Ian, it TOTALLLY is a laptop killer. The a10x could beat ANY i3, and almost any i5 dual, its up there with i5 quad dude. Look at benchmark comparisons for the iPad Pro 10.5” or the A10X vs lets say i5 quad and see watch the results man, i couldnt beleive my iPad Pro is as strong as my desktop
It's not processor speed, it's ergonomics and iPadOS. I should say: I'm running the 13.00 beta.
The two-up view doesn't work with many of the apps I care to work with so the one-up view and all its limitations has to suffice.
The Apple keyboard is terrible. It doesn't work on non-flat, non-rigid surfaces. And it's not very durable. I've been through two of them now. Thanksfully Apple keeps replacing them under warranty.
I got a Brydge keyboard for it but that has its own problems. Notable, double pressing the same key seems to fail to register the second key press with iPadOS. The press is sent, but iPadOS appears to have some in-built debouncing that drops the second press that can't be turned off. As a result typing a word like "press" requires you press the "s" key three times, not two. That's annoying.
Mouse support is...meh. It currently doesn't act like a mouse, but like a mouse-controlled finger. That's significantly different from how a mouse behaves on a laptop.
Though it's
also totally processor speed because many of the restrictions and ergonomic choices are a result of the A-series chip not quite being a laptop-killing chip, yet. I'm sure there'll be an A12 that will power a full-on laptop from Apple.
It's still very much its own iPad-y thing and nope, not a laptop killer at all.
As an augmentation to my tricked out iMac it's good. But I can't get by without the iMac and just rely on the iPad. And the iPad would never replace my work Macbook in its current form, unfortunately.