The iPhone Duo has been in my hands for just under one week. And it’s been a week — I am so far away from developing a firm opinion on this device, I doubt I’ll be able to put coherent thoughts together by Christmas.

In a sense, I think this may be a microcosm of what we saw out of pre-release reviews. Some reviews suggested “the future is foldable!” boldly, while others said the Duo is effectively a beta device. I disagree with both positions, but don’t have my own firmly held position yet. I hope time will tell.

For now, I want to highlight some of my favourite iPhone Duo apps from this first week. It’s almost like app design has discovered a new echelon — the best apps shine on iPhone Duo in ways I never thought possible. Some usual culprits are here, and I’ve left a few off that look stunning but which I’ve praised over and over for about 10 or 15 years.

Bear Notes

Bear has been around for a long, long time, and is one of those rare apps where I catch myself wondering if I should have stuck with it all these years. Bear went through a period of time with little to no updating years ago, causing folks to look elsewhere to take advantage of the latest iOS and iPadOS features. I was one of those. I remember being so completely content with my note-taking app at that time, and I don’t believe I’ve reached that level of nirvana since.

Bear on iPhone Duo is better than I could have imagined. The app makes use of the multi-pane view in a beautiful way, and showcases your notes with ample space on the right. Navigation buttons hug the right and left side to move between panes and views. To my eye, it all just works in a beautiful way.

I’m not a Bear Notes subscriber, but I might be if I keep looking at the app.

(The New) Reeder

I’ve been a Reeder Classic user since the inception of the App Store, but this is the first iPhone that hasn’t had an immediate update to the Classic app in a long, long time. Instead, I went looking at the new Reeder (the “waterfall” Reeder, I’ll call it, as new feed content cascades into the app and provides a waterfall of new content to view) to satisfy my RSS itch.

It took a bit to understand how the new Reeder works. It doesn’t showcase unread posts in the same way Reeder Classic does. Instead, it pulls from your feeds (and your feeds can encompass Reddit, YouTube, Mastodon, and RSS feeds; vastly more than Reeder Classic) and you can tap on a feed to scroll through the list. There doesn’t seem to be a visual cue denoting what is read or unread, apart from a number in the top corner of the “Home” feed. It’s a bit odd at first. Once I got used to it though, the new Reeder has become one of my favourite apps on iPhone Duo.

I’d argue Reeder has always been the best “paned” app available. It makes use of different pane columns to handle navigation, and everything works so fluidly on the Duo’s landscape display. When it’s time to read, you can flip into portrait mode and have a comfortable reading view.

All in all, the new Reeder is a new addition to my Home Screen thanks to how fun it is to use on the iPhone Duo.

Fantastical

Apple has been showcasing the Duo’s landscape orientation with an image of the stock Calendar app in a week-view. That screenshot is gorgeous, I will admit. But rest assured, Fantastical has that beautiful weekly screenshot on the Duo covered in spades, and it has a plethora of other ways to navigate your calendar. Fantastical has long been one of — if not the — best calendar app across iPhone and iPad, and somehow it feels the best it’s ever felt on the iPhone Duo.

Take the weekly view, which is my most-used view. In landscape, the weekly view can be viewed a few different ways:

1. Month scrubber and event list on the left, weekly view on the right.
2. Just a weekly view, with the left sidebar collapsed.

You can also drag the monthly scrubber and event list pane left or right to provide more or less breathing room, as you prefer. No matter how you work it, your calendar is displayed beautifully, with ample room for actually reading event titles. So many calendar apps get this wrong.

It’s equally pretty in portrait orientation. My only recommendation to the Flexibits team so far would be to expand the number of numerals and punctuation marks available in the extra keyboard row above the portrait orientation keyboard. Otherwise, Fantastical is the best version of itself on the iPhone Duo.

Kindle

I showed off the iPhone Duo to some tech enthusiasts in my first 48 hours of ownership, and the first app I showed them all was the Kindle app. The Kindle app isn’t even updated for the Duo! And it still made this list.

When in portrait orientation, the iPhone Duo is effectively a Kindle-sized device. iOS 27 by default extends the top nav bar to the top of the display, producing an efficient, distraction-free reading environment that would rival any e-reader on the market. It may not be e-ink — I’ve learned you don’t mess with the e-ink community — but the nano-texture display and Kindle-sized device make for the most comfortable reading device Apple has ever produced.

Can we also take a moment to admire Amazon’s special Kindle font? Bookerly has to be my favourite font ever produced. On the Duo display, Bookerly is crisp, yet smooth. It’s just the right weight. The font itself is probably worth using an unoptimized Kindle app over any other reading app available for the Duo.

Microsoft Outlook

I’m a Superhuman user, and it’s going to be difficult to take Superhuman away from me at this point. I attempted to use any number of other email apps for about a month three months ago, and I came crawling back to Superhuman ashamed of my curiosity. Microsoft Outlook for iPhone Duo has me curious, again.

Microsoft has always done an impressive job keeping Outlook updated for iPhone and iPad. Outlook for iPhone Duo is probably the most balanced app I’ve found thus far. It does a superb job of moving navigational buttons to the right and left sidebar when in landscape orientation, and the composing view with the big portrait keyboard is a dream. This might be the first time I choose to compose emails on iPhone rather than leave the iPhone simply for email triage.

If I ever have to move away from Superhuman — be it because of an email provider change or Superhuman being purchased — I now know my first stop will be back in Microsoft-land. I almost can’t believe I just said that.

Wrap Up

There are a number of other notable iPhone Duo app mentions. The usual culprits are all here: Things 3, Ulysses, CARROT Weather, Craft, and Day One all have many of the same traits as the five apps I’ve noted above.

But there’s just something extra special about the five I’ve written about. These apps have found a rebirth on the iPhone Duo, if you ask me. I haven’t used Fantastical or Bear in a long while now, but I’m almost certain to resubscribe to both. Reeder is in the same boat — the new Reeder debuted and I bounced off instantly. On the iPhone Duo though, Reeder comes to life. Microsoft has somehow positioned Outlook as the best email app for iPhone. And you simply have to see the Kindle app to believe it. It’s such a joy and may make the iPhone Duo worth the money all on its own.

I can’t wait to see where developers take Apple’s new iPhone foldable. This is the most excited I’ve been about a new iPhone since the iPhone 5.

It’s been a long, long time since I wrote a review about a new Apple Watch. I picked up the first-generation Ultra back in 2022 and wore it nearly every day for the last four years. It was the first Apple Watch that truly stuck for me — all past trial runs ended in a return or a sale, for this reason or that reason. The Ultra, though it had its flaws, really found its way into my daily life.

Over time, I learned I used the Apple Watch Ultra for only a few specific things — all of which were fulfilled in an overkill way by the Ultra:

• Notifications — phone calls, text messages, and weather alerts.
• Fitness tracking — both the initiated (jump on the Peloton and ensure the Watch is connected to track heart rate) and the uninitiated (go for an outdoor walk and have the Watch track the walk, even if I didn’t explicitly start a workout).
• Hot tubbing — between keeping track of time, minor notification tracking, and the Ultra’s water temperature sensors, the Ultra became a mainstay in the hot tub.

Outside the above, a few shortcomings of the Apple Watch Ultra led me down the path of trading in the Ultra 1 for a standard Series 11 Watch:

• Sleep tracking — The sheer size of the Ultra always scared me away from using the Ultra as a sleep tracking device. I hoped the Series 11 thinner body would be easier to wear at night.
• Size — Specifically in the winter, the larger Ultra chassis gets pretty tight on the wrist when wearing winter gloves. If I’m shoveling the driveway, for instance, I’ll often trigger an emergency alarm because of the tightness between my winter gloves and my sleeve.
• Design — Though the Ultra was always handsome, I wanted a Watch that was more “fashion-first” rather than “utility-first”. The Series 11 has always appeared “nicer” to my eye.

So I traded in the Ultra 1 for the Series 11, hoping the grass was greener. After a few months, I sold off the Series 11 and picked up the latest Apple Watch Ultra 4. The grass is greener in some ways with the regular Series-line of Apple Watch — the thinner chassis and the fashion-first design make for a very compelling product. For me though, it had just too many compromises I had overcome with the Ultra 1.

Meaning, I’m back with Apple Watch Ultra 4. And I’m excited to comment on the massive jump from Apple Watch Ultra 1 to the Ultra 4. Though they look effectively identical, there are some serious steps forward.

Why I'm upgrading now

I don’t think the Apple Watch Ultra 4 upgrade package in and of itself would have had me upgrade if I still had my Ultra 1. For the uses I touched on earlier, the Ultra 4 isn’t $750 better than the Ultra 1.

But Apple cut the Ultra 1 from the list of watchOS 27 compatibility. I, among many others, had to decide. I hate that this was the reason an upgrade hit my device cycle. Though I trust the drop in compatibility was done for sound purposes.

The “forced” upgrade (if you could call it that) has yielded a few noticeable improvements, however:

• Battery life is significantly improved over Ultra 1, both in terms of battery health after 4 years and actual battery life.
• The Ultra 4’s screen is dramatically better than the Ultra 1’s display, especially outside in bright sunlight.
• Apple’s latest S11 chip in the Ultra 4 is orders of magnitude faster than Apple’s S8 chip in the Ultra 1. There are also some future improvements coming soon I’m excited to try thanks to the S11 chip.

I’ll touch more on each of these below. Combined, they make for a bigger improvement than I expected.

Design and build: does "purpose over style" still hold?

Way, way back in 2022, I noted the Apple Watch Ultra 1 was the first Apple Watch to sort of “lean into” a utility-first design. The brushed titanium finish with hard-line bezels and thick chassis made for a relatively bold Apple Watch style, at least in light of the Series Watches having effectively the same design for eight years.

I don’t think I could have said it any better back then. Titanium is a superior material for a watch, but Apple worked to make titanium look more like the stainless-steel variety in the Series line. Apple hasn’t strayed at all from the brushed titanium finish in the Ultra, and I’m grateful for the consistent design.

The Ultra 4 is designed utility first and fashion second. It’s big, thick, and overall heavy, and in turn houses a whole host of features and battery life no other Apple Watch has. But though the Ultra 4 puts fashion second, it’s still a looker as far as a smartwatch goes — I maintain you can wear this Watch with a sport jacket, on the golf course, or to the beach. The ubiquity of Apple Watches in today’s age ensures you can be more confident wearing them anywhere you go.

The only difference between the Ultra 1 and the Ultra 4, that I can tell, is the availability of a black colour option. That matte black finish is sleek and is sure to continue its popularity. It’s not for me at all. But it’s as sleek as it gets.

I’m particularly thankful for the consistent physical design from 2022 to 2026. Every band I own still works. Every accessory and charger I own still works. Not a single part of the physical experience is changed, making for a comfortable return to what I loved in the Ultra 1.

This has its pitfalls, to be sure. I noted above how tight the Ultra can be when combined under a dress shirt cuff, a winter jacket, and a dressier pair of winter gloves. The Ultra 4 will be no different. It’s going to get in the way, and I will be annoyed with it, I know it.

Display: the biggest day-to-day difference

One of the more notable improvements between 2022 and 2026 has been the Ultra’s display. The original Apple Watch Ultra debuted the 49 mm display size with hard titanium bezels. At the time, it was ground-breaking — it was big, it was bright, and it was durable.

Though the Ultra 4’s dimensions and overall aesthetic haven’t changed, there are a number of under-the-hood improvements to note.

First is the wide-angle OLED display and the larger active area of the screen. It’s not immediately noticeable, but the Ultra 4 has thinner bezels, has wider viewing angles, has a higher screen brightness, and has a lower refresh rate than the Ultra 1. All these features debuted in the Ultra 3, so they aren’t new for the Ultra 4, but they are new if you’re coming from a first-generation Ultra.

