Which iPad should you buy for GAMING in 2020?

Gaming in general has been getting increasingly popular over the last decade but mobile gaming like using an iPad has blown up in the last couple of years thanks to massive advancements in processing power and because of that we are seeing more and more actually great and fun multiplayer games coming to mobile devices like Call of Duty mobile pub G fortnight and games like vainglory so those are the games that we're going to be testing in this video and we'll be playing them on each iPad and Apple's current lineup starting with the budget 10.

2 inch iPad currently on sale for two hundred and seventy nine dollars the iPad Mini five for three hundred and fifty dollars the iPad air three for four hundred and seventy nine dollars and the 20/20 iPad pro for seven hundred and ninety four dollars now we already compared to everything about these four iPads to see which one you guys should buy but the point of this video is to see which one of these iPads is the best choice for gaming for your specific use case because what some people think of gaming is simply playing games like clash of clans clash royale or similar games like that that are so easy for either of these iPads to run that it really doesn't matter which iPad you choose and for simple games like that the budget 279 dollar iPad is going to be just fine but on the other hand there are people who take gaming so seriously that they must have the fastest processor the highest refresh rate display and the fastest Wi-Fi connection so that there is absolutely no lag or performance issues at all when they're playing competitively against real players online and that's what we're going to find out in this video so here are a few benchmarks showing the differences in processor and graphics performance between these iPads and one thing you'll notice is that the iPad Mini and air are almost identical and that's because they have the same exact chip so let's start off this comparison by playing vainglory on the 10.

2 inch budget iPad as far as performance I was able to play on this basic iPad with no issues at all everything was pretty smooth and it was very easy to play competitor however is definitely not very comfortable holding it in your hands while playing so I preferred laying it down flat on a table moving on to the iPad Mini I instantly noticed a couple of things first off the speaker sounded better and louder than on the regular iPad and it was also pretty comfortable to hold because of the smaller size and lighter weight and I noticed that there were less reflections on the display says the mini and the rest of the more expensive iPads have an anti-reflective display and I noticed better contrast and colors as well performance didn't really change since the regular iPad ran it just fine so I don't expect any differences with the other iPads now with the iPad air the size went back up so it wasn't as comfortable to hold and performance was identical but the speakers were even louder and better than the other two iPads but it wasn't that big of a difference in general now moving on to the 20/20 iPad pro the game felt more immersive since we no longer have the big bezels that come with the home button and holding this in my hands definitely gave me a different feel because of the squared off edges a huge difference was in the speaker's since the iPad pro is the only one to get them on both sides so you get true stereo sound while playing and landscape mode and the quality and volume was much improved compared to the rest as far as performance the main difference was that vainglory actually supports 120 FPS gaming on the iPad pro so everything felt incredibly smooth and fluid compared to the other iPads which have 60 Hertz displays now moving on to pop G this game still doesn't support 120 FPS so it doesn't have that benefit but let's start with the budget 10.

2 inch iPad interestingly even this iPad allows you to choose extreme framerate in the graphics settings with balanced mode turned on which means it should be able to get a maximum of 60 FPS and I made sure to disable auto adjust graphics and then enabled anti-aliasing to put some extra load on it in terms of performance it was actually pretty smooth in general but I did notice times where it would drop frames and be a bit stuttery especially in environments with textures but I enjoyed the quite large 10.

2 inch display and while performance wasn't the best I was pleasantly surprised to see that you can actually get a decent pub G gaming experience on this iPad moving on to the iPad Mini I really enjoyed how easy it was to hold in one hand and play but I did notice that the smaller display size media a bit tough to see enemies that were further away as far as performance I noticed those stutters and drop frames go away because of the better processor so everything felt really smooth one thing to keep in mind is that the smaller size also leads to a smaller battery so you could see significantly lower battery life for gaming and ask for the iPad air performance was identical the only real difference I noticed was simply the larger size making it easier to see enemies but noticeably less comfortable to hold in your hands which might not matter to you if you play with your iPad on a stand or laying on a table and finally onto the iPad pro I didn't really notice any difference in performance since this game doesn't yet support 120 FPS and unfortunately you can't go any higher than balanced on the graphics settings while playing at extreme framerate which is ridiculous since I know it can handle better graphics at 60fps and as far as gameplay there was a massive advantage in terms of the speaker quality because it makes it much easier to track footsteps of enemies around you but other than that there was no real advantage to using the iPad pro moving on a fortnight I decided to put each iPad on a stand in play using an Xbox one controller starting with the 10.

