G +£100

• Apple iPad Air – SPECS: 9.7in, Apple A7 CPU, 1GB RAM, 5MP rear camera. PRICE: Wi-Fi 16GB, £319; 32GB, £359; 4G +£100

• Apple iPad Air 2 – SPECS: 9.7in, Apple A8X CPU, 2GB RAM, 8MP rear camera. PRICE: Wi-Fi model with 16GB storage, £399; 64GB, £479; 128GB, £559; 4G +£100

• Apple iPad Pro – SPECS: 12.9in, Apple A9X CPU, 4GB RAM, 8MP rear camera. PRICE: Wi-Fi model with 32GB storage, £679; 128GB, £799; 4G +£100

Any questions? Then ask us anything (related to iPads) in the comments below. Alternatively, click here to take a look at our Best Tablets of 2015 article where you can find in-depth reviews of all the latest tablets, including the iPad Air, iPad Air 2 and the iPad mini 2, 3 and 4.