The thinner display bezels are something I honestly didn’t notice. They are definitely smaller than the Ultra 1, but this isn’t really worth noting.

What is worth noting are the wider viewing angles and the brighter display, both of which are handy in our bright Manitoba summer and winter days. I would never truly suggest the Ultra 1 wasn’t bright enough on those winter days. But I would say the added brightness is noticeable and noticeably helpful when outdoors.

Most importantly is the lower hertz refresh rate in the Ultra 4’s display. New LTPO3 technology in the Ultra 3 enabled Apple to move the power-sipping always-on display down to a 1 Hz refresh rate, enabling the second hand or second bezel to update every second even in always-on mode. This is one of the most notable improvements from generation 1 to generation 4 — even when you’re not looking at the display, the seconds continue to tick around the Ultra 4’s bezel. No more tapping to look at the second hand if you’re counting down a timer, or if you’re wishing the seconds would pass by at a dull board meeting.

Battery life and charging

If there was one impressive feature I noticed with the regular Series 11 Watch, it was its fast-charging capabilities. Sleep tracking would eat through about 10% of the Series 11’s battery life overnight, and by the time I got off the Peloton in the morning, I’d often be down to 30% or so first thing in the morning. A 10-minute shower and 15-minute get-ready charging session had the Series 11’s battery to over 80%. This was the first time I had experienced fast-charging — or, rather, first time I ever needed fast-charging — and I can now see why it’s such a great feature.

Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) I’ve never noticed the Ultra 4’s fast-charging features. I’m sure it charges faster than the Ultra 1. But I don’t ever need to know — my Ultra 4 has the best battery life I have ever experienced in an Apple Watch, and it may have the best battery life of any Apple portable device I’ve ever used.

Apple claims the Ultra 4 can operate for 50 hours of normal use and up to 84 hours in Low Power Mode. Fifty hours is likely conservative — I could push this Watch to 3 days if I wanted to, even with a workout in the morning, a tracked-outdoor-walk in the evening, and a hot tub session at night. It’s genuinely impressive. Instead, I drop it on the charger for 10–15 minutes while I shower in the morning, just like I always have, and I seldom see the battery dip below 80% on a given day.

All this, and Apple says the Ultra 4 fast charges for up to 18 hours of use in only 15 minutes. We’re not talking Garmin smartwatch levels of battery life here, but we’re most certainly talking more than enough battery life for all but a tiny subset of Apple Watch users.

My last comment on battery life: the Ultra 4 uses about 4 or 5% battery to track sleep at night. I’ve returned to tracking my sleep with the Ultra 4 despite its chunky size, and there is effectively no battery concern here. The Ultra 4 sips battery life all night long, and even 5 minutes on the charger will replenish the power used to track sleep.

Health sensing, readiness, and sleep

So far, given Apple’s software release schedule, I haven’t had much opportunity to test or even experience the Ultra 4’s health sensing capabilities. Just this morning, I experienced my first atypical night of sleep (perhaps I’m coming down with something), and so I may well find my readiness drop in the coming days. I’m interested to see how this plays out.

Readiness measurement itself is an interesting new feature I’m excited to dive into further when iOS 27.2 arrives with the revamped Apple Health app. I realize that readiness measurements are already available, but I tend to need a bigger screen to dive into those kinds of metrics. As it stands, I don’t find readiness measurements particularly helpful thus far — I’m always tired, I never want to work out, I never feel truly energized, and yet the readiness metric is always “Give it a go!” I tend to look at readiness with an eyebrow-raised, and tend to just push through the workout regardless of what the Ultra 4 tells me.

One of the more impactful health feature differences between the Ultra 1 and the Ultra 4 are the 4’s hypertension alerts. The Ultra 4 (and the Ultra 3 before it) don’t actually take your blood pressure, but they monitor your heart rate data to look for possible signs of hypertension. These alerts only became active for me about a month ago here in Canada, so there’s also limited information I can provide. So far, so good on my front — which is good, as I do continually have high blood pressure readings from my dedicated machine. (That dedicated OMRON machine also suggests I have atrial fibrillation, and the Apple Watch detects no such signs. My physician friends tell me the Watch isn’t to be fully trusted, so the lack of hypertension alerts does not in and of itself mean you are hypertension-free.)

A core reason for my little Series 11 experiment was because I found the Ultra 1 to be too big to wear for sleep tracking. Obviously, the Ultra 4 is no different — it’s big and honking at night, and I certainly feel the Ultra 4 when my hand goes under my pillow at night.

I am, though, getting used to it. Slowly but surely. And I can report that I have been wearing the Ultra 4 for sleep-tracking from the day I pulled it out of the box.

What’s impressive to me is not so much the sleep metrics (which, so far for me, are almost always “Typical” readings, and in my opinion rely too heavily on the sleep goals you put into the Health app) but rather the Ultra 4’s battery usage at night. The Ultra 4’s battery is insane, and I will lose maybe 2-3% tops at night for sleep tracking. I have no idea why Apple requires 20%+ battery capacity for sleep tracking features to execute — the Ultra 4 sips battery while sleep tracking.

Siri AI and the S11 chip

Siri AI is a mixed bag for me. I believe I have lingering public beta profile and backup issues, in that I can’t seem to have Siri AI available on all my Apple devices at once. If I turn it on on my iPhone, it automatically shuts off on my iPad. And vice versa.

And if I had to choose places to have Siri AI, it would be on iPhone and on Apple Watch. I find the new and improved Siri AI most useful on Apple Watch, where the ability to ask more difficult questions or provide more difficult tasks has been quite handy. This may be due to not having a dedicated Gemini or Claude option on the Watch more than it is how useful Siri currently is — I’m not sure. Regardless, Siri AI on my wrist with the ability to answer more in-depth questions has been excellent.

Siri Recap is one of those features I, like anyone else, will have to report back on. I’ll be especially curious to try this in a professional setting. Here in Canada, my understanding is that only one party to a conversation has to consent to recording, and if you’re a participant to the conversation, you can provide that consent automatically. So Siri Recap, when recording my conversations, should be no issue (at least legally; socially is a different question, and one which will have an ever-evolving answer). It’s the conversations Siri picks up while walking through the town square — conversations I’m not a party to or privy to — that seem to be at legal risk. Apple wouldn’t have launched this type of feature so boldly in the USA (where my understanding is that recording consent has stricter rules) without having proper legal grounds to do so. Either way, we’ll have to see.

Finally, the S11 chip in the Ultra 4 — I can’t say which has been a bigger improvement from Ultra 1 to Ultra 4 for me: the Ultra 4’s improved battery life, or the Ultra 4’s improved operating speed. Apps on the Ultra 4 actually work. They open, quickly, and can be tapped through without the Watch slowing to a grind. My Ultra 1 use had devolved to being glance-and-check-iPhone — any complication taps would cause a system-wide halt, and I’d give up and pull out my iPhone. Now, with the Ultra 4’s S11 chip, I can leave the iPhone behind more often and just scroll through data right on the Watch. The S11 chip has been a gigantic leap forward from the Ultra 1; apart from battery life, I imagine this will be the thing most 4-year-upgraders will notice.

Apple Watch Ultra 4 vs. Series 11 (and Series 12)

Back in 2022, I stated the Series line effectively lived in the shadow of the first-generation Watch Edition. The Ultra 1 was an “unburdening” of the Apple Watch — a major step forward in what the Apple Watch could do rather than a major step forward in how the Apple Watch looked when doing it.

The question is whether that was the correct take.

I’m not sure if I can fully determine a right or wrong on this.

What I can say though: I don’t believe the people choosing to buy the Ultra 4 over the regular Series Watch are doing so in the name of “ruggedness” or “outdoor athletics” or “deep-sea diving”. People are selecting the Ultra 4 because of the screen size, because of the aesthetics, and because of the battery life. (I would wager it’s almost exclusively because of battery life, but that’s too generalized for me.)

So where I’m unsure if the Series line truly lived in the design shadow, I do believe the “unburdening of the Apple Watch” is the core reason for the Ultra’s popularity. This is an Apple Watch on steroids — durability, battery life, screen size, and boldness — and it leans into this without shame.

These are the core reasons I prefer the Ultra 4 over my short Series 11 experiment. The Series 11 consistently had me feeling like it was compromising. I couldn’t make it through a round of golf without the battery being destroyed. I didn’t have an Action Button to program. I never felt comfortable taking it into the hot tub. I simply couldn’t use the Series 11 in the way I had come to use the Ultra 1. I even came to miss the Ultra-only Watch faces — the ticking second complication around the outside of the Ultra’s face is very handy, as are the data-rich Ultra-only Watch faces debuting one-at-a-time over the years.

The Ultra 4 is a return to that Ultra 1 experience, and then some.

I don’t regret my experiment at all. The Series 11 reminded me why the original Apple Watches never stuck for me, and the Ultra 4 is a reminder why the Ultra line is now a can’t-miss device for me.

Cost of ownership

The Apple Watch Ultra 1 debuted at $1,099 CAD in 2022, and the Ultra 4 continues to measure at that same starting price in 2026. I traded in my Ultra 1 for $260 CAD, for a net cost of $840 over a 4-year period, or $210 a year. I’ll attempt to measure my Ultra 4 in 4 years’ time.

This will probably be deemed to be an expensive Watch purchase overall.

I would argue, though, of all Apple devices, that Watches are the least prone to needing an upgrade over a short period of time. My opinion, of course. I’d bet most Watch upgrade cycles are in the 3-4 year period, rather than the 2-3 year iPhone period. If it wasn’t for watchOS 27 dropping support for the Ultra 1, I’m not convinced it would have been only a 4-year Watch for me, either.

All of this is to say: The Watch Ultra sticker price is that of the shiny titanium Series watches, and I’d argue the longer-than-normal device upgrade cycle makes the Ultra the better buy. If you’re weighing a shiny titanium Series 12 against the Ultra 4, and you’re looking for a buy-once-and-forget option, the Ultra is certainly going to have a lifetime to it.

Conclusion

Disregarding my Apple Watch Series 11 experiment, the question remains: Would I have updated to the Apple Watch Ultra 4 from the Ultra 1 if watchOS 27 hadn’t forced the issue?

The answer is “probably not”. I don’t think I would have weighed the additional Ultra 4 features beneficially for the $840 additional cost.

But am I disappointed in the upgrade? Not in the slightest.

I don’t know if I could tell you what could improve the Apple Watch Ultra 4. The screen is big and bright. The OS is fast and instant thanks to the S11 chip. The battery life is nearing three full days for my standard usage. It even still takes the same Apple Watch bands I’ve accumulated over the last four years.

I suppose I would ask for the chassis to be a little thinner and lighter to improve comfort, specifically for sleep tracking. But then Apple could keep this particular chassis design and keep packing in battery life — which seems to have been the strategy throughout generations 1 to 4. I believe we’ll reach a point soon that the Ultra can hit a full three days of regular battery life for regular Ultra usage, and we’ll see a thinner and lighter design accordingly. A battery that can last one week is overkill for a device like this.

Overall, the Apple Watch Ultra 4 is bordering on being “perfect” for this particularly robust design. I’d wager we’ll see a thinner body in the next year or two thanks to ever-improving battery technology. At $1,100 CAD or $800 USD, this is, in my opinion, the superior option relative to the almost equally priced titanium Series 12 options.

Like every warm holiday traveller stuck in the Cancun luggage carousel spot, I immediately dreamt of ways to avoid the brutal wait times. “I could play the young child card,” I thought for a second. But that seemed quite inappropriate. “I could jump back there and help them unload,” I thought. But that would likely result in my arrest.

