Look, the iPad 9 is better than the iPad 8, and there's really no question about it. But assuming that you can get the iPad 8 for less, it is still worth getting the 9? And also, are there any reasons why some people may want to upgrade from the 8 to the 9? Looking at the design, these two iPads are essentially identical. They have the same body and same size display, nd the same volume control and power button. A few minor differences are that the iPad 8 is available in rose gold, and that the silver iPad 8 comes with a white bezel versus a black one on the iPad 9. Other than that, they look exactly the same. And personally, I like the black bezels better because the air gap, which I'll talk about later, is less noticeable. Both the 8 and the 9 still have larger bezels on the top and the bottom, and both still have a Home button with a fingerprint sensor for biometric authentication. And I know some people are hoping to get smaller bezels and no Home button, like we got with the Mini 6, but that would require a new shape since I don't think the touch ID that we have on the iPad Air 4 and the Mini 6 would work with this rounded design. And we're also still seeing two speaker grills at the bottom and a lightening port for charging and accessories.
Now, since the iPad Mini 6 was upgraded to a USB-C port, the iPad 9 is now the only current iPad to have a lightening port. If you're coming from an older device, or if you're using an iPhone, including all four models of the iPhone 13, you can repurpose your charging cable and any dongles that you own. Now, looking at the display, both iPads have a 60 Hertz, 10.2 inch retina display, with a resolution of 2160 by 1620, and a maximum brightness of 500 nits. You know that I do my best to read almost every comment, and a lot of you have asked me about the type of display because evidently somewhere on the web, someone said that this is a fully laminated display. It's actually not true. And just like the iPad 8, the iPad 9 has a non-laminated display and there is still an air gap. Now, if you're interested, I have a dedicated video explaining the difference. But for real life use when I'm watching content, playing games, surfing the web, or using any of the apps that I do, I don't really notice the difference. If I'm using an Apple Pencil and I'm looking at an angle, then I can see it. And at the same time, I don't have any issues using the Apple Pencil with either of these. The one change that Apple made with the screen on the iPad 9 is that it's now a True Tone display. that means that there are sensors that can detect the color of the ambient light in your environment, and then they adjust the color on the display. So, the white always appears white rather than yellow or blue. Now, let's get to the camera and speaker systems. Because here we're seeing one of the major upgrades of the iPad 9. The speaker system is the same, and we're getting speakers at the bottom on each side of the lightning port. If you're watching content in portrait mode, you don't really notice it. But if you're watching content or playing games in landscape mode, then you do notice it a little more because the sound is coming off to one side. If I'm playing games without a headset, then it definitely makes it more difficult to detect which direction footsteps are coming from. And that's why it's great that both of these still have a 3.5 millimeter headphone jack. When it comes to the front facing camera, the iPad 8 has a 1.2 megapixel, F/2.4 camera, and the iPad 9 has a 12 megapixel, F/2.4 ultrawide camera. So, it's quite a significant difference. We're not only getting a higher resolution camera, but we're also getting access to a feature called Center Stage. So, the iPad 9 uses a combination of the ultrawides camera's field of view and artificial intelligence to detect, and then track a subject as it moves through the frame. It can then, in real time, zoom in or out to reframe the shot and keep the subject centered. Now, this is something that was only available on the M1 iPad Pro models until the release of the iPad 9 and the iPad Mini 6. This feature works well for video calls with FaceTime and for a few other apps, including Zoom. You can also use it with Tech Talk which is actually really helpful because it allows you to move around a bit and make your videos feel less static. Now, by the way, if you don't see this feature working for you at Tech Talk or any other compatible app, just open the app, swipe down from the top right to get to Control Center, you'll see a button for Video Effects, and then you can enable Center Stage. Now, let's talk about the rear facing camera. And if you're getting value from this video, ive it a thumbs up. Then if you're new here, hit that Subscribe button. When we look at the rear facing cameras, both the iPad 8 and the 9, have a wide 8 megapixel F/2.4 camera with a 5x digital zoom and HDR for photos. Both can record 1080P at up to 30 frames per second. And both can do slow motion at 720P at up to 120 frames per second.
