this video is sponsored by squarespace hey what's going on everyone greg here and i got a question for you how much ipad do you really need because while apple does sell some really expensive premium ipads with the ipad pro and even less premium with the ipad air they still come in at a pretty high price point like they retail more than the original ipad cost when it came out because it came out at five hundred dollars and now if you want to get the standard size ipad air well now all of a sudden you're shelling out 600 for that and then even if you want the latest ipad mini which i really like it is 500 which was the original price of the full-size ipad however there's another ipad in this lineup that often gets overlooked and it's actually cheaper than when the ipad originally came out and of course its name just ipad it's the 9th generation ipad starting at 329 i think this is one of the best ipads out there if you can kind of give up a few things so let's acknowledge what this ipad is so for starters this is the budget ipad this is the cheapest ipad you can get it starts at 329 for 64 gigabytes of base storage which is actually a really good deal when you consider that uh the more expensive ipad mini and ipad air also start at 64 gigabytes of base storage and if you're just looking at the price of the regular full-size ipad and an ipad air which are both similar in their dimensions um you're basically getting that standard ipad for almost half the price of the ipad air with the same starting storage now the one thing that will jump out to you about this ipad is that you have to acknowledge that you're going with a more dated design because this ipad does not get kind of the you know reduced bezels of the more recent ipad designs this is the last ipad that still has that kind of top forehead area and bottom chin area and that's the last ipad actually to still have the home button however i kind of feel like that's a benefit to this ipad because the home button houses touch id and honestly i think that the touch id placement for this ipad is better than the more modern ipads where they have touch id in the power button and when you're using this ipad in portrait mode or landscape mode it's pretty easy to reach to whereas with the ipad air i find that getting to the power button touch id when using it in portrait mode is a little bit of a struggle and unlike any other ipad in the lineup this one still has a headphone jack and probably the most surprising thing about this ipad to me is that it actually gets a feature that the 600 ipad air does not have and that is the front facing camera supporting a 12 megapixel super ultra wide angle field of view and center stage where the camera can kind of pan and zoom and follow you around in video calls i really like that feature on all of the ipads that have it with the ipad mini and the ipad pro and now this standard ipad gets it as well because it's a big upgrade compared to last year's budget ipad because that front facing camera only had a 1.2 megapixel sensor and now we're jumping all the way up to a 12 megapixel sensor so this thing is really great for video calls or hey even for selfies if you're taking ipad selfies but maybe let's acknowledge some of the bad things about this ipad 2 because it's not all good it's a budget ipad so there are some weaknesses to it um one of those would be the rear facing camera so strangely enough the front-facing camera on this ipad has a higher megapixel count than the rear-facing camera which is still using just an 8-megapixel sensor although to be fair because it is just using an 8-megapixel sensor it is still completely flush with the ipad so there is absolutely no camera bump so if you like your ipads to lay flat when you put them on a table maybe you can chalk this up to a benefit because i know a lot of people actually don't use the ipad cameras at all and they kind of think it's a little bit silly to use the ipad as a camera so i totally get that the display also isn't as good as the more recent ipads and it lacks a few features so although this ipad does gain the true tone display so you can now get the ambient color temperatures depending on the room you're in and the screen will kind of adapt to a warmer or cooler temperature depending on the ambient light around you it is still using a non-p3 color display so it doesn't get the wide color gamut so maybe if you're using this for photo or video editing you're going to get less accurate colors out of it and then also it is still not a laminated display so there is still a bit of an air gap i also want to say that the speakers on this regular ipad are awful so all of the other ipads have either like a stereo or quad speaker arrangement where it has sound coming out on both sides and this ipad is still just a bottom firing speaker and it sounds really bad it's really starting to show its age so it really is a good thing that they did include the headphone jack so you can easily get uh better audio out of this ipad also it's the last ipad to still have a lightning port so all of the other ipads have moved over to usbc so you're not going to get faster data transfer rates on this and it also means that it still uses the first generation apple pencil which pairs and charges via that lightning port although to be fair to the apple pencil i still found that the experience of actually drawing with the apple pencil or writing with it on this ipad was still pretty good so even though it's not the new design where it magnetically attaches and it's not as sleek or as convenient if you wanted to use this for drawing or for writing down notes it is still 100 totally usable and fine and it also has the old smart connector placement so it's actually on the side instead of on the back as more recent ipads have it and that means it's not compatible with apple's expensive but fantastic magic keyboard with that being said you can still kind of use the old smart keyboard design the origami version of it and that actually is holding up pretty well i forgot how much i like typing on that fabric keyboard even though i do like the keys on the magic keyboard better and even though i don't have this product i've tested similar logitech keyboards for my ipad air and ipad pro that have physical keys on them and a track pad and logitech actually sells the version for this um cheaper 329 10.2 inch ipad and if you want to get that kind of laptop replacement experience where you're using a track pad and a keyboard you can do that on a 329 ipad in fact you can get that whole combo for around 500 and that means you're saving a hundred dollars from the ipad air and still getting that full laptop experience so we really do have to credit the uh baseline ipad here now i want to talk about some of the