“Or we could skip this altogether and travel carry-on only.”

I’m far from a genius — these exact thoughts have rolled through any number of world travelers as they make the dreaded wait for their checked luggage. A carry-on only hot vacation, complete with three children, is the ultimate dream.

So I was bound and determined to make it happen. I began my research, and my eyeballs popped out of their sockets. You could buy anything — from a first-trip-breakable to a Fort Knox destruction-ready option — from just about any price point. I was sure to pick something that worked well with a laptop, that rolled superbly, and which had some unique flair to it.

I ended up with the Peak Design Roller Pro, and not because I call myself a photographer. The Roller Pro has now eliminated our big checked baggage across four different trips — Newfoundland, Toronto, and a few camping trips — and I couldn’t be happier with all the little features in tow.

TL;DR: The Peak Design Roller Pro is a 34L (39L expanded) carry-on whose defining feature is its external laptop sleeve — pulling a MacBook out at security without unpacking anything, and carrying it in the rolling bag instead of on your back, has changed how I move through an airport. The drawbridge lid packs better than a clamshell, the replaceable wheels and carbon fibre handle should keep this bag going for decades, and the lifetime warranty backs that up. It's also $599 USD and 8.8 pounds empty, the soft shell shows mud, and there's no wheel brake. Buy it if you fly a few times a year and want every trip to go smoothly; skip it if weight-limited carriers are your normal route.

Don’t get caught up in the “photographer” vibe on the Peak Design site. Peak Design builds amazing photography products, don’t get me wrong. But the Roller Pro — though completely capable and compatible with a host of Peak Design’s photography products — is a bag for anyone.

Though, at this price point, the Roller Pro won’t be for everyone.

We’ll dive into why I’m truly happy with my purchase regardless of the price tag.

Peak Design Roller Pro Specs

The Peak Design Roller Pro is an expandable carry-on rolling bag that meets the carry-on requirements for most carriers worldwide. It has a unique appearance — at least relative to other carry-on options — and a whole host of thoughtful features inside. Here’s a quick scan of the various specifications you might need to weigh:

• Carrying volume of 34L but can expand to 39L with a zip around extension.
• Measures 21.8 inches tall, 14 inches wide, and 9 inches deep.
• Weighs 8.8 pounds empty.
• Made of a polycarbonate shell, covered in a 550D weatherproof soft shell, and EVA foam on the inside.
• Has replaceable 60 mm spinner wheels.
• Comes with a lifetime warranty.
• Costs $599 USD.

That’s a lot of specs. Depending on who you are or what your needs are, you may be scanning through and not caring. But there are a few notes I’d make in terms of specifications.

First, the Roller Pro’s empty-weight could be a deal-breaker for many world travelers. At 8.8 pounds empty, you’ll have to be cognizant of what you’re carrying with you on a trip. The carriers I’ve flown with so far — WestJet, Porter, and Flair — all let me pass through without so much as a noticeable glance at the Roller Pro. I’ve heard stories, though, of picky carriers in Europe who may cause a stink about the Roller Pro. I’d suggest this is something you have to weigh — figuratively and literally — yourself.

Second, the weatherproof outer soft shell is an immediate difference between the Roller Pro and many other carry-on options. The Roller Pro’s exterior is soft, providing some malleability, but also some potential durability concerns. The weatherproof exterior scuffs and takes on mud and grime pretty easily. That said, the soft exterior ensures you won’t be denting or breaking the bag, and provides for the laptop sleeve feature.

Third, the Roller Pro’s wheels are sublime. I will talk more about these below. The fact the wheels are replaceable promises a lifetime of smooth rolling throughout the world.

Finally, expansion — the Roller Pro can gain 5 litres of extra carrying capacity via the external extension zip. I’ve tended to pack the Roller Pro with the zip closed to ensure I don’t extend beyond any carrier size limitations. That said, if you can get through the gate with ease, having the extra capacity provides nice breathing room inside if you have any fussy belongings. (And, of course, is extra nice if you’re just road-tripping and don’t need to clear a gate at all.)

After some convincing, my bag-expert friends pushed me towards purchasing Peak Design’s packing cubes. These cubes may not be essential for the Roller Pro, but they make packing that much easier, that much tighter, and with that much more volume. I’d estimate you can fit an extra 20% of stuff in the Roller Pro with the help of Peak’s packing cubes. This may not help any weight issues you could run into, but should certainly help to bring along everything you need for your trip.

The cubes fit wonderfully together — a large up top and a small-medium (“smedium”, as Peak puts it) or a few smalls at the bottom. Peak’s collapsing cords help push down any leftover space in the cubes, providing more space and more organization. The cords are actually pretty tight when connected — I’m always somewhat unsure if I’m causing damage to anything inside the packing cubes, or if I’m causing permanent clothing wrinklage.

The Drawbridge Opening vs. a Traditional Clamshell

One of the Roller Pro’s truly unique features is its drawbridge opening. Though I’ve never owned a clamshell-style carry-on bag, I immediately noticed the difference — the Roller Pro intentionally holds its top lid open at about 120 degrees, saving some footprint on your hotel floor, and presenting your belongings in the zip pockets above.

The drawbridge opening is a specific distinction thanks again to that laptop sleeve. If you opt to use the laptop sleeve to hold your notebook, the drawbridge opening ensures you can open the lid and your laptop doesn’t crash to the ground. With a laptop inside, there’s a lot of weight in that top lid, so the drawbridge opening effectively keeps things safe and sound.

You can, of course, remove the drawbridge connections and push the Roller Pro’s lid further back, but you won’t be able to fully clamshell the lid. The lid’s opening is offset from the middle of the Roller Pro’s chassis, and the lid’s bottom mechanism doesn’t allow a full 180-degree opening.

I feel this is a superior style, in every way.

First, the walls of the Roller Pro are taller because the lid is offset from the center of the bag. This makes packing easier — you don’t pack both sides and then pray things don’t move when you close the bag. Everything goes in the Roller Pro’s main compartment and you zip the lid.

Second, this provides zip pockets on the underside of the lid, which are great for storing smaller belongings. By moving to a drawbridge style, the Roller Pro gains extra functionality other carry-on bags don’t have.

And finally, the drawbridge opening provides for that laptop sleeve. And, once again, more on that laptop sleeve below. It’s difficult to overstate how game-changing this laptop sleeve has become for my personal travel.

I’m trying to think of a reason why a clamshell opening design could be better than this drawbridge opening. This opening style provides so many improvements, from packing, to flexibility, to protection, and to features I didn’t expect to love as much. I see my daughters’ carry-on clamshell bags now more as a nuisance than anything else.

The Front Laptop Pocket

At last, the laptop sleeve — the Roller Pro’s defining feature, in my opinion, is the front laptop sleeve. This is the sleeve to end all sleeves. It’s the sleeve I didn’t know I needed. It’s the sleeve that has changed my travel experience.

That’s probably a bit hyperbolic. But I mean 95% of it. I’m truly impressed with the Roller Pro’s laptop sleeve.

Up top, the laptop sleeve is opened with a single zipper that slides from one side to the other. Who cares, right? Well, when you’re in the security line, and you have to quickly unpack your laptop for scanning, looking down at several middle-placed zippers could result in your opening the main bag inadvertently. By moving to a singular zipper option, you can quickly hone in on the right zipper and open the sleeve quickly.

Inside is a unique, soft material that provides a few spots for holding a MacBook charger, or some cables, or your wallet, passport, and keys. So far, I’ve travelled with both the Roller Pro and the Wandrd PRVKE backpack, eliminating the need to keep certain things in the Roller Pro’s soft pockets. If I didn’t have the PRVKE backpack with me, I’d certainly be keeping a set of AirPods and my passport in this spot.

This soft material also has a little catch flap specifically designed to catch your laptop from flying out when you open the drawbridge lid. It could be easy for a smooth MacBook Pro to fly out of that lid if you accidentally left the laptop sleeve open and opened the main compartment. Instead, the flap is there to catch your MacBook Pro and keep it inside the laptop sleeve. This is a really thoughtful feature, and one I’m sure has saved countless dollars in laptop repairs.

The sleeve itself, I find, is a little tight to hold both a MacBook Pro and aniPad. It fits either individually with ease, but both is a stretch. So far, I’ve kept my MacBook in the Roller Pro’s sleeve and my iPad in my PRVKE backpack, which slides underneath the airplane seat in front of me. I imagine you can hold both in the sleeve if you like, but I choose not to.

But most importantly, why is the laptop sleeve the Roller Pro’s most important feature? Because it offloads laptop weight from your backpack — which is usually the more accessible carry-on bag for security scanning — to the rolling bag. Not only is the Roller Pro faster at pulling out your laptop for scanning, it’s also far lighter than the backpack option. It also ensures you don’t have to unpack your bag to find your laptop for a layover work session. I’ve found legitimate travel improvements thanks to the ability to offload that MacBook onto the Roller Pro and away from my back.

Side-note, for the tech-specific folks here: The Roller Pro has a little pocket designed specifically for an AirTag found inside the bag’s drawbridge lid. It takes some serious effort to get the AirTag inside, and I’m not so sure how I’m going to get it out when the battery dies. Nevertheless, nice touch from Peak Design here.

Replaceable Wheels

The Roller Pro may mark my entry into the carry-on category, but I’ve witnessed many-a-traveller with carry-on roller bags zipping through airport terminals. If there’s one common denominator across all those bags, it’s their wheels. Good wheels have the potential to make a trip. Bad wheels have the potential to break a trip.

The Roller Pro’s wheels are sublime. We walked our bags through terminals, yes, but we also walked our Roller Pros through the streets of Toronto to our hotel. The wheels handled the cracks and uneven ground with ease. They are pretty quiet (for carry-on wheels) and roll smoothly, in any direction you require. I found myself enjoying spinning the bag in a 360-degree circle while walking forward to my gate. The Roller Pro, quite simply, rolls like a pro.

Best of all, these wheels are replaceable. Once they wear out, you can order new ones, and revert to that out-of-the-box rolling experience. This, combined with that lifetime warranty mentioned earlier, ensures you can use the Roller Pro for decades or longer.

Now, one downside: The Roller Pro’s wheels have no brake, meaning any tilted surface could result in your Roller Pro rolling away from you. Our driveway has a reasonably steep incline, and our Roller Pros have certainly found their way to the bottom of the driveway on their own while packing the vehicle. I wouldn’t classify this as a deal-breaker, but it’s absolutely something you have to know when packing.

The Carbon Fibre Handle

If I was going to show off a particular feature to a would-be Roller Pro buyer, I’d show them the carbon fibre handle. At first, it may seem like a simple handle, but its makeup provides for a few other great features.

The carbon fibre material choice ensures the handle has extra durability. Of all parts of the bag, the handle is the most often used and abused, and it’s also a weak or vulnerable part of most carry-on bags like this. The Roller Pro’s carbon fibre material ensures you can use this handle for a long, long time.

That extra durability also enabled Peak Design to change the handle’s shape. The legs aren’t circular, but rather squished down into thinner rectangles. By squishing down these legs, Peak Design was able to unlock more interior space for packing, as handle legs in other bags need large channels that make uneven ridges inside the bag. These channels are still present in the Roller Pro, but they are far less pronounced. The result is more even storage inside the bag, and more storage volume inside the bag overall.

Price

I know plenty of people get hung up on the cost of a carry-on bag. Carry-ons are generally designed to move your belongings from Point A to Point B, and do so in the least flashy way as possible. These bags tend to be hit, banged, crashed, and boomed, and they need to survive from the start to the end of a trip to ensure everything arrives safe and sound.

So why spend the extra money on a Roller Pro? At $600 USD, this is one expensive bag.

