2018 Apple iPad full review: practical and cheap, it’s still an excellent choice for your first tablet
Simplicity matters more than style for iPads, so the new model gets the job done, with the iOS 11.3 operating system delivering improved performance, outstanding Apple Pencil support and superb battery life
Competition in the tablet market is less cutthroat than that for smartphones. Google, despite building a superb operating system that has a legitimate claim to be superior to Apple’s iOS on phones, somehow has been unable to optimise Android to run as well on tablets.
Flash sales, social media savvy helped Xiaomi topple Samsung as India’s No 1 smartphone supplier
Companies such as Samsung and Huawei pump out pioneering phone hardware every year but seem to put half as much effort into doing the same for its tablets.
That may explain why Apple’s newest, sixth-generation iPad feels more like a cursory update than a significant advance.
Design and hardware
When it comes to physical design, the iPad (2018) doesn’t change much from last year’s device (or even the original iPad): there’s that 9.7-inch, 2048 x 1536 LCD display, surrounded by chunky bezels, and Apple’s iconic (but dying) circular home button/fingerprint sensor combo.
The back is made of aluminium, and the unit is about 7.5mm thick, like just about every iPad before it.
