iPad Shopping

[mramseyISU]

So I'm a little behind the times and I've never had an iPad. I've been limping along with a Kindle Fire but the storage space is so small on it I can't really use it unless I'm connected to wifi. I've got a work trip to Europe coming up and I'll be stuck in a few different airports. So I'm thinking about pulling the trigger on one. Where I'm getting hung up is the new vs refurbished one. I'm sitting here trying to decide between a new run of the mill iPad and a refurbished iPad Air. On Amazon it's about $100 price difference for 32gb ones. Mainly I'm looking for something to watch movies on while I'm on the plane/riding in trains. At the end of the the day $100 isn't a huge deal but it's still $100. Is a refurbished Air even worth screwing with though?

 

[Tre4ISU]

I'd buy an Air 100 times out of 100. I've had both and I don't use them all that frequently but the Air is worth it.

 

[dosry5]

I'd buy an Air 100 times out of 100. I've had both and I don't use them all that frequently but the Air is worth it.

What makes Air better?

 

[Turn2]

You may have better luck here than with Amazon:

https://www.apple.com/shop/refurbished/ipad

Any refurb Apple product I've bought from Apple has been indistinguishable from brand new.

 

[mapnerd]

Personally, I've been satisfied with the ipad mini size.

 

[BurgundyClone]

IPad Air 2 is huge and great for movies, I've also gotten them from the Apple refurbished site and had zero problems.

 

[boone7247]

If you are just watching movies an Air is more than enough. Our iPads have basically been rendered to small portable TVs at this point. We have Air 2 and mini 2 or 3, both still function as they did when new. I prefer the Air because the screen is better and obviously bigger. When traveling I have never had difficulting getting it in a bag or anything like that.

I think a refurb Air 2 will do the trick. If you are downloading movies to it, you might think about a larger storage option, but depends on how often you want to wipe it and download new items to it.

Random thought time, and possibly ignorant moment. Since Apple refuses to allow expandable memory in their devices, why haven't they allowed you to have a movie on your phone, and watch it on your iPad? Can Bluetooth not handle that much data? It would be nice for extra storage. I am assuming it is a transfer bandwidth issue unless you can do this and I just don't know it.

 

[dmclone]

I have an Ipad Air 2 and the battery is going south. I'm going to wait until the end of March to see what Apple has plans for the new one. I'm guessing that lightning will be replaced by USB-C, which as an Android phone user, would make me happy.

I'm not a fan of the Ipad mini. For the price, I see very few reasons to go with something that's just a little bigger than my phone.

If I had to buy one today I would just buy a new Ipad 32gb for $329. Unlike other Apple products, I think the standard Ipad is a hell of a deal. I only use 18 of the 32gb on my current Ipad so space isn't an issue for me. Speed is great, screen is nice, it's fast.

 

[AgronAlum]

I've got an iPad Pro and love it. Make sure you get a newer generation of whatever you get. Multiple times I've run into the issue of Apple devices that still work but Apple decided they are too old to get the current iOS. This makes them utterly useless because apps start becoming unsupported.

 

[CycloneJames]

I've got an iPad Pro and love it. Make sure you get a newer generation of whatever you get. Multiple times I've run into the issue of Apple devices that still work but Apple decided they are too old to get the current iOS. This makes them utterly useless because apps start becoming unsupported.

Do you have the 10.5" ipad pro or one of the new ones? I've been looking at something like this as basically a laptop replacement for a while. I honestly don't know why I would spend more for the newest version. It seems basically the exact same except with a USB-C connection instead of lightning.

Also, do you have a keyboard? They seem to have terrible reviews.

 

[mramseyISU]

I've got an iPad Pro and love it. Make sure you get a newer generation of whatever you get. Multiple times I've run into the issue of Apple devices that still work but Apple decided they are too old to get the current iOS. This makes them utterly useless because apps start becoming unsupported.