I believe the sum of the Roller Pro’s parts — the carbon fibre handle, the replaceable wheels, the lifetime warranty, and the perfect laptop sleeve — provide enough value for your money over other, more-generic carry-on options. You get smooth rolling, more storage volume, faster accessibility, and a better packing experience all thanks to the little design choices Peak Design made along the way.

Spread out over a few trips a year, over a decade or more of ownership, the Roller Pro doesn’t cost much relative to the improved travel experience you’ll have. In terms of checked baggage, at $40 per bag per flight, it won’t take many flights for the Roller Pro to pay for itself. Instead, you could spend the $40 on a seat closer to the front of the plane, or any other in-flight experience improvement to help pass the time.

Some Downsides

Aside from the hefty price, there are a few other downsides to the bag worth addressing. Not one of these are dealbreakers for me, but you have to know your travel preferences — they could be dealbreakers for you.

• Weight — Empty, the Roller Pro weighs in at 8.8 pounds. Add some goods inside, and you may quickly fall victim to weight restrictions for certain picky airlines. You may also be more picky than I am about having a heavy bag in general. I feel you are rolling this across the ground, making weight less of a concern. But if you plan to throw it around a bit more, weight may be of a concern, even without picky airlines.
• Zippers — Indeed, the Roller Pro has many zippers. You have one zipper for the laptop sleeve, two for the main compartment, two more for the bag’s expansion feature. Inside are a plethora of zippers, each with the possibility of breaking down at some point in the future. The expansion zipper may also break carry-on compliance, so you need to know where your zippers are at all times.
• Photography-first — I’d suggest you can largely look past this one, but potential buyers may feel the Roller Pro is initially geared towards photographers only. The Roller Pro wonderfully fits a Peak camera cube (among other packing cubes), so there are photographer-specific features here. Rest easy though — I truly feel any non-photographer will have no problems with the bag, and may even find some photographer-niceties to be worthwhile.

And, price, of course. But we’ve talked a lot about that already. You wouldn’t be reading this review at this time if you hadn’t already majorly considered the price tag.

Long-Term Durability Notes

I am not sure if I can completely comment on the Roller Pro’s long-term durability — my wife and I have taken our Roller Pros on four different trips (both airplane and vehicle) and put them through the test as we would normally do. They have travelled in the back of the truck, which is a less weather-proofed spot, and which results in other luggage being stacked on top. Overall, I’m seeing no concerns at all.

Now, the outside is a soft-weatherproofed shell, leading any knowledgeable person to wonder whether scuffs or bruises are destined for the outer part of the bag. I’m equally curious. My black Roller Pro shows mud easily. My wife’s sage green colour does not. I have no tears or scuffs so far either, on either bag.

When we put these bags to the ultimate test — a hot vacation in February for more than a week — I’ll have to report back.

The Verdict

I’m no Chase Reeves — I travel three to four times a year tops, meaning I’m reacting to changes in modern travel rather than setting trends. I’m only now discovering the unbelievable benefits of traveling with a carry-on bag only. And conversely, I’m only now discovering the issues of traveling with a carry-on bag only.

But because I travel so little, I want to ensure each trip is as smooth and relaxing as possible. The Peak Design Roller Pro is one of my reactions to modern travel — a top-end carry-on bag, with loads of considerate features seasoned travelers would notice. I so greatly appreciate the Roller Pro’s smooth roll, its expandable carrying capacity, and its indispensable front laptop sleeve. The soft outer shell will cause some experienced travelers to pause, as will the photography first impression, and the price tag.

As a whole though, the Peak Design Roller Pro has been one of my favourite purchases of the last few years. It has brought an extra jolt of joy to the few travel chances I’ve had. Where before I’d spend money on checked baggage, now I can spend money on a seat closer to the front of the plane. Where I’d have to wait up to an hour after a flight for baggage, I can now walk straight out to an Uber and arrive somewhat-frustration-free. These are old experiences by now for many people, but for me, the Roller Pro has ushered in a new world of enjoyable travel.

Your mileage may vary (oh, see what I did there?), but I truly believe the Roller Pro is destined to unlock smoother travel for many people. If you look at the price and think buying two Monos bags for the same amount is better, perhaps you aren’t the target market. But if you’re like me, the Peak Design Roller Pro is sure to bring a smile to your travel-weary face.

Every desk accessory that comes out of Grovemade’s Portland design shop rockets to the top of my list. The Grovemade Desk, for instance, is the most tantalizing office product I can think of right now, as is Grovemade’s new rolling cart. But the product that started it all off was the Studio Pad. And being it’s the most affordable on the wishlist, it’s the first to hit my desk.

TL;DR: Grovemade's Studio Pad is the best-built desk pad you can buy and the least accommodating. The aluminum chassis and full-length walnut tray lock your layout in place, which makes it a bad partner for a laptop riser or desk shelf — including Grovemade's own. It works best on a simple, single-machine desk. At $200 USD it's roughly ten dollars a year across a working career, which is the only math that makes it defensible.

Grovemade’s Studio Pad is an interesting lesson in form, function, and aesthetic. Something in this category can’t objectively be at the top of any list, but it will surely be at the top of many subjective lists. The combination of warm walnut, usable storage tray, and functional cable passthroughs make for a wonderful desk accessory. It’s this beautiful combination that puts it ahead of your standard felt or matte desk mat — if you opt for the Studio Pad, you’re looking for a show-stopping piece, not a destroyable desk pad.

However, I’ve run into a few issues — not in terms of build or design, but rather how something like the Studio Pad can fit alongside other desk systems and setups.

I have never been so lukewarm on a product. I want to use it all the time and have it be a cornerstone piece on my desk. Yet, no matter how often I try, the Studio Pad’s lack of flexibility has this desk pad sitting in storage as much as it is sitting on my desk.

Here’s why.

Design, Build, and Materials

Like every Grovemade product I’ve tried, the Studio Pad is built to the highest degree of quality. This desk pad is heavy — when the box arrives, you’ll be surprised to find only the Studio Pad inside and not the entire Grovemade desk setup itself.

Core to this is the Studio Pad’s actual design. This isn’t a roll-up style desk pad. The long walnut tray ensures the Studio Pad has a sturdy build, as does the underlying aluminum chassis, which provides space for propping up small tablets or your phone.

The Studio Pad’s weight and build make it ideal for some situations, and less than ideal for others.

For one, the Studio Pad is easy to write on. I have the matte finish Studio Pad, which does a good job handling fingerprints and coffee cup rings, and provides a sturdy writing surface that has worked well for fountain pens, roller balls, and ballpoint pens alike. The matte surface also doubles as a mouse pad, providing a minor amount of friction between the mouse and the surface below.

On the flip side, the bigger build means the Studio Pad is less flexible. You will not be moving this around much on your desk — once it’s in place, it ideally stays in place. The pad is also surprisingly thick. If you are desk-height sensitive (my home office desk is a thick piece of fir, making all desk shelves and monitors slightly higher than they would be on your run-of-the-mill office desk), the Studio Pad could push up your keyboard and display slightly higher than your ergonomic preferences may allow.

Between the aluminum chassis and top matte finish is a Grovemade-signature cork sheet. Cork doesn’t age well — I’m not convinced the Grovemade desk shelf’s cork legs will outlast any of Balolo or Ugmonk’s desk shelf leg options, but cork works great in a desk pad. It’s soft, shock resistant (there’s a big difference between writing on this and even a hardwood desk), and most importantly, quiet. Cork dampens taps or bumps or keyboard strokes, perfect for Teams or Meet calls.

And, of course, there’s the walnut tray. Grovemade’s walnut selection is on the slight warmer side of the spectrum relative to a few other walnut options I’ve seen, though it’s my favourite walnut colour. It’s concave enough to rest a few pens side by side, but it’s not so deep as to fully hold a set of AirPods Pro. You can certainly rest the AirPods case in the tray, but one side will sit on top of the tray’s edge.

Overall, the Grovemade Studio Pad is built to Grovemade’s spec, which is to say well, durably, soundly, and with attention to detail and care. The Studio Pad is more — just “more”, in every sense of the word — than any other desk pad you’ve seen.

Use Cases

Now this is where things get interesting, in the sense that while things don’t fall apart for me, more complexity is certainly introduced. The Studio Pad isn’t a slam dunk for every desk setup, no matter how much you want it to be.

Why? That thick, durable, inflexible aluminum chassis is why.

You see, that tray running along the top of the Studio Pad isn’t going anywhere or flexing for any situation. Neither is the vertical lip acting as a resting spot for your phone, tablet, or notebook. This inflexibility hits hardest if you’re using the Studio Pad with an external display and a laptop stand off to the side. Even Grovemade’s own Desk Shelf and Laptop Riser succumb to the Studio Pad — because of the aluminum lip, you can’t pull the laptop even with your external display, making a seamless viewing angle from external to laptop display. Grovemade’s Laptop Riser in particular has to be pushed way back, making text on your laptop display either ridiculously small from a distance or requiring resolution adjustments so you can see.

The same inflexibilities hit the cable passthrough channels as well. Because everything is in one spot, you have to ensure you have enough cable length (or use L-shaped cables, like this one) to do a 90-degree turn from the top of your keyboard to run through the channel. Otherwise, the cable will have to rest on top of the Studio Pad’s vertical lip — an otherwise imperfect solution.

You’re also not going to be able to use any top-of-keyboard accessories, such as Ugmonk’s Gather setup which includes a MagSafe adapter, pen tray, and storage box. The Studio Pad has its tray for this, of course, but I don’t always like the look of pens and highlighters strewn across the Studio Pad’s tray. It appears messy occasionally.

If you use the Studio Pad with no desk shelf or laptop riser, I feel you have an incomplete setup. The Studio Pad is best used as part of a bigger desk system. What’s odd is that I don’t think it works best with Grovemade’s own desk accessory system.

• When used alongside the Grovemade system, the inflexibility of the Studio Pad and inflexibility of the Laptop Riser pushes the Riser far, far back and away from the user. The Laptop Riser also doesn’t rotate, so a Desk Shelf, Laptop Riser, and Studio Pad combination is effectively unusable.
• When used alongside the Ugmonk Gather system (which is no longer for sale), the Studio Pad starts to shine. The Gather Laptop Stand rotates, allowing you to line the square base against the backside of the Studio Pad and turn the display towards you. The fact you can magnetize other small Gather accessories to the Desk Shelf means the Studio Pad’s walnut tray adds even more desk storage for small trinkets.
• When used alongside the Balolo Setup Cockpit system, the Studio Pad’s best features are brought out. The Balolo Laptop Riser connects to the Desk Shelf and hovers over top the Studio Pad, allowing for maximum flexibility. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think the Studio Pad was made by Balolo for the Balolo Setup Cockpit system, not Grovemade for the Grovemade desk system.

I find it somewhat comedic that the best system for the Studio Pad is actually Balolo’s competing desk system. You can surely use the Studio Pad in just about any environment, but it’s Balolo’s system that stands out in terms of compatibility.

Pricing

A quick word on the Grovemade Studio Pad’s pricing: It’s made by Grovemade, so the Studio Pad is expensive. Everything from Grovemade is expensive. When compared to other desk mats, the Studio Pad will always be at the top of the price list. $240 USD for a desk mat is a lot of money.

Of course, I’d argue the Studio Pad isn’t in the same arena as other desk mats. The Studio Pad offers far more — far more durability, stability, utility, and, frankly, beauty. No desk mat comes close in any measurable way to the Studio Pad, so why then should their prices be compared?

Like any Grovemade product, a Studio Pad purchase is a lifetime purchase. At $240 USD, it’ll hurt the pocket, but it’ll last your entire working career and never look improper in the process.

(Please note that I actually purchased this item myself. Sometimes items are sent for review, which makes this pricing section difficult to write. This time around, I spent my own money.)

