Talk me out of an iPad A16?

Hardware
1

I have a love/hate relationship with the iPad. I love the idea of a bigger screen than my phone, and I’ve owned a 12.9 and the Mini in the past. The 12.9 is way, way too bulky for me to comfortably hold, and the mini was nice - but I just didn’t use it enough to justify hanging onto it when my fiance wanted it for art stuff. :slight_smile: And I absolutely can’t justify $600-ish or more at this point.

But sometimes I’d like a bigger screen. I’d just prefer to not be super-sad if it turns out it doesn’t wind up being used as much as I thought.

Looks like the A16 model (the “regular iPad”) is currently on sale for about $280 at Best Buy, which seems dirt cheap for an 11" glass screen with 128GB of storage.

Is there anything about the A16 model that’s obviously garbage? I know it won’t have Apple Intelligence. And I know that it’s an A16, which means it’s not going to be a multitasking powerhouse. But for web browsing, media consumption (Audible, Overcast, YouTube), and maybe some basic note-taking, is it still a decent device?

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I’m trying to make exactly the same decision, so have no advice to give you.

3

I dunno, this is probably not what you want to hear, but if I were you, I’d cough up another $100 and get a refurb iPad Air from Apple. Downside? It’s only 64GB. But if it’s truly just to mess around on, internal storage shouldn’t matter?

It just has better everything else…

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Storage is the one thing I actually wind up using. 128GB is fine, but what with audiobooks, podcasts, etc., I need more than 64.

5

YES!
This is the right iPad for those needs. I bought one for my wife to replace her much older iPad (I still believe it jumped off the kitchen island onto the tile floor shattering the display on purpose) last year. It is very peppy for basic tasks and the display is sharp and bright.

Just buy it…

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