iPad Pro: Is it still the best tablet around?

Apple's iPad Pro has been around for more than a year in one form or another. It was released in September 2015 with a 12.9ins display, with a 9.7ins following.

Such a powerful tablet may seem unnecessary, but Apple certainly thinks there's a point. It's sold alongside a range of smart accessories, such as the Smart Keyboard and the Apple Pencil, which essentially turn the iPad Pro into a touchscreen laptop running iOS.

The 9.7ins version starts from £549, while the huge 12.9ins is pegged at £729 for the most basic model and range-topping versions stray into four figures, so what makes the iPad Pro so special?

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"It's designed to be a media hub, a decent word processor, a creative design tool, and then anything the app world can dream up besides", says TechRadar.

It's easy to consider Apple's tablet as a direct rival for the Microsoft Surface Pro 4. Both are similarly oversized and have styluses and detachable keyboards. They're also in the same ballpark when it comes to price.

However, Microsoft's device is pitched towards multitasking desktop users while Apple's is a more casual, mobile-orientated device.

"The iPad Pro could be a lot of things to many people", TechRadar says. "To some, a great sofa pal. To others, a brilliant hybrid device that enables them to flip effortlessly from sketching to movies to typing reports on the go."

Alphr also picks up on the flexibility in its five-star review.

"The iPad Pro is a stunning machine", says the site. "For your money you’re getting a fast, capable laptop running on iOS, and an eye-poppingly good tablet with ear-tingling audio to boot". Overall, it's a tablet that's "very hard not to like".

There is, of course, the smaller version too and it's Wired's preferred version.

It also packs in one or two features the 12.9ins version is yet to get, including a True Tone display with a wider colour gamut.

Added to that, thanks to its 12-megapixel iSight camera, the smaller tablet is a better choice for taking photos and can record video in 4K resolution.

Bigger is not better, it seems, which is why Trusted Reviews says the 9.7ins iPad Pro is still the best tablet on the market today.