Wrap Up

Grovemade’s Studio Pad should be chalked up as an impulsive purchase on my end. It’s been a positive experience, don’t get me wrong. But it was impulsive, nonetheless.

At the time, I envisioned the Studio Pad in front of Grovemade’s Desk Shelf and Laptop Riser, completing the Grovemade trifecta on my desk. It took about 30 seconds to realize my error. The hefty, sturdy Studio Pad pushed the Laptop Riser further to the back of my desk than I’d like, requiring a resolution change on the MacBook Pro so I could read the text from that distance.

From there, I’ve tried the Studio Pad in just about any array you can think of: With an Ugmonk Gather setup, with a Balolo setup, on its own, and with just a Grovemade Laptop Riser. The Studio Pad is beautiful and has a valuable utility, it’s just difficult to dial in if you’re used to things working a particular way.

I think the Studio Pad is one of those desk accessories which creeps its way to the top of the “G.A.S.” list (Gear Acquisition Syndrome) relatively easily, but likely doesn’t fit as many people as it may appear. You have to have a particular setup — perhaps just a laptop, or perhaps just a desktop computer, with little to no additional desk storage offered in other systems. The Studio Pad certainly can work with other desk systems. It’s just more difficult to implement than I expected.

Grovemade’s quality continues to be unmatched. Rarely does any product come with the Grovemade fit and finish. If you think the Studio Pad could fit on your desk, and the price could fit in your budget, it’s certain to last a long, long time and look beautiful in the process.

The M5 iPad Pro has reignited my love for the iPad. I have used iPads since the beginning of time, and no iPad has been more fun for longer than this 11-inch M5 iPad Pro. But, it's likely not due to the M5 chip. For me, it's a return to the 11-inch format, and the introduction of nano-texture to my iPad usage.

I’ve owned too many iPads to count. Of all shapes and sizes, too. Each time I try a new size, I come away thinking I’ve found the new best iPad size. Mini, big-13-inch with Touch ID, and now the 13-inch with Face ID — each time, I thought they were the best. In hindsight, the best size ever was probably the 10.5-inch iPad Pro from 2017 — my dad still has his, and it’s just such a lovely size.

TL;DR: The 11-inch M5 iPad Pro is the best iPad I've owned, but the M5 chip has little to do with it. The return to the smaller form factor and the addition of nano-texture are what changed things — together they turned the iPad from a device tethered to my desk into one I use in bright rooms, on the back deck, and in bed. The catch is that nano-texture is only available on the 1 TB model, so the entry price is steep, though the extra storage, 16 GB of RAM, and full 10-core CPU that come with it turned out to be real benefits rather than consolation prizes. If glare has never been your problem, save your money and buy the glossy display. If it has, this is the iPad worth stretching for.

For current iPads, I am now convinced the smaller iPad's 11-inch form factor is the penultimate size for this device. The size inspires book and paper-like uses, such as reading, note-taking, researching, watching videos, and tapping about. This has positioned the iPad as my comfort device — I now leave effectively all forms of reading, note-taking, writing, and consuming for the iPad. This contrasts with the larger 13-inch iPad Pro, where I found the device locked to a desk more of the time.

I also cannot believe it took me this long to try nano-texture on the iPad. Admittedly, the price tag is a pill to swallow. But more on that later. For now, nano-texture has transformed my iPad usage. The iPad in this 11-inch form is easier to take about in more uncontrolled situations, enhancing nano-texture's ability to diffuse light. I use the iPad consistently in front of a massive window and under two bright LED panels. In the past, I reverted to physical paper and books because of the glare of those panels. Now, I can do all my reading on the iPad.

And the by-product of that nano-texture display — the 1 TB onboard storage — is one of the “nicest-to-have” features I’ve experienced. I now house a boatload of information on the iPad and can keep many daily working files just a tap away. Photos, videos, movies, books — you name it, I have it on the iPad. Sometimes I think onboard storage space is one of those limitations you teach yourself to work around. Money doesn’t grow on trees, so it may be a necessary limitation. If you can swing it, though, it’s a genuine nice-to-have that I’ve overlooked in the past.

The iPad has a long-running history at this point, and most people know whether they love them or not. My review below is how the M5 iPad Pro with nano-texture display morphed my iPad usage further than any prior iPad before it.

Size

I’m embarrassed to admit the number of iPad purchases in my life. I’ve tried them all and spent far too much money in the process. In that timeframe, the latest iPad is always the best iPad. When you move from the 11-inch to the 12.9-inch iPad, for example, the “12.9-inch iPad is how the iPad should have always been”. Or when you move down the size scale to the mini, the impression becomes “I never really needed the size of the 12.9-inch iPad anyway”.

In the moment, those impressions are totally true. But eventually, everything reverts to the mean. And this includes the 11-inch iPad Pro. After two months of returning to this size of iPad, I’m now convinced I’m most likely to settle on this size of iPad forevermore. It’s a combination of handy and ergonomic; technically sound and adept; and portable and whimsical all in one package.

I opted for the 12.9-inch M4 iPad Pro a few years ago because it came with the thinnest iPad chassis ever designed. That thin design was beautiful and a technical marvel, and it made using that massive 12.9-inch iPad Pro far easier than thicker predecessor options. After an extra generation, that same thin chassis has come to the M5 iPad Pro, and it also makes a world of a difference. We have an older M1 iPad Pro in the house for the kids, and it’s surprising how much thinner this latest generation fills in the hand.

That thinness makes for improvements in several areas, mainly in where I’m using the iPad. I find I’m opting for the iPad in more physical areas, including our back deck (more on this in a bit), in bed for reading, and at the office. These were areas I wouldn’t use the 12.9-inch iPad Pro, be it because of size, or screen reflectivity, or because apps weren’t truly optimized for that big screen.

Another reality, which I’ll touch on more below, is the dawn of artificial intelligence. I use AI for quite many things these days, which puts more of the processing work into the bot and less onto me manually. I’ll often set up a Claude project on my Mac near the end of the day and send the directions via dictation on the iPad when I’m relaxing at home. It’s been wild morphing work into each device’s wheelhouse.

The result is the M5 iPad Pro is my most-used personal tech device, even after the honeymoon period has lapsed. When I get home, typically my iPhone hits the desk and the iPad is pulled out. From watching TV, reading books, minor writing and journalling, browsing the internet, and chatting with a chatbot, this M5 11-inch iPad Pro is a wonderful, wonderful size to return to.

Nano-texture

This is likely the core reason for being able to use the 11-inch iPad Pro in more places than the prior, larger 12.9-inch iPad Pro. Nano-texture on the iPad is the feature I didn’t know would be so transformational, and is the feature more people would love if it wasn’t so stinking expensive to purchase. Diffusing harsh sunlight or harsh overhead lights make a nano-texture iPad Pro so much more useful in so many more spots. And in my short period so far, I haven’t found any drawback in terms of sharpness or contrast when viewing all forms of media.

My understanding is that there are multiple kinds of nano-texture finishes across Apple’s device lineup. I have a few different options to compare across an iPad Pro, MacBook Pro, Studio Display, and Studio Display XDR, and the Studio Displays are far and away different from the iPad Pro and MacBook Pro. If I understand correctly, the Studio Displays are physically etched, while the MacBook Pros/iPad Pros are chemically etched. A few differences I’ve noticed:

• There is a visible difference in the smoothness of the nano-texture finish; Studio Displays look grainier and rougher to my eye than the iPad Pro.
• Touching a nano-texture Studio Display results in instant fingerprints; iPad Pro nano-texture seems to handle fingerprints far better.
• You can use any cloth to clean a nano-texture iPad Pro (though the included cloth is easily the best option), while you really should stick to only Apple’s cloth for the Studio Display.
• The Studio Display’s physical etching cuts down glare slightly better than either of the MacBook Pro or iPad Pro’s nano-texture displays.

Noted above, another complaint I’ve read about is how the iPad’s nano-texture picks up fingerprints. Presumably the display’s etching provides more surface area to grab ahold of finger oils and grime, making for a messy experience. I’ve also read that cleaning the iPad’s nano-texture display is far more difficult than the glossy displays.

I simply haven’t experienced either scenario. The included polishing cloth works wonders on all nano-texture fingerprints, as does the inside of the Apple iPad Folio case. In fact, I’d go the other way — if there were minor scratches on this display, I’m not sure if I’d be able to see them thanks to the nano-texture finish. On glossy iPads, you can usually see them instantly. My understanding is the nano-texture glass is slightly softer than the glossy glass, so you may find you want to do some extra research. In general, for me, I haven’t run into a single usability issue with the iPad’s nano-texture display.

Overall, the nano-texture on the iPad Pro makes for a newly useful device in ways I didn’t know the iPad could be. I would never take the device outside; now, it’s my favourite device for reading outside (aside from my reMarkable).

Squished Hardware and Software

Where there’s an iPad, there’s griping about the iPad’s software. And while I’m not here to detract from those complaints, I will comment specifically on the move from the larger 12.9-inch iPad Pro to this smaller 11-inch iPad Pro.

The 12.9-inch iPad Pro’s claim to fame, in my opinion, is its laptop-sized display. In landscape orientation, the internet just works. Whether it be the full desktop view of a website, or the full three-panel view of the app, or a full-size Magic Keyboard, the world is just built for 13-inch devices.

On the 11-inch iPad Pro, you notice this smaller screen most in the default hamburger menu on so many websites. Rather than a proper header navigation, you get the right-justified hamburger button that slides in a navigation menu to jump between pages in the site.

Or multitasking — the 11-inch iPad Pro is simply not good at multi-windowing and multitasking. You can certainly create small windows to hover around, or swipe apps into split-screen mode. But the experience is cramped. Plain and simple. Swiping in a Quick Note from the bottom-right corner? You can, but it’s tight, and you’ll be swiping that note all over the screen to get out of your way. There’s perhaps enough room for a little picture-in-picture video of your favourite MLB game in the top corner, but you’ll be moving that thing all around the place just to read a simple article in Readwise. The 11-inch iPad Pro is better used in one full-screen view, with perhaps a second Slide Over app ready to use.

And how about hardware? Even writing this article — Ulysses as a standalone app looks beautiful and is wonderfully distraction-free, but do you want to know how many times I had to hit the “-“ key to get it right because it’s so squished on the Magic Keyboard? In a pinch, of course, the Magic Keyboard is a great option for the smaller 11-inch iPad Pro. I just don’t know if too many people would opt for this to be their daily writing driver.

Put another way, most software seems tuned for the 12.9-inch iPad Pro, even though the physical nature of the smaller 11-inch iPad Pro is significantly more comfortable. If you need proof, take a look at Apple’s iPad marketing pages — all software and screenshots are showcased in the larger 12.9-inch iPad Pro.

Apple may not necessarily love the larger iPad Pro more. It just may be the internet is built for larger displays. Despite my adoration for this smaller 11-inch iPad Pro, it certainly has a few shortcomings.

1 TB Onboard Storage

A by-product of the nano-texture option is the requirement to upgrade to 1 TB of onboard storage. Only 1 TB iPads have nano-texture available as a display option. Underhanded, genius — I’ll let you give Apple the verdict.

But a real by-product of the 1 TB requirement is expanded onboard storage, making room for all sorts of media. I don’t think I fully grasped how often I’d appreciate having the extra space. The iPad is my go-to photo-editing and travel device, ensuring I can offload SD cards on-the-road and keep photos local for quicker editing. On a recent trip, I also downloaded several movies and TV shows locally to watch on the plane. This is just a “me” device, in that only my media will go on this device. But we also have a family iPad, and I’d love to have 1 TB of storage there to store all the Barbie and Disney shows for family road trips.

