There are so many sizes of iPads, from the smallest 7.9-inch iPad mini 5 to the largest iPad Pro 12.9-inch. The size span is very large, and I just changed from iPad mini 5 to iPad Pro 12.9. Both iPads have experienced it for a while, and finally come to the conclusion that it is better to be bigger. Next, I will give you some reference based on my own experience.

Let me first talk about the reasons for buying the iPad mini 5:

1, small size, easy to carry on business trips.

2, small size and convenient to play the glory of the king.

3, small size, easy to read e-books.

4, the screen is bigger than the mobile phone, and watching videos is more cool.

5. Cheap

Experience after the final purchase:

1, iPad mini 5 is basically not needed for business trips.

2. Playing the glory of the king with a 7.9-inch iPad is still very tiring.

3. Don't read e-books.

4. In fact, the display content of video is similar to that of mobile phone.

5, there are more than 2,000 pieces of things left at home to eat ash.

So in fact, I thought that the small size and high performance iPad mini 5 would be of great use to me, because it is portable enough for me to use in many scenes. But in the end, because it can do too little, it is idle at home most of the time. Later, I chose to sell it and directly changed it to an iPad Pro 12.9. Why?

After the update of 1.iPadOS, the iPad can be used as the secondary screen of the MacBook.

2.iPad Pro supports the Type-C interface, which is convenient for me to connect the card reader to transmit the photos in the camera for post-processing.

3. It is inconvenient to carry on business trip after purchasing the MacBook Pro 16 inch, and a tool is needed to supplement productivity.

After I started, I realized that for products like iPad, the better experience and stronger productivity brought by big screen are much more important than portability. The small screen iPad may have the problem of "productivity before buying", but the big screen iPad Pro is really productive-especially for an editor like me, the daily work is mainly writing and retouching, and the iPad can almost complete 90% of the daily work.

IPadOS was born for the big screen.

IPadOS has many functions, and the most practical one is the side pull split screen function. Generally, when we work on the computer, we will open multiple windows to cooperate and write articles while consulting materials. Then in this case, split screen is the best solution, and the big screen can display more content when split screen. The split screen on the small screen is a bit embarrassing. It is ok to handle mobile apps, but it is not enough to run desktop apps such as Office and Safari.

In addition, the side pull function has a better experience on the big screen. When using office software in full screen, you can display WeChat or nail it for real-time communication, just like putting an iPhone next to it. The interface of this application is the same as that of iOS. You can also switch multiple applications freely, which is quite convenient.

For Mac users, there is also a very important function: follow the flight. You can use the iPad as the secondary screen of the MacBook and support wireless connection! There are almost no delays and jams, and the experience is very good. Then when the content on the macOS system is transferred to the iPad, the big screen is even more important. 12.9-inch iPad Pro immediately became a "small MacBook Pro", and all applications on macOS have no sense of contradiction on this big screen! It completely saves the money to buy an external monitor. Besides, it is not cheap to buy a monitor with excellent screen quality like iPad Pro.

Show your skills on the big screen.

IPadOS has a large number of desktop applications, such as Safari browser, office family bucket, Apple Office three-piece suite and so on. You can get almost the same experience on iPad OS as on macOS, and you don't have too much pressure when dealing with some manuscripts, forms and schemes. The addition of Apple Pencil makes it easier for you to annotate, modify and sign the manuscript when using the on-board function, and it can even be used in conjunction with Adobe Photoshop for mac, which is the advantage of iPad Pro over computers.

In the past, the desktop version of Lightroom on mac was mainly used in the later stage of photography. Later, I found that iPadOS also has a full version of Lightroom, and even has preset, curve, radial filter and other functions, which can fully meet my later needs. Moreover, the experience of retouching on iPad Pro 12.9 is completely different from that on MacBook Pro 16, and it's really great to "hold" photos in your hand and select them by sliding. Moreover, because it has a Type-C interface, I can take it with me when I take a street photo outside, and sit in the coffee shop after taking a photo and directly read the RAW file in the SD card for retouching, which is more convenient to "do business" on social networks.

