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We're going to talk about the camera on the iPad Pro 11 in a way we've never really done with a tablet before – because if this is a professional device then you're going to want a decent snapper with which you can take photos for presentations or demonstrations, and which you can annotate using the Pencil, or to capture slow-motion video for analysis.
The good news is that the iPad Pro 11 does indeed possess a half-decent camera on the back, with the 12MP sensor capable of taking more than acceptable low-light photos, with rich enough detail when zoomed in. The larger display does make a good viewfinder too, and if you're doing something scientific or technical then you'll have some good-quality visual data to work with.
Bright, well-lit photos look decent on the screen too, so if you must take photos with this tablet they won't be a disappointment. Just please don't be that person at the festival or sporting event trying to document it on the large-screened tablet, even if it can do timelapse with ease.
Video recording supports 240fps at 1080p resolution – not the 960fps that a few phones are capable of (and which we were sure the iPad Pro 11 would be too), so if you're looking for something that's powerful in the slow-mo department, this isn't the device for you.
Editing your photos, especially with the Apple Pencil if you're willing to pay for it, is a much nicer experience, and with things like Lightroom on offer for free (for the basic version) we can see that in a pinch the iPad Pro could be a one-stop shop for all your photography needs... as long as you don't want the high-quality snaps you'll get from many smartphones on the market at the moment.
The 7MP front-facing camera has been upgraded to the TrueTone snapper, meaning you can take background-blurred snaps of your own face – and it works well. It's nice to be able to frame your face on such a large device, and being able to mess with the level of focus behind your head is rather nice too.
The iPad Pro 11 camera setup is more than capable of what you'll need from a tablet – just remember not replace an actual camera with an iPad.
Battery
It's always been quite tough to assess the battery life on a tablet, as they're usually so good that it's hard to really notice when things are running down hard. In the case of the iPad Pro 11, Apple is claiming all-day battery life for the slate, but we'd argue it's even better than that.
In our testing we found that the new iPad Pro 11 was capable of going beyond 24 hours, still plugging away well into the next day despite a lot of heavy activity as we tried to test the limits of the device.
There's no wireless charging on offer here, which some will bemoan, but we can't see a tablet being able to make use of the accessories just yet – although we would have liked to see a stand that can also charge the device being offered as standard.
We can't really fault the battery life on the new iPad Pro 11, and Apple's claim of 10 hours of life seems modest – you'll definitely get to the end of the day unless you're absolutely hammering it for hours on end, which you wouldn't expect to be doing with a secondary device.