There are other added benefits too, which you can genuinely feel on a day-to-day basis:

• 1 TB and 2 TB models get 16 GB RAM rather than the lower 12 GB RAM count. You can absolutely feel this in terms of local photo editing, added Safari tabs, and more.
• 1 TB and 2 TB models get a full 10-core CPU, rather than the binned 9-core CPU found in the 256 GB and 512 GB models.

Overall, I put up with having to pay for the 1 TB model, as I really wanted a nano-texture iPad. I was surprised to find how much I appreciate that extra onboard storage.

Wrap Up

All in all, I have quite enjoyed my time with the nano-texture M5 iPad Pro. It’s thin, light, and easily used in any setting, which has opened more doors than I expected.

After all these years — after all these iPads — I continue to love the iPad platform as a whole. This computer is my personal computer — it’s my travel device, my photo device, my writing device, my reading device, my couch device, and sometimes, even my second Mac monitor. I take it to church every Sunday, providing me with access to all sorts of study materials while listening. And most recently, I started catching up on missed Marvel shows, ensuring the iPad also took the role of my highest-end TV display.

If you can swing it, I’d think long and hard about the nano-texture iPad. This is, like every prior iPad, my favourite iPad so far.

An entire review dedicated to just a Watch band, you say? Where I could spend 1,500 words writing about the Apple Watch itself, why would I choose to spill about Apple’s own Titanium Milanese Watch band?

Because it’s that good.

TL;DR: The Titanium Milanese Loop is the only Apple Watch band you need. Titanium keeps it light, durable, and understated. The latching clasp is genuinely secure — no magnets to fail — and micro-adjusts to your wrist whether you're mid-workout or standing in the cold. I've worn it in the pool, the hot tub, the sauna, the lake, on the golf course, under a sport jacket, and to bed to track sleep. The only time it comes off is when I take the Watch off entirely at my desk so I don't scratch the MacBook. At $200 USD it's expensive for a band, but it's a buy-once purchase that kills any desire to own another. Best Apple Watch band ever made.

Back in June 2025, I said this about the Titanium Milanese band:

The Titanium Milanese’s greatest selling feature is its literal everyday-everywhere-everything capabilities. The Link Bracelet had its moments where it was a bit heavy for what I was doing (specifically when lifting weights), while the Titanium Milanese is lightweight enough to never get in the way even under stress. I’ve worn this watch band with a sport jacket, while working out, while in the hot tub, while in the pool, while golfing, while cutting the grass, and with a T-shirt and shorts, pants and a golf shirt, and more. It’s the definition of “One Band to Rule Them All!”.

I don’t think I can put it much better than that.

Let’s jump into why, if you have an Apple Watch of any sort, the Titanium Milanese Loop should be on your short list of long-term Watch band purchases.

Titanium

Out-of-the-box, it’d be easy to mistake the Titanium Milanese Loop as an overpriced Apple Watch band option. The band is light, flimsy, and matte — three features that can make any product feel less than extravagant. High-end watches tend towards weight, heft, and shine, ensuring this Titanium Watch band would fall short in every facet.

Fortunately, it doesn’t take long to discover why Apple chose a matte, flexible, and light option for its high-end Watch Ultra category. The benefits of titanium are lengthy:

• Titanium is light, keeping your watch hand and wrist free for movement.
• Titanium is durable, ensuring you can bang and crash this Watch band into a wall or door and rest easily knowing it won’t be scratched or broken.
• Titanium is understatedly stylish, allowing you to wear the Titanium Milanese Loop in just about any situation you can find yourself in.
• Titanium is naturally coloured, eliminating gaudy first impressions from onlookers.

I could probably go on. Apple went away from titanium in their latest Pro iPhones for what sounds like physical reasons. Those physical limitations aren’t present when it comes to an Apple Watch band. Here, titanium works wonders.

The Clasp

Another reason the Titanium Milanese Loop can be used in effectively every circumstance is the band’s clasp closure mechanism. If you’ve ever tried Apple’s standard Milanese loop band, you’ll note the choice to rely on magnets — the clasping mechanism is but a magnetic lock to the backside of the band, making for easy adjustment, but an equally easy fall-off.

The Titanium Milanese Loop sheds magnets in favour of honest security. To close the band, you have to physically latch the clasp. To open the band, you have to pinch both sides of the clasp to release the connector. It’s simple, strong, and secure. Though I am sure a strong specimen could pull the band apart while clasped, I don’t think they’re doing so without destroying the band altogether.

This extra-secure clasp continues the trend of the “one-band-fits-all” mentality. You can wear this band in more physically demanding situations, like at the gym, or on the job site, or at the lake on a boat. You aren’t going to lose your Watch to the waves in any circumstance thanks to that trusty clasp mechanism.

The second focus area of that clasp: micro-adjustability. The clasp lock has a small latch that can be flipped up and adjusted up or down the band. Leather bands suffer immensely from clasp holes and poor adjustability. However, you can adjust the Titanium Milanese Loop clasp to perfectly fit your wrist in any situation — be it while you’re working out and your wrist is bulging, or in the frigid cold while your wrist has shrunken down a bit.

Wear Cases

I’ve alluded to the universality of the Titanium Milanese Loop band a few times now. So I’ll double down: The Titanium Milanese Loop is the most generally useful band I’ve owned. I have a few leather options, a few fabric options, and a few rubber options (both first-party Apple-made and third-party knock-offs), and not one band comes anywhere near the utility of the Titanium Milanese Loop band.

I believe I could make a legitimate case that you don’t ever have to remove the Titanium Milanese Loop. It’s truly buy-once-and-forget. Or, perhaps “Buy-once-and-forget-unless-Apple-changes-Watch-lugs”.

I’ve worn the Titanium Milanese Loop in the hot tub and pool, in the sauna and steam room, and in the lake and ocean. The only concern here might be salt water, in which case the Titanium Milanese certainly held up admirably. Our hot tub is a salt water spa, though at far more diluted levels than ocean water. A quick rinse off in the sink immediately removed salt residue or any build up in the Milanese weave.

I’ve worn the Titanium Milanese Loop with a suit jacket and a sport jacket. You are welcome to judge whether a person should be wearing an Apple Watch in this circumstance (there are many who would die on this hill). But if you are good with an Apple Watch with a suit or sport jacket, then the Titanium Milanese Loop is near the top of the list in terms of more-formal style.

I’ve worn the Titanium Milanese Loop on the golf course. In fact, I’d say it’s the best band you can buy for golf. The woven nature of the metal ensures the band breathes. It’s light. It’s endlessly adjustable, perfect for adjusting to your wrist in a high heat day or a cold, windy day on the course. And it fits stylishly inside a collared-formal golf course attire. I think you could pull off a woven or fabric band with an Apple Watch on the course, no problem. But if it’s hot at all, you’ll sweat right through that fabric band. Not so with the Milanese Loop.

I’ve worn the Titanium Milanese Loop to bed to track my sleep. It’s my favourite band to sleep with. The woven nature ensures my wrist can breathe at night. The clasp adjustability also means I can set the band size to one size and not find it too tight or too loose — I’ve found my wrist will adjust slightly in size during the night, making a slightly too tight fit of a fabric band uncomfortable halfway through the night.

And then I’ve worn the Titanium Milanese Loop in all sorts of other scenarios, like with a T-shirt and shorts and sandals (the most casual outfit I dare to wear), or for yard work and cutting grass.

The only area I tend to remove the Milanese Loop is when I remove the Watch from my wrist entirely at the office. If you use a MacBook, you likely won’t want to rub your Watch band and scratch your laptop. When at the office, I tend to take off my Apple Watch entirely. Other than this moment, the Titanium Milanese Loop never comes off my wrist.

Some Downsides

Though I feel this Watch band is about as close as it gets to perfect, there are some honest downsides that need to be mentioned.

• Milanese weave bands are notorious for arm hair getting caught in the weave, making for the occasional painful burst from your wrist. I have personally found this weave to be “larger” in nature, especially when compared to the standard magnetic Milanese loop band. I have so rarely had arm hair get caught in this Titanium option that I hardly feel it’s a downside. In many ways, this is an upside if you want to compare to the tighter weave of the standard Magnetic Milanese option.
• The clasp scratches pretty easily. There’s really only one solid surface on this entire Watch band, and it’s this clasp surface that picks up scratches faster than expected.
• This Titanium Milanese Loop is only good for Apple Watch Ultra owners and the larger 46 mm Apple Watch Series 11 (or 10, 9, etc.). This band is not for smaller-faced Apple Watch owners. If you have any of these smaller options, the only Milanese band available for you is the standard magnetic option.

And, price.

Price

It’s Apple, so pricing is always in question. I am rarely disappointed in Apple-quality. For about 99% of experiences, Apple-quality shines eventually. It’s truly rare when I’m disappointed in the money I’ve spent on an Apple-made piece of kit.

At $200 USD, the Titanium Milanese Loop is on the more expensive end of Watch bands folks might consider.

But at $200, you can also completely remove any desire to buy any other Watch band. You buy this Titanium Milanese Loop once, and you won’t buy again. And barring Apple changing the Watch lugs (which they can and have every right to do), you can likely use this Watch band for future Apple Watches as well.

Conclusion

In some ways, the Titanium Milanese Loop is disappointing. It has removed any desire to venture outside a comfort zone and buy a new Apple Watch band. It has removed any thought process around “What will I be doing today and do I need to adjust my Watch accordingly?”.

The Titanium Milanese Loop has nestled itself perfectly inside my default zone. It has become my default Apple Watch band. I wear it every day, in every situation. Given the universality, $200 is an easy “buy-once” price.

I believe the Titanium Milanese Loop is the best Apple Watch band ever made.

It’s very nice when, occasionally, a product surprises you. If you’re an average consumer, usually that surprise goes only one way: negative. You purchase a product with high hopes, only for the product to let you down. But when you are lucky enough to receive a product to review, the opposite is true: you’ve seen a wide range of products in a particular category, so surprise tends to be more positive than negative.

“Surprise” is the word I’d use to describe my review of Crossway’s newest Veritas Bible. I’ve never seen or reviewed any of Crossway’s famous Heritage editions in the past, though I’ve read several other reviews over the years. The Heirloom Heritage line has been one of Tim Wildsmith’s most-loved Bibles of the last few years, pushing it to the top of my expectations bar.

And yet, the Veritas — the successor to the Heirloom Heritage line — somehow still exceeded those expectations.

I think I can say the new Veritas Bible from Crossway is the single best Bible I’ve ever seen. The Veritas has just about no issue in my book. It has the most supple front and back leather covers I’ve seen, a wonderfully creamy European Bible paper, beresford ribbons (a first for a Crossway-exclusive Bible!), and a great layout for anyone to comfortably read Scripture. The Veritas may be the ultimate gift to give someone this Christmas season.

The Veritas is Crossway’s latest line of Heirloom Heritage editions, alongside the Gloria Dei (formerly the Heirloom Legacy edition) and the new Heirloom Alpha edition. By and large, these Bibles replicate their predecessor lines in terms of layout, references, and features. But Crossway used the latest 2025 ESV edition in this new launch and pushed their material selections to the maximum. These are the truest form of a “V2”, “2.0”, or “upgraded” that you’ll get in the Bible publishing industry.

Now, full transparency, the Veritas isn’t the Bible for me. Which is perfectly fine. For me, it comes down to the layout, which is usually where a person should start when doing their Bible-purchasing research. I can get past this, though. I know a beautiful, wonderfully made Bible when I see it.

The Veritas is all of those things, and more.

Let’s see why.

Design and Materials

I discussed “surprises” at the top, and the Veritas’s material choices are at the heart of those surprises. I didn’t know this combination of materials could look and feel so premium, even if other Bible publishers using the same materials haven’t come to the same result.