The iPad itself also has many high-quality creative tools, such as LumaFusion for video processing, Procreate painting application, and Goodnotes note-taking application. These applications allow you to better display your creativity and talent on a larger screen.

The big screen has also been greatly improved in entertainment. I usually like watching Netflix. I was really surprised when I opened the Netflix movie on iPad Pro 12.9. This high-quality big screen presents all kinds of details in the movie screen one by one, coupled with the shocking sound quality of four speakers, the best Netflix mobile viewing equipment is none other than him! I didn't watch much video when I used the iPad mini, but now the iPad Pro on the big screen is completely different. Even if you are the productivity before buying and the iQiyi after buying, the best thing to watch iQiyi is iPad Pro 12.9.

Have your cake and eat it.

Who said that the big screen iPad Pro 12.9 inch is not portable enough? It's bigger than the iPad mini 5 and smaller than the MacBook Pro. You may need to bring your Macbook Pro+iPad mini5 with you on a business trip. MacBook Pro meets my work needs, and iPad mini 5 meets my entertainment needs. Now just bring the iPad Pro 12.9, and these two requirements can be met together on this machine. So who is more portable, iPad mini 5 or iPad Pro 12.9? At least I have the answer in my heart.

Therefore, it is not a problem that you can't have both. A bigger tablet means that it can cover some jobs that require a computer, and it is also an entertainment device in your hand.

MacBook Pro only needs one touchpad.

During the time when I used iPad Pro 12.9, I even had the illusion that it could be used instead of my MacBook Pro, because when working with SmartKeyboard, both shortcut keys and typing felt like MacBook Pro. IPad Pro supports many combination shortcut keys. If you are an old Mac user, you should be very familiar with it. Long press the Command key to call up all available shortcut keys under the current application, which will greatly improve the operation efficiency after getting used to it.

And I found that the keyboard size of SmartKeyboard is the same as that of my MacBook Pro 16. The only thing missing is the touch bar and touchpad at the bottom. If I add a touchpad, I think it will be easier for me to use the iPad Pro. After all, when dealing with some complex multi-tasks, the mouse is faster and more accurate than touch.

In terms of office operation experience, iPad Pro even realized my long-cherished wish for MacBook: supporting Face ID. After the iPad Pro becomes a laptop, the experience of Face ID is perfect! Press any key to wake up the screen, immediately recognize the face and unlock it, and then press the key to enter the desktop, which is much more convenient than fingerprint recognition on MacBook Pro (of course, if you have Apple Watch, you can also unlock it with MacBook). Moreover, when Safari browser logs in to the webpage, the automatically saved password can directly identify the Face ID and fill it in, while MacBook Pro needs to put your finger on the fingerprint identification button again, and the experience is very different.

I've always been a big screen fan. Faced with the explosion of information, a larger screen can show more content. The productivity we often talk about is essentially the ability to obtain information, process information and create information. Take the equipment we contact, from mobile phones, tablets to computers, the screen size increases in turn, and the productivity is also positively related. So the big screen has almost become a necessary condition for productivity tools.

I have used five iPads before and after, namely iPad mini2, iPad Air 2, iPad Pro 10.5, iPad mini5 and iPad Pro 12.9. Finally, I think the largest iPad Pro 12.9 is the most practical, because portability is a false proposition for me. I am not moving when I am entertaining, and I spend most of my time at home. On the contrary, there will be many mobile office scenes, such as writing manuscripts on business trips, retouching pictures in time when shooting outside, and so on. Therefore, iPad Pro 12.9 has become a more portable productivity tool.

(working on the high-speed rail)

I also hesitated to buy iPad Pro 1 1 or iPad Pro 12.9. Later, it was found that there was not much difference in size and quantity between the two, but the actual display content was too far away, so I decisively chose iPad Pro 12.9 with a larger screen.

I think these iPad products on the market are quite portable, but the difference is:

Other small-screen iPad are very portable entertainment tools.

IPad Pro 12.9 with larger screen is a very portable productivity tool.

If you have even a glimmer of expectation for the productivity of iPad Pro, I strongly recommend that you choose the biggest one, with big screen = productivity.