Apple iPad (6th Gen) 32GB Wi-Fi Tablet


Apple iPad (6th Gen) 32GB Wi-Fi Tablet

We own a couple 6th gen 2018 iPads with the A10 cpu. They still work fine and will get iPadOS 15, but are not likely to get more than, perhaps one more OS upgrade after than. As a practical matter, 3rd party apps start to peter out after a 1-2 OS versions out of date.

While we were not tempted by the spec changes to the 7th and 8th gen iPads (mainly bump from 9.7 to 10.2 inch display with 7th gen, but oddly no cpu bump, and a cpu bump to A12 on the 8th gen), the freshly released iPad 9 it a worthy upgrade. It bumps the cpu to the A13 (alas, not the latest A15), and gets a huge front camera bump from 1.2MP to 12MP Ultrawide and with Center Stage. That latter update is big for video conferencing (yah, most video conf sites are only 720P at best, but better quality camera and Center Stage tracking are big). All for the same MSRP of $329 that has remained unchanged for many years. The Front Camera and cpu bump make the twice the price iPad Air look like an even poorer buy than before.

Otherwise, the display pixel density & brightness, Apple Pencil 1 compatibility, 8MP rear camera, home button Touch ID, Bluetooth 4.2, and battery life are unchanged across iPad 6, 7, 8, & 9.

What defies logic? These 6th gen iPads are actually being bought at the WOOT price of $300!?! The original common street price for the iPad 6 was $250 and we paid $230 for ours, with the same MSRP of $329. Bottom line, alas for the last couple generations, the street price for the mainstream iPad has been $300, meaning a very large portion of last year’s iPad 8s were sold for this same $300.

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Note, in this age of cloud everything, including streaming, that 32GB of storage might not be as limiting as you think unless you wish to keep more than 2-3 TV seasons + several movies downloaded on your iPad.

With “optimize photos” turned on, I have quick access to over 10,000 of our iCloud photos/videos and they only take up about 3-4GB locally on the iPad.

With any mobile device, if storage space is a constant battle, backing up, resetting, and restoring the device can free up a ton - sometimes many GB’s of storage by clearing out all the garbage. And that reset/restore process is really easy with iOS/iPadOS.

I just bought a brand new iPad 9th generation, which comes standard with 64GB of storage, for $309, shipped to my door by Apple at no charge.

Woot may want to reexamine the price here.