Calfskin Leather

I’ve been led to believe calfskin leather normally looks and feels a particular way. That way has historically been a little more grungy, with many beautiful variations and veins stretching across the leather, with a bit of a stiffer feel that leaves behind wear marks if you try to bend it. This impression has surely been planted by Schuyler’s beautiful calfskin leather Bibles over the last few years, including the Heirloom Thinline collaborative Bible I just reviewed and the also-collaborative Heirloom Study Bible. I would never complain about this type of calfskin leather, either. I maintain the Heirloom Thinline is one of my favourite Bibles ever.

But Crossway’s Veritas goes an entirely different direction in its use of calfskin leather. This leather feels almost opposite Schuyler’s version of calfskin leather — there are no variations in the front or back leather covers, nor is this a stiffer or less flexible leather. In fact, it’s probably the most supple leather of any Bible in my collection.

The Veritas has an oxblood-red-to-brown, full-grain aniline-dyed Grenada calfskin cover. It’s very soft, with a soft pebbling like past goatskin leathers, and has the same floppiness to boot.

I admit, given the suppleness of the leather, I thought the Veritas had a goatskin leather cover, just like the original Heirloom Legacy I reviewed way, way back. They feel quite alike, though the Veritas is more supple and flexible.

I’d venture to say the Veritas’s cover softness and flexibility could be too much for some people. When reading on a desk, the Veritas lays flat thanks to that soft cover and feels great overall. But if you pick it up and hold it in your hands, half the Bible falls over your hand like a waterfall, potentially hampering your reading experience. I tend to read on a flat surface, so the cover flexibility doesn’t impact my experience. Your mileage may vary, though.

Inside is a brown leather lining which is edge-lined and perimeter-stitched, providing the extra attention to detail and durability the Heirloom lines are known for. There’s also a gold gilding around the perimeter of the inside covers, with a bold “Veritas” logo gilded into the back cover. I’ve never seen Crossway do something this big and bold before — and somehow it works. It feels like a flourish of confidence rather than marketing, a private declaration to whoever opens the cover that this is something special.

Lastly, this is the “Grenada” colour, which is a bit of a deeper brown than an oxblood red, and even has a hint or two of purple in it. This colour exudes royalty, if a red/brown/purple-y colour was into royalty more than a deep purple colour. It’s just the right colour to be understated enough to hardly be noticed, but instantly recognizable on your shelf if you collect Bibles. I haven’t seen this colour in any other Bible so far.

Size and Weight

The Veritas measures 5.5 by 8.25 inches, with a thickness of just over two inches and a weight of just under 3 pounds. This is a desk Bible at heart. It’ll travel to church without difficulty, but it won’t slide easily into a jacket pocket or a smaller bag.

In practice, the size is ideal for its intended purpose. It rests open on a desk without demanding to be held, and it has enough physical presence that you feel the weight of what you’re reading. Unlike the Heirloom Study Bible, which is so large as to feel permanent, the Veritas is substantial without tipping into the unwieldy. It’s a Bible you can pick up and bring somewhere. It’s also a Bible that looks right at home sitting on a desk.

Given its size, you should be surprised at the 3 pound weight. For this size, this Bible is heavy. Add in its floppiness and it’s a bit of a Bible to carry around. I always like a good heft to my Bibles, but you’ll certainly notice this in your bag if you choose to take it from Point A to Point B.

Spine

The Veritas spine carries Crossway’s new circular ESV emblem — a slightly more prominent branding choice than the minimal stamping found on the Heirloom Thinline. I’ve noted before that I prefer the more restrained approach to spine branding, and I’ll note it again here. But in isolation, the Veritas spine is very handsome. The raised hubs are satisfying and pronounced, giving the spine an old-world credibility that you notice from across a shelf. “Holy Bible” sits at the top, the circular ESV emblem in the middle, and Crossway’s word mark at the bottom.

Against the Grenada calfskin, the gilded stamps catch the light with a warm, amber glow. It is, truly, a beautiful spine.

Binding and Hinge

The Veritas is printed and bound by Royal Jongbloed in the Netherlands — the same world-renowned bindery responsible for the best Crossway Heirloom Bibles before it. I’ve been through enough Bible bindings at this point to say without hesitation that a Jongbloed binding is in a category entirely its own. The Smyth-sewn construction is immaculate. This Bible will not fall apart. The glue will not give way. It is built for a lifetime of daily use.

Out of the box, the hinge requires some coaxing. The gutter is pronounced — noticeably deeper than what I experienced in the Heirloom Thinline — and in the early pages and final pages of the book block, you’ll want to press down gently on the hinge to bring the text fully into view. This is a characteristic of new Jongbloed bindings, and one I’ve come to accept as the price of admission. With use, the hinge will open more fully, and the gutter will flatten out. I have no doubt this Bible will lay flat eventually. It just needs to be broken in.

Paper

The paper in the Veritas is extraordinary, and I don’t use that word casually.

Crossway’s “high-quality European Bible paper” — the same stock appearing across the newer Heirloom releases — is the single most significant material improvement in the Crossway line over the last several years. Whatever this paper is and wherever it comes from, the result is a reading experience that rivals anything I’ve seen in a Bible at any price.

The paper has a warmth that is nearly impossible to capture in a photograph. It’s not the bright white of the old Heirloom Study Bible. It’s not the plasticky disaster of the Heirloom Personal Size. It leans creamy — a soft, warm, genuinely inviting cream — and against the Grenada calfskin cover, the pairing is one of the most visually beautiful things in my office. The cream paper and the reddish-brown leather feel designed for each other.

At 28 GSM, show-through is present. Line-matching controls it admirably across most of the book block. In the heavier poetry sections of Isaiah or the minor prophets, line-matching occasionally breaks down in small ways — noticeable if you’re specifically looking for it, not noticeable in the normal flow of reading. This is consistent with what I’ve seen in the Heirloom Thinline and, given the paper’s warm tone, the ghosting is far less distracting than it would be on a cooler, brighter paper.

Art Gilding

The Veritas pairs its Grenada calfskin with a warm, salmon-toned art gilding. Under most light, it reads as a rich gold. Tilt it slightly, and the under-gilding emerges — a rosy, warm hue that pairs beautifully with the reddish-brown cover. The gilding is consistent and clean along the full edge of the book block.

One caution, same as I offered in my Heirloom Thinline review: do not get this Bible wet. Moisture damages the art gilding permanently, and the damage is immediate. I learned this the hard way with the Thinline. Treat the Veritas accordingly.

Ribbons

The Veritas ships with three ribbons, and for the first time in a Crossway-exclusive Bible, they are true beresford ribbons. This is a significant upgrade. Past Crossway ribbons — particularly in the original Heirloom Legacies — were thin, barely functional, and felt like they might fray if you looked at them sideways. The beresford ribbons here are thick, wide, and durable. They extend well beyond the book block and pull smoothly to mark your place.

Three ribbons is the right number for a Bible like this. I’ve argued for four in past reviews, and I’ve been talked down by experience — three covers everything you need: one for the Table of Contents, one for your personal reading place, and one for wherever you’re tracking at church.

The ribbons alone are a reason to note how much Crossway has improved. It’s a small detail. It matters.

Printing

Font, Font Sizes, and Layout

The Veritas uses a 9.25-point Lexicon typeface in a single-column, paragraph-based format. For readers familiar with the Heirloom Legacy, this is the same philosophical approach — Scripture presented as a book to be read rather than a reference grid to be navigated. The 9.25-point type is a meaningful step up from the Legacy’s 9-point, and the difference is immediately felt. Lines are more comfortable. Words have more breathing room. Longer reading sessions are less taxing on the eyes.

The single-column format takes some adjustment if you’ve spent years in dual-column Bibles. Within a page or two, you won’t want to go back.

Now, as I noted at the top: the Veritas’s layout is where it falls short for me personally. Not because the single-column format is wrong — it’s clearly the most beautiful way to present Scripture. But combined with the 9.25-point type and generous margins, this particular execution results in a line length that is slightly too long for my taste. My eyes travel a fair distance from the left margin to the right, and at the end of a longer line in a paragraph block, the return trip to the next line requires more focus than I’d prefer. This was also my critique of the Legacy, and it’s only marginally more pronounced here, given the wider type.

For the vast majority of readers, this won’t register as an issue. It registers for me.

Line-Matching

Line-matching in the Veritas is the best I’ve seen across any Crossway single-column release. The 28 GSM paper demands it, and Crossway has delivered. In prose sections, line-matching is essentially invisible — you won’t notice any ghosting in the normal course of reading. In poetry-heavy sections like the Psalms or Isaiah, there are occasional spots where the matching breaks down slightly and the text from the reverse side intrudes. These moments are brief, and the warm paper tone does a great deal to soften their impact.

The Heirloom Legacy was superb here. The Veritas is better.

Black-Letter Typesetting

The Veritas continues every Heirloom Bible’s tradition of black-letter typesetting — no red letters anywhere. As I’ve written before, I strongly prefer this. Red letters are difficult to execute well, and the theological implications of treating certain words as more important than others have grown more uncomfortable to me the longer I’ve sat with them. Black letter, warm cream paper, consistent ink — the Veritas is a pleasure to read from beginning to end.

This said, the Veritas does use red letter typesetting page headers and chapter numbers. The two-colour interior, used for chapter numbers and a few design accents, adds a quiet elegance without cluttering the page.

Resources

The Veritas is a reader’s Bible. There are no study notes, no cross-references, no concordance. What you get are brief footnotes at the bottom of each page — a line or two at most, addressing the most critical translation decisions. These are unobtrusive and genuinely useful.

The absence of a concordance is the one thing I’d change. It’s a notable omission at this price point, and it’s the single feature I find myself reaching for most often when using a Bible like this at church. You’ll want a separate concordance or a Bible app on hand when you need one. For a Bible positioned as a lifetime reader’s companion, this feels like a gap worth acknowledging.

In the back, eight full-colour maps on semi-gloss paper use the newer, more muted and earthy colour palette Crossway introduced with this latest generation of Heirloom releases. These are a meaningful improvement over prior maps — they actually look like they belong in a Bible of this quality.

Price

The Veritas in Grenada Calfskin retails for $349.99 USD. It is not an impulse purchase.

It is worth it.

I’ve spent a long time in this review cataloguing what makes this Bible excellent. I’ve been honest about the one layout quirk that doesn’t quite suit me personally, and I’ve noted the concordance omission. But those are small complaints against an enormous whole. No corner was cut. No material was cheapened. Every detail that could be thoughtfully considered was thoughtfully considered.

At $349.99, the Veritas in Grenada Calfskin is the finest Bible I’ve reviewed at any price point.

Wrap-Up

I started this review talking about surprise. I’ll end it the same way.

The Crossway ESV Heirloom Bible, Veritas: Single Column Edition in Grenada Calfskin surprised me. It surprised me with how supple and alive the cover feels in hand. It surprised me with how warm and inviting the paper is the moment you open it. It surprised me with beresford ribbons on a Crossway-exclusive Bible for the very first time. It surprised me with a bold “Veritas” gilded into the back inside cover — a flourish I didn’t expect.

Crossway has been on a trajectory. The Heirloom Thinline was a new benchmark for me when it arrived. The Veritas has already surpassed it.

If there is one Bible to own for the rest of your life — the one that sits in your reading chair in the morning, travels to church on Sunday, and eventually lands in the hands of someone you love — this is a strong case for it.

You can find the Crossway ESV Heirloom Bible, Veritas: Single Column Edition in Grenada Calfskin and a range of other cover options at Crossway’s website. Several configurations are also available through EvangelicalBible.com.

