iPad Pro 2020 Honest Review - Is It Worth It?

Looking for an iPad Pro 2020 Honest Review? Curious if the iPad Pro 2020 is worth it? In this blog, I’m sharing the pros and cons of the iPad Pro 2020 including the new Apple Pencil 2nd Generation (for iPad Pro) and the Magic Keyboard.

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iPad Pro 2020 Review

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Pros and Cons of iPad Pro 2020

So a couple of months back, I bought the iPad Pro 2020 (here’s the newest version) That’s the new version. I got the Apple pencil and the magic keyboard that everyone’s been raving about. However, I never posted an unboxing video or anything like that. I did get footage of the unboxing, just in case they wanted to use it.

But I’ve been using this for about three months now. I’ve been using it to help manage and plan my YouTube channel, my business, even in my life, and there are some pros and cons. So I want to give you my honest review of the Apple iPad Pro 2020.

I got the 11-inch iPad Pro 2020. That’s the smaller of the two models. I got the one with 256 gigabytes. I felt like I needed a little more than the standard, but not quite as much as a whole terabyte.

What Do I Use It For?

1. Note-Taking and Bullet Journal

First of all, the app that I use most often is GoodNotes. It’s a note-taking app. I have multiple notebooks, multiple sizes, and templates. Also, I use a tabloid size, dot grid for my YouTube video planning. I open up a blank page and I start planning out my videos in my own handwriting right there.

And honestly, I’m kind of shocked by how much I really enjoy hand writing my notes. I sometimes will script my videos word-for-word, or at least script the intro and the outro, just to make sure that I cover everything that I need to say.

I also use it as a digital bullet journal. And if you’re not familiar with what a bullet journal is, that’s out of the scope of this blog. But I have been using the bullet journal method as my weekly planner for the past four or five years. Once I got this about three months ago I started doing it digitally, and I don’t know if I would ever go back to using paper.

Related: Bullet Journal for Beginners

And of course, I use it to check in on Facebook inside of my Video Pursuit Society Facebook group, and my free Facebook group. I schedule posts in there as well. Plus, I use it to watch YouTube videos and order my groceries from Walmart, and all those things.

3. Content Management and Keyword Research

I talked about using GoodNotes to kind of plan out my YouTube videos and my podcast episodes. But as far as managing that content and when it’s going to get posted, and what keyword research has been done, and what the keywords are going to be, and all that kind of stuff, I actually use Notion for that.

Notion works in your browser on a desktop, but it also has a really great app. So this is essentially my editorial calendar, my content calendar. I put things in there. My assistant can see what’s going on and schedule things out and knows what is actually on our content calendar. I also use Notion to manage a whole bunch of other stuff in my business as well.

A lot of times I do open it up here on my iPad and kind of fiddle around with it. What’s really nice about the whole concept of the iPad is all of these things that you can do from anywhere. I often will sit on my couch and do this admin type of work or the creative work of planning YouTube video.

I don’t have to be sitting at my desk at my computer. That is by far one of my favorite things about just having an iPad in general. Also, having an iPad Pro, something that is big enough and powerful enough to do all that kind of stuff.

What I Don’t Use It For?

watching and editing YouTube videos in iPad Pro

Now, let’s talk about what I don’t use it for. I actually don’t really use it to edit my YouTube videos. I do use LumaFusion if I have a quick video I’m just working on for fun or for another social media platform. However, I don’t sit down and edit a whole YouTube video on my iPad. If I had to, I certainly would. And I would use LumaFusion.

If my desktop computer died today, I absolutely would just use my iPad and use LumaFusion to edit my YouTube videos. I just prefer to sit at a desk with a bigger screen for that. Also, I don’t record my podcast episodes on it. I know that some people do that. I just prefer not to do it that way. So as far as the iPad itself, I am really happy with the size.

Like I said, I got the 11-inch instead of the 12.9-inch. I wasn’t sure I needed something as big as a laptop. And I’m really happy with this. I think this works out really well and it’s, it’s big enough to do the split screen with things. And I use that function a lot, by the way.

Paperlike Screen Protector

I also have a screen protector for it called Paperlike. It’s like a normal screen protector, but it has like a matte finish. It feels a little bit more like paper. That’s why it’s called Paperlike. Since I use a Mac computer, and I have an iPhone and I have an iPad, I can use airdrop between those three devices. If I take a screenshot or a picture on something, I can really easily share it to one of the other devices really fast.

Apple Pencil 2nd Generation

Now we have to talk about this Apple pencil because I freaking love this thing. That is the Apple Pencil 2nd Generation. It’s very sleek and it’s minimal. It’s just so easy and so beautiful. It just magnetizes to the top or the side, depending on how you look at it so that it charges. It’s never gone dead. It really writes like a regular pencil. It’s really underrated. The idea of having a pencil as your mouse is kind of game-changing, honestly. Now, I wasn’t totally sure if I would actually like writing digitally on a tablet. I’ve heard people say, “Oh, it’s amazing.” I was like, “Hmm, I don’t think so.” I’m really surprised by how enjoyable it actually is. It’s kind of satisfying.

It’s like the best of both worlds because you can write something, you can copy and paste it into another document or on another page, move it around, resize it. So you have the analog handwriting, but you also have the digital-ness of being able to kind of move things around and manipulate things. You can also just turn your handwriting into text as well.

Magic Keyboard

Now the magic keyboard is another story. Yes. I like it. As far as keyboards go, it seems like it’s really small, but it’s everything is spaced really well. It’s a whole lot easier than using the keyboard that pops up right on the iPad itself. So, it is really easy to type. I was a little bit skeptical, whether I’d be able to actually sit on my couch.

Maybe I’m not the only one, but I like to sit on my couch and sit cross-legged until my feet fall asleep and do some work that way. I was skeptical whether that would work because it’s so small. Like would I be able to sit it on my lap, and I can. It works fine for that.

The Problem With iPad Pro 2020

The problem with this is, I like to do a lot of writing and holding the iPad in my hand. I can’t really do that if it’s on the magic keyboard. It’s awkward, right? So what I do is I take off the magic keyboard. I close the actual keyboard case. Then, I can just set my iPad right on top.

the iPad could slide right off when removing it from the case.

But the iPad isn’t attached to the keyboard case, it’s not secure. That drives me crazy because sometimes I think I’m just picking up my iPad and I’m not. I’m picking up two individual items. If your brain is not prepared for that, the iPad could slide right off. That just drives me crazy.

Why couldn’t they figure out a way to magnetize the iPad to the outside of the magic keyboard so that you could just use it outside the case and not worry about having those two things sliding around? If this Magic Keyboard was truly magical, there’d be a way to open it up and fold it back or something so that you didn’t have this sliding unstable iPad.

More Tips for iPad Pro 2020?

Now, I’ve mentioned that I don’t use my iPad Pro 2020 to edit my YouTube videos unless I’m doing just a one-off project here and there. If I was going to, LumaFusion for sure is the way to go. It’s by far the most superior video editor out there available for the iPad and the iPhone. It rivals some of the desktop video editors out there as well. Here’s the link walking you through how to use LumaFusion in iPad.

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