That's whole reason why I'm so hesitant to pull the trigger on a refurbished one. I've got a refurbished Air 2 with 64gb of memory sitting in my ebay watch list for $220 which isn't too bad of a price. I'm worried because I know how apple likes to send out updates that slow their machines way down at a certain age. I can get a new 6th gen one for $300 but it's only 32gb which is probably plenty. If I get the new one I'll probably just head down to best buy and use their price match with Amazon to get one for $300. On the other hand I'd love to save $80 and have double the memory. I'm just concerned with all the potential issues that could come up with a used one.

 

[Clone83]

I considered an iPad mini about 4-5 months ago, as something I could primarily read from in a chair or lying down, versus my large iPhone, and versus sitting at a table or desk. I would also use it in part as a desktop substitute, not just reading, but for other purposes like news, file management and pdf markup. This, also considering the large number of free e-pubs useful to me at sites like Mises.org and Online Library of Liberty (easy to download, sync on iCloud, and markup in Apple Books, similar to Amazon Kindle).

I thought the speed on the mini was very clunky, however, compared to a 9.7 iPad Pro, which I bought instead (steeply discounted at the start of the school year). My guess then was that they would probably come out with a newer faster mini sometime, perhaps, perhaps not in the too distant future.

They have since come out with a new line of iPad Pros. Mine is still a good entry level iPad Pro. I saw a YouTube on how the screen isn’t quite what the other iPad Pros are, but it supports Pencil and air pods, which I don’t have yet but plan to. Looking into it, you can do a lot with the Pencil like draw or take notes, and it looks better or more useful than I imagined. I plan to use it in the immediate future mostly for pdf markup (superior to using my finger or typing in comments).

Had the mini been faster — and had it not looked like a faster model might come out sometime after purchase — I probably would have just got that. I instead got the IPad Pro and a new iPhone.

Sounds like OP is probably interested in iPads in between these two. One of my best tech purchases ever was an IPad 2. After several years though, it became clunky on certain things but still functional on others, too slow to really spend much time using online. The higher resolution on newer models is also better for my eyes.

 

[AgronAlum]

Do you have the 10.5" ipad pro or one of the new ones? I've been looking at something like this as basically a laptop replacement for a while. I honestly don't know why I would spend more for the newest version. It seems basically the exact same except with a USB-C connection instead of lightning.

Also, do you have a keyboard? They seem to have terrible reviews.

I have the 10.5 with a 60 dollar or so keyboard case. I had an issue with the case coating wearing down and the aluminum material underneath it leaving streaks across my desk. They sent me a new one and have been sending emails literally every single day trying to get me to change my Amazon review. The keyboard itself is great other than that one issue.

This is the case I have in silver.
https://tinyurl.com/ycgddppp

 

[Clone83]

An advantage of my 9.7 inch iPad Pro was a huge selection of cheap but highly rated keyboards, the same size I think as the iPad Air, so a huge market. It may serve my purposes well into the future, but everything was so cheap ($260 for the iPad I think, maybe higher now), that I could see upgrading in a few years. I would already have a Pencil, Air Pods, and experience with the latest stuff.

I also don’t need a lot of storage for what I use it for. The 99 cents a month iCloud plan serves my purposes for both storage and backing up the iPhone and iPad. I use other cloud storage services as well, all free. One is Dropbox, with additional free storage for a year, under a special deal. I might stick with it after that, and pay, as it seems that Microsoft’s One Drive and Apple’s iCloud work with the competition (each other), but maybe not quite as well as they could. They each have more incentive to work better with a third party like Dropbox. I use both Apple and PCs.

It was a little odd that that Apple’s Preview pdf tool doesn’t work on the iPad or iPhone, but the third party apps developed instead by others are pretty good (and cheap), and better IMO. It’s getting to where you can markup stuff directly in OneDrive and iCloud using the associated hardware, generally, I think. (But you can markup in OneDrive using Apple iPad or iPhone, I believe, similar to how Word etc. there are free). But all of this is somewhat in development and transition. I thought PDF Expert was going to be develped for PCs as well, but it hasn’t been. Maybe just the Mac? Others are highly rated, but from what I see, most iPad users rate PDF Expert the highest. I also use GoodReader and iAnnotate. Adobe is getting better not not as good as these.