performance with this ipad and some of the things you might be giving up by picking this model especially compared to what i think most people will be 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just announced right so you are getting really fast processing on this ipad it's very similar to what you would get on an iphone 11 which is not a phone that is really that old and if you compare it against some of the like android processors out there you might find that this ipad is performing better than some of those flagship android phones and that's what i found like everything i've tested on this ipad whether that's just navigating the interface browsing the web going on twitter editing some photos testing out the multitasking in ipad os some of the gestures there everything felt fluid and responsive uh even playing games like call of duty mobile i didn't find any hiccups or any frame drops while playing a round of that game and i really just came away you know impressed that apple is continuing to deliver on the performance with this ipad because realistically they could have just kept selling the old ipad with the a12 chip in it and not really have upgraded this and i think people would have still bought that this year so i have to commend apple for continuing to upgrade even their low end ipad with commendable processing power and what that really means for you is that if you buy this ipad it means that i don't think you need to feel limited in any way i know the newer ipads look kind of fancy and shiny but when you're talking about what ipads can do at least in this state with the current version of ipad os 15 i feel like you can basically do almost everything on this 329 ipad that you could do on a more expensive ipad air and even a more expensive ipad pro you're basically getting the same experience on the 329 ipad than you would on the 1099 12.9 inch ipad pro and that is kind of crazy to think about so that kind of leads us to our next section why would you get any other ipad besides this ipad again uh you could go for the ipad mini because maybe you want a smaller premium tablet but i think that's a separate audience right because this ipad can be a tablet and it can kind of serve as a laptop replacement it has all the connections and peripherals to do that so i think the next logical ipad that people are really going to be trying to compare this to is the full size 10.9 inch ipad air so what do you get with the ipad air by basically spending double like this is 329 you could basically buy two of these ipads for the same price as an ipad air with the same 64 gigabytes of starting storage all right well to be fair to the air you are getting a better design um it does have the more reduced bezel design i think it looks a lot sharper with the flatter sides uh you get the smart connector on the back so you can attach that wonderful magic keyboard to it but again that's an expensive accessory you know the magic keyboard is 300 so not to keep like hammering that point in but that means that the magic keyboard the accessory to the ipad air costs about the same as just getting the standard 10.2 inch ipad so even though it can connect to that magic keyboard is that really a good value and should you really be doing that you also get a slightly bigger and to be fair a better display that is laminated and supports the p3 wide color spectrum uh you're getting slightly better performance with the a14 chip the speakers are better on this ipad air as well so again it has like the stereo speakers you're getting usb-c so faster data transfer rates you're also getting the apple pencil 2 so it magnetically attaches on the side you also get a better rear camera now i don't think that's going to be a deciding factor because again i really don't think people are taking too many pictures on their ipad but you do get a 12 megapixel uh rear camera on the ipad air to be fair to it but at the same token uh the ipad also has some benefits to it like the ipad has some benefits to it that are better than the ipad air and that comes in the form of the center stage front-facing camera so the ipad air may have a better rear-facing camera but i think the 10.2 inch ipad has a better front-facing camera you're also getting what i think is the better arrangement for touch id with it being placed on the home button rather than on the power button and you also get the headphone jack which i know is a feature that some people still care about and it is an easier way to get better audio and better audio than probably the speaker stereo arrangement could afford you on the ipad air so there are actually benefits to spending less money and going for this older ipad design now we could go and compare it to every other ipad there but i really think people are deciding between these two ipads uh if you're getting an ipad pro i think you're maybe a pro maybe you're an artist a video editor or photographer you want that m1 performance you want the maybe the mini led display on the 12.9 inch you want the fast 120hz refresh rate um i feel like at that point we're kind of comparing you know similar things but the pro has its market but besides the pro is there any other reason why you should really buy any other ipad like should you really spend 300 more on an ipad air instead of an ipad it really is a hard sell and listen i know i i love getting new tech i i'm really into all the advancements and stuff like that so it is hard to turn down new and shiny but again how much ipad do you really need because at 329 dollars the regular ipad is the best value in apple's entire ipad lineup in fact i think it's the best valued product that apple sells period it's capable versatile and could do almost everything a one thousand dollar ipad pro can do and as i'm sitting here today if i logically think about it it really doesn't feel like there's any reason to buy any other ipad besides this one and that means i highly highly recommend it it's a great tablet if you want to save some money you want the ipad experience 329. 64 gigabytes of storage this is like very easy to recommend so i love the 329 ipad i hope apple continues to improve it over the years and i hope they still keep it at 329 for a long long time because this is the best deal in tech quite frankly alright hopefully this video helped you out in deciding if the 329 ipad is right for you and if it is right for you and you want to buy it i do got some affiliate links in the description below if you found the video helpful if you like this video also consider leave me a like if you want to see more from the channel including maybe future ipad coverage make sure you're subscribed and hey thanks for watching this video really appreciate it and i'll catch you in the next one take care everyone