2 inch iPad it's nice to see that there is now a 60 FPS option on this iPad while at medium settings whereas before it was limited to only 30 FPS and just looking at the lobby the quality of the characters and textures isn't that great and that lucky' quality translated over into the game with there being quite a bit of aliasing and it was easy to tell that the quality was lacking in terms of performance even though it was set to 60fps it was actually hovering around 40 to 50 FPS most of the time so it didn't feel that smooth and there were even times where the FPS dipped into the 20s and there was noticeable stuttering so I would definitely not recommend this budget iPad if you want to play competitively as for the iPad Mini we had the same 60 FPS at medium quality settings as the regular iPad but the graphics were drastically more detailed in the lobby even at identical settings so that's something to keep in mind and in the game itself the detail was much better as well as far as performance the framerate was basically maxed out at 60fps the entire time which shows us that it can easily handle medium graphics and should have an extra high graphics option but it doesn't and since we're using a controller the comfortable size didn't really matter and I noticed that I had to sit closer to the display to see enemies that were further away now for the iPad air the graphics settings were identical since it uses the same a 12 chip and the performance didn't change either the only two differences I noticed were really just the more convenient display size while using the controller and the better speakers there are also a lot of players who used the claw method for playing fortnight and this iPad would be a great choice for those people finally onto the iPad pro which is basically every mobile fortnight players dream tablet as you can see in the settings we now have a 120 FPS frame rate option because this iPad pro has a 120 Hertz display unfortunately you can only take the graphics up to medium but I think it could handle higher frame rates if they allowed for it gameplay on this iPad was great because it stuck to 120 fps almost all the time and there was a night-and-day difference between the pro and the other iPads in terms of gameplay smoothness the whole experience in general is better since you have the much better speakers on both sides for listening to footsteps and the display can actually get brighter than the rest which would be nice if you're playing in a bright environment so the iPad pro is easily the clear winner for playing fortnight giving you huge advantages over the other iPads and now let's finish off with call of duty mobile which also has controller support on the 10.

2 inch iPad we set the graphics too high which unlock the max framerate which should be 60fps and while playing the game it was surprisingly well optimised and played very well although I did notice some dropped frames every now and then but overall you could buy this iPad for a decent Cod mobile experience the iPad Mini had the same exact settings but it did feel a bit snappier and more responsive in the lobby compared to the budget iPad even though the settings were the same the mini just felt more smooth and fluid and as far as the small display issue this wasn't as big of a deal since Call of Duty tends to have smaller maps and multiplayer mode but it could be an issue in the battlegrounds mode their performance and everything was basically identical on the iPad air except for the larger display which is definitely the better choice if you plan on using a controller and you should get better battery life as well and finally all the iPad pro the settings were surprisingly the same the graphics didn't really look any better and it didn't support 120 fps so there wasn't really any real advantage over the iPad air except for the stereo speakers for listening to footsteps so after playing all of those games here are are buying recommendations for each of these iPads in terms of gaming if your idea of gaming is playing things like clash of clans then the 10.

2 inch ipad is perfect for you insane for those who play MOBA games like vainglory since the performance is good enough for games like that and it's much cheaper at the 279 dollar price but I would honestly recommend gamers to upgrade the storage to at least 128 gigs so you don't have issues of running out of storage while downloading games and if you want to play call of duty mobile or pop G and you aren't very competitive and don't really care about having a perfectly smooth gaming experience then the 10.

2 inch iPad is still a decent buy now if you do care about that and you play these games especially for tonight you're gonna want to buy at least the iPad Mini or the iPad air for the better display quality and the more powerful a 12 chip this will give you perfectly smooth 60fps gameplay across any of these games and if you're someone who likes holding your iPad in your hands while gaming then the iPad Mini is the best choice but keep in mind that the small size could mean lower battery life but if you play using the controller or the claw method then the iPad air is definitely a better choice than the mini but it's also $100 more expensive now if you're extremely competitive with your gaming or if you play Fortnight then the iPad pro is by far the best choice because you know you won't have any performance issues at all and that 120 Hertz display is amazing for games like Fortnite with support 120 FPS the quad speaker system is also great if speaker quality is important to you and it has by far the best display quality out of the bunch and on top of that it supports Wi-Fi 6 which could be very important to competitive players who want the least amount of lag so if you want the king of all tablets for gaming then you've got to go with the iPad pro and a major benefit is that the 20/20 iPad pro base model for 794 dollars already comes with 128 gigs of storage so you're good to go for downloading a bunch of games on it hopefully this video helps you make a decision on which iPad to buy for gaming and will have links to the best deals on each of these iPads in the description below now if you don't care that much about gaming check out our massive full comparison between these iPads right over there thanks for watching and we'll see you in the next video [Music].