Now, I would've liked to see this camera bumped up to 12 megapixels, and then offer 4K just to give the iPad 9 a complete advantage when it comes to the camera systems. But if we were only gonna get an upgrade for one of them, it had to be the front facing camera. Moving on to accessories. Since the shape of the body is the same, everything from protective cases to keyboard cases are going to be compatible with both devices. As far as stylus, both are compatible with the 1st Generation Apple Pencil, which pairs and charges using the lightning port. An area where we do see improvement is with processing power. The iPad 9 comes with the A13 Bionic Chip versus the A12 on the iPad 8. I'll get to real life use in a minute. But for those of you who are interested in benchmarks, for single core performance, the iPad 9 scored 1330 versus 1116 on the iPad 8. And for multi-core, it's scored 3376 versus 2724. So in both cases, we're seeing about a 20% improvement in performance. Now, this is a nice upgrade to get on an entry-level device, especially considering the fact that Apple kept the price the same. Personally, I never felt like the iPad 8 was underpowered. And for the tasks that I used it for, which was everything from watching video to surfing the web, doing email, editing photos, and then working with different productivity apps, and then even gaming, it works great. With the iPad 9, I'm noticing that startup time on demanding games is slightly shorter. And then certain more intensive tasks seem to move along a little faster. And I'll be taking this into account during my recommendation section at the end of the video. Now, multitasking is another area where we always want additional processing power. So, the iPad 9 comes with iPadOS 15, with all the new multitasking features. I already had my iPad 8 running iPadOS 15, and if you wanna see my favorite features, watch this video right there. In my experience, I haven't really noticed a meaningful enough difference between these two when I'm multitasking. Both have the same features and the same amount of RAM, 3 gigabytes. So, even when I'm running multiple apps at the same time, with split view or with slide over, both devices were snappy. Now, moving on to battery life. A great use for the iPad 9 and the iPad 8 is sidecar, where both of them can be used as an additional display for your Mac, your iMac or your MacBook. Now, I've said it before, but this is one of the most underrated features of iPads, in general. And if you're not currently taking advantage of it, please watch this video right here and then start using it right away.
Now, I wanna talk a little about gaming and then we'll get to the configuration options, and my recommendations. So, I've been playing games on the iPad 8 since it was released and it's worked great for me. And my experience with the iPad 9 has been very similar. I feel like some games have been a little more responsive, but honestly, if you handed me both of these and I didn't know which was which, I'm not sure that I'd be able to tell the difference. Now, the only comment I have about both is that the speakers are on the same side. But unless I'm testing speakers, I'm always going to be using a headset when I'm gaming. So, it's not really an issue for me in real life. Next, let's talk about the configuration options and pricing, and then we'll make a decision. The iPad 9 is available with either 64 gigs or 256 gigs versus the iPad 8, which comes with 32 or 128. I think this upgrade was a great move by Apple because 32 gigs is really low unless you're only using the iPad for content consumption, or if you're using it with very small apps. Now, I think more users can get by with the entry-level 64 gigs, even if they want a few bigger games. And then, the ones that are creating content or just want a lot of bigger games all downloaded at the same time, they can get to 256 gig model. Apple also didn't raise the price on the iPad 9, so you're getting double the storage at 64 gigs for $329 or 256 gigs for 459. There are also cellular models available of the 8 and the 9, and there was no upgrade to 5G. So both her 4G LTE. All right, now that we looked at both devices, is it worth getting the 9 And are there any reasons to upgrade? So first of all, if you don't have either of these, it comes down to the price difference. If you can get a great deal on the iPad 8, I would take it. But if they're even close, then I would definitely get the 9. You're going to get double the storage, a much better front facing camera, and the more powerful chip. If you already have the iPad 8, then I would say that for a lot of users, it's probably not worth the upgrade. The only exceptions that I can think of are if you have everything that you want, but you need more on device storage, if you do a lot of video calls and you want a much better front facing camera,or if you want Center Stage for video calls and to create content for things like Tech Talk. Remember that I have links in the description to all the products I talked about. Hopefully this video was helpful.
