Apple iPad (2020) review: A solid entry-level tablet

Note: This review was first published on 23 Sept 2020.

Spec-bump iPad

Apple recently announced two new iPads. There’s a new entry-level iPad called the 8th generation iPad, which is an update to last year’s 7th generation iPad. And there’s a new iPad Air. It goes without saying that the new iPad Air is the sexier new release. Unfortunately, it won’t be available until October. So today, I’m going to evaluate the new 8th generation iPad.

The new 8th-generation iPad is really just a spec bump over last year's model. It shares the same design as its predecessor. The dimensions are the same, so cases that fit last year’s iPad will fit this one too. And as I said before in my first impressions piece, design isn’t this new tablet’s strongest suit. The large bezels look dated, especially next to the swanky new iPad Air. Even though it may look unfashionable, the important thing is that it remains thin, light, and easy to carry around.

The Retina display is unchanged. Size is still 10.2 inches large and resolution is still a very adequate 2,160 x 1,620 pixels. This gives it a respectable pixel density count of 216 pixels per inch. Like most Apple devices, the display is excellent. It can’t hold a handle to the iPad Pro’s excellent Liquid Retina display but it’s certainly in a different league when compared to the swathe of cheap, and vaguely disposable, Android tablets you can find on online shopping platforms. If I wanted to nitpick, then I'd complain about the display's pedestrian 60Hz refresh rate. It doesn't affect the tablet functionally, but there's no denying that the iPad Pro's 120Hz ProMotion display looks better.

The cameras are unchanged and so are the Ports and buttons. This means you get a Smart Connector so you can use the Smart Keyboard. And it also means you get a Lightning port instead of a USB-C port that the iPad Pro already have and that the upcoming iPad Air will have.

Now, there are two ways to look at this. One could say it’s a missed opportunity to consolidate the lineup and standardise the connector used on iPads. The second, and arguably more magnanimous outlook, is that Apple is ensuring that owners coming from anything other than an iPad Pro will be able to use his or her accessories and cables with this new iPad – such as the first-generation Apple Pencil. Either way, as is the case with any products that are in some sort of a transition, there are upsides and downsides to any and every decision.

One of my biggest gripe with this iPad is the speakers. They are stereo but they are positioned on both sides of the Lightning port. This means sounds only come from one side when watching videos in landscape orientation – which I’m guessing almost everyone would do. For me, this is a glaring oversight and something that should have long been corrected. As it is now, watching movies on this iPad is unbearable without headphones. If it's any consolation, the speakers do get very loud.

The big change lies under the proverbial hood. The latest iPad comes with Apple’s A12 Bionic processor. This processor debut in 2018 with the iPhone X, XS Max, and XR. And it was deployed in last year’s iPad Air and iPad Mini.

It may be a slightly old processor, but as you’ll see from the benchmark results on the next page, it’s still pretty spritely. Because of the A12 Bionic processor, the new iPad is noticeably snappier and more responsive than the model it replaces. It’s a distinct step up especially if you are playing a graphically intensive game.

Faster performance aside, perhaps the bigger deal here is that Apple is putting its Neural Engine in an entry-level iPad for the first time. Essentially, it’s a hardware AI accelerator – but a fast one that can process up to 5 trillion operations a second. The Neural Engine first appeared in the A11 Bionic in 2017 and it powers a lot of the stuff that happens in the background on your iPhone and iPad that you might not be aware of, such as the sorting and classification of photos, people occlusion in AR, and enhanced photo-taking, and many more.

Third-party apps also rely on it to accelerate certain features. For example, popular photo-editing app Pixelmator uses the Neural Engine it to power its ML Super Resolution feature, which uses machine learning to improve the way the app increases the resolution of images. Pixelmator has a detailed writeup on how the Neural Engine does this and it’s worth a read here. All of this is to say that raw CPU and GPU performance improvements aside, the new A12 Bionic will also bring AI smarts to this year’s basic iPad.

Performance analysis

Unsurprisingly, the new 8th-generation iPad handily outperformed its predecessor across all benchmarks. On Geekbench 5, single-core performance was about 45% greater while multi-core performance saw an increase of a whopping 89%. On 3DMark, scores were up by over 23%. And on AnTuTu, which measures combined CPU and GPU performance, numbers were up by a staggering 223%. More impressive perhaps is that this new iPad, despite its two-year processor, was still competitive against some of the latest Android hardware.

Battery life

Our standard battery test for mobile phones has the following parameters:

• Looping a 720p video with screen brightness and volume at 100%
• Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity turned on
• Constant data streaming through email

Battery life was pretty remarkable considering the new iPad has a more powerful processor but the same battery capacity. It clocked 357 minutes or 5 hours and 57 minutes which is nearly 50 minutes more than last year's iPad. This is a testament to the efficiency of the A12 Bionic processor. However, it's not comparable at all to Samsung's new Galaxy Tab S7+, which managed just 30 minutes short of 10 hours. That's impressive even if it has a larger battery.

The bare necessities

The new 8th generation iPad doesn’t illicit desire the same way the iPad Pro or the upcoming new iPad Air does, but it’s more than enough tablet for most people. It has a nice display, good performance, robust pencil and keyboard support, and all of the functionality enabled by iPadOS 14. Just about anything you can and want to do with Apple’s pricer iPads, you can do the same and for less on this entry-level iPad. For readers who need to replace their ageing iPad or tablet, the choice is clear.

Still, I must warn readers not to be fooled by that starting price. S$499 gets you just 32GB, which, in all likelihood, is not going to be enough especially if you are an avid gamer. Some games take up over 3GB. Going up to 128GB bumps the price up to S$649 – a 30% increase. Cellular connectivity is another S$200 extra. Add accessories and you are looking at a bill that’s close to a grand. Apple doesn’t really do cheap.

At this point, you might be tempted by cheap Android alternatives. And certainly, there is no shortage of options there. But none come close to matching this iPad’s level of build, refinement, and performance. To match this iPad, you'd have to be prepared to cough up more for a higher-end tablet from Huawei or Samsung. And with Google just about given up on tablets, the app ecosystem for Android tablets just isn’t as robust.

So yes, this new iPad is probably not as cheap as Apple would have liked you to believe, but at least it’s a really solid tablet. And besides, no one ever said a good tablet was cheap to begin with.

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