This week marks the sixth and final leg of the Canadian tax program I have worked through this last three years. I started in 2009 and have had two years in that span with no post-secondary education. Fortunately, though — just ask my wife — I’m not allowed to take the next course until I’ve completed three more years of post-designation practice. So after July 17th, I’m done. I’ve said “I’m done” once or twice before and ended up reneging on my comment. But, until 2028 or 2029, I’m very truly done.

I promised I would dive into a few first impressions/review/re-review pieces, so here’s the first: my first impressions of the M5 iPad Pro.

My Story of the M5 11-inch iPad Pro: I’ve Been Here Before

I’m sure I’ve mentioned my affinity for the latest iPad. There are very few top-of-the-line iPads I haven’t owned at one time. I skipped iPad Gen 4 and the M2 iPad Pro, but otherwise I believe I’ve owned each top-end iPad from inception. I’ve also owned an iPad Mini in there at one point. You are welcome to roll your eyes.

In that timeframe, the latest iPad is always the best iPad. When you move from the 11-inch to the 12.9-inch iPad, for example, the “12.9-inch iPad is how the iPad should have always been”. Or when you move down the size scale to the mini, the impression becomes “I never really needed the size of the 12.9-inch iPad anyway”.

In the moment, those impressions are totally true. But eventually, everything reverts to the mean. And this includes the 11-inch iPad Pro. After two months of returning to this size of iPad, I’m now convinced I’m most likely to settle on this size of iPad forevermore. It’s a combination of handy and ergonomic; technically sound and adept; and portable and whimsical all in one package.

I’ve said it a few times before: I’ve fallen in love with the iPad all over again. The M5 iPad Pro is no different.

Size and Portability

I opted for the 12.9-inch M4 iPad Pro a few years ago because it came with the thinnest iPad chassis ever designed. That thin design was beautiful and a technical marvel, and it made using that massive 12.9-inch iPad Pro far easier than thicker predecessor options. After an extra generation, that same thin chassis has come to the M5 iPad Pro, and it also makes a world of a difference. We have an older M1 iPad Pro in the house for the kids, and it’s surprising how much thinner this latest generation fills in the hand.

That thinness makes for improvements in several areas, mainly in where I’m using the iPad. I find I’m opting for the iPad in more physical areas, including our back deck (more on this in a bit), in bed for reading, and at the office. These were areas I wouldn’t use the 12.9-inch iPad Pro, be it because of size, or screen reflectivity, or because apps weren’t truly optimized for that big screen.

The result is the M5 iPad Pro is my most-used personal tech device, even after the honeymoon period has lapsed. When I get home, so often my iPhone hits the desk and the iPad is pulled out. From watching TV, reading books, minor writing and journalling, and browsing the internet, this M5 11-inch iPad Pro is a wonderful, wonderful size to return to.

Nano Texture

This is likely the core reason for being able to use the 11-inch iPad Pro in more places than the prior, larger 12.9-inch iPad Pro. Nano texture on the iPad is the feature I didn’t know I needed (there’s that line again) and is the feature more people would love if it wasn’t so stinking expensive to purchase. Diffusing harsh sunlight or harsh overhead lights make a nano texture iPad Pro so much more useful in so many more spots. And in my short period so far, I haven’t found any drawback in terms of sharpness or contrast when viewing all forms of media.

My understanding is that there are multiple kinds of nano texture finishes across Apple’s device lineup. I have a few different options to compare (roll those eyes again) across an iPad Pro, MacBook Pro, Studio Display, and Studio Display XDR, and the Studio Displays are far and away different from the iPad Pro and MacBook Pro. If I understand correctly, the Studio Displays are physically etched, while the MacBook Pros/iPad Pros are chemically etched. A few differences I’ve noticed:

• There is a visible difference in the smoothness of the nano texture finish; Studio Displays look grainier and rougher to my eye than the iPad Pro.
• Touching a nano texture Studio Display results in instant fingerprints; iPad Pro nano texture seems to handle fingerprints far better.
• You can use any cloth to clean a nano texture iPad Pro (though the included cloth is easily the best option), while you really should stick to only Apple’s cloth for the Studio Display.
• The Studio Display’s physical etching cuts down glare slightly better than either of the MacBook Pro or iPad Pro’s nano texture displays.
  

Overall, the nano texture on the iPad Pro makes for a newly useful device in ways I didn’t know the iPad could be. I would never take the device outside; now, it’s my favourite device for reading outside (aside from my reMarkable; oh, if reMarkable were to open up actual ePub annotations).

Squished Hardware and Software

Now, one area of “concern” is this 11-inch iPad Pro’s squished UI. For some, this may not be a big deal. And I think I’ll ultimately get over it. But there are times when I just want the full desktop view of a website, or the full three-panel view of the app, or a full-size Magic Keyboard. There are times when I feel “just alright” about the size of the user experience, and it’s generally most obvious when browsing the web or when attempting to multitask on the smaller 11-inch display.

Even writing this article — Ulysses as a standalone app looks beautiful and is wonderfully distraction-free, but do you want to know how many times I had to hit the “-“ key to get it right because it’s so squished on the Magic Keyboard? You can split-screen multitask on the 11-inch iPad Pro, to be sure, but there’s nothing quite like the side-by-side experience on the larger 12.9-inch iPad. Swiping in a Quick Note from the bottom-right corner? You can, but it’s tight, and you’ll be swiping that note all over the screen to get out of your way. And there’s perhaps enough room for a little picture-in-picture video of your favourite MLB game in the top corner, but you’ll be moving that thing all around the place just to read a simple article in Readwise.

Put another way, most software seems tuned for the 12.9-inch iPad Pro, even though the physical nature of the smaller 11-inch iPad Pro is significantly more comfortable. If you need proof, take a look at Apple’s iPad marketing pages — all software and screenshots are showcased in the larger 12.9-inch iPad Pro.

Apple may not necessarily love the larger iPad Pro more. It just may be the internet is built for larger displays. Despite my adoration for this smaller 11-inch iPad Pro, it certainly has a few shortcomings.

All in all, I have quite enjoyed my time with the nano texture M5 iPad Pro. It’s thin, light, and easily used in any setting, which has opened more doors than I expected. After all these years — after all these iPads — I continue to love the iPad platform as a whole. Perhaps Apple will surprise with a brand-spanking new M6 iPad Pro. If not, I imagine this M5 iPad Pro will be in my arsenal for a few years to come.

Quote of the Week

“The ability to perform deep work is becoming increasingly rare at exactly the same time it is becoming increasingly valuable in our economy. As a consequence, the few who cultivate this skill, and then make it the core of their working life, will thrive.”

— Cal Newport, Deep Work

The Second Cup

I haven’t published too many Fresh Links in the last week or two, so here are a few interesting links I’ve stumbled on recently.

Vernal L-shaped Executive Standing Desks — I’ve seen the Vernal name pop up more and more in the desk setup space, but I didn’t know they had this unique executive-style option. It might be a bit much for me, but still looks pretty slick.

The Everyday Churchman — You don’t need to go to church each Sunday to save this list of inexpensive but polished looks. You can find a lot of inspiration here.

Deep Work by Cal Newport — This is my seventh book since Christmas, so I am in my one-book-a-month range. Deep Work was excellent. One of my favourites so far. Next up, Clear Thinking by Shane Parrish.

Happy Sunday. I hope you have a wonderful week ahead.

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“Each passing year converts some of this experience into automatic routine which we hardly note at all, the days and the weeks smooth themselves out in recollection to contentless units, and the years grow hollow and collapse.”

Perhaps this is what I am experiencing right now. Either way, everything feels like chaos.

I’ve probably gone a bit crazy over the last few months — I’ve purchased more than a few things for the summer and fall ahead. The list of things to touch one is growing, and now includes:

• A Wandrd Prvke 31L backpack (bought used from a friend, OK? OK?!)
• A Peak Design Roller Pro (I promise, it was on sale)
• An M5 11-inch iPad Pro (I sold off the old iPad Pro, and with the latest price increases, I basically got it for free).
• An Apple Watch Series 11 (my experiment with the Google FitBit Air had to pay off somehow, right?)

All in all, I have thoughts. I can’t touch on all of them today, but I’ll attempt to in the coming weeks.

I’ve also recently been dabbling in an Andy Matuschak’s Working Notes-styled writing project in Obsidian. It’s been a few weeks of now of near-daily evening writing, culminating in some reflections, some prayer, some observations of the world around me, and some questions I have for Future Josh to answer or ponder. It’s been a wonderful little experiment that has provided additional structure to my writing and thinking. Will it ever see the light of day? It depends. The papers are for me and likely shouldn’t be public material. But we’ll see. To write is to teach, so perhaps it’s best for someone to view it at some point.

For today, though, I wanted to discuss my experience adding a new Apple Watch to an iOS 27 beta phone, and why I likely won’t ever download a beta like this again.

I am no longer on the iOS 27 iPhone beta

See above. I traded in my original Apple Watch Ultra for a new Series 11 Apple Watch. Why now, ahead of a pending update in September? A few reasons:

1. The trade-in value for my Watch Ultra was still reasonable, and this saved me from losing that inevitable slide in trade-in price in September.
2. Apple conspicuously left the iPhone and Apple Watch off the list of price increases, likely suggesting higher prices are coming in September for both product lines.
3. I learned what I liked and didn’t like about my Watch Ultra with the Google FitBit Air experiment, which pointed me directly at the current Series 11 feature set.
4. Rumours are suggesting a minor Apple Watch update in September, so I am taking my chances on being satisfied over the summer rather than waiting for a mediocre update.

I excitedly walked into the Polo Park Apple Store yesterday, tried on the 46 mm Apple Watch, instantly fell in love with the thin and light size, and aptly traded in my Watch Ultra. It was a pretty smooth process all in all, one I would do again.

At least until I tried to fire up the Series 11 Watch and pair it with my iPhone. What a debacle.

I was never going to be able to avoid iOS 27 beta software. Once I came off the Siri AI waitlist, I was genuinely impressed — Siri AI made its way to home screen nearly instantly, and I was using new Siri for questions I had never, ever imagined I’d be able to ask it. What’s coming September (or later? Probably later.) will be genuinely exciting for billions of iPhone and iPad users.

But that beta software seems to have gotten in the way. As soon as I attempted the pairing process with the new Watch, everything ground to a halt. I was stuck on the fire-up screen on the Watch, with no way forward. I walked back to the Apple Store, where the Store staff immediately said it was because of the beta software. Online hadn’t suggested these sorts of problems, so I took their answer to be the “easy way out” and put the onus right back on me. Fair, I suppose. I still wasn’t happy.

All in all, I ended up having to downgrade from iOS 27. I had no idea how difficult it would be to revert to iOS 26. Downloading an IPSW file. Using the Option key to restore through Finder (you know you’re in deep trouble when you’re using the Option key in Finder). The whole nine yards.

I’m probably not going to be downloading beta software like this again. I could see waiting for public betas over the summer, but developer betas are officially off the table for my iPhone.

Mexico 2026

It took me ages, but I finally put together a photo gallery of our first family vacation. The Leica Q2 continues to be one of my favourite tangible treasures — it produces imagery effortlessly.

Quote of the Week

“It’s fun to say the perfect thing at the perfect time. The problem is that then you have to bend over and pick up the microphone. Conversations take more effort but tend to be worth it.”

— Seth Godin

Fresh Links Roundup

Here were a few things I shared from the past week. If you want to stay on top of the list throughout the week, don’t be afraid to subscribe via RSS.

• Lettera for Mac
• John Gruber on Om Malik
• Mode Designs’s Summer 2026 Update

Happy Sunday. I hope you have a wonderful week ahead.

P.S. — If you’d like to see this in your email inbox, please subscribe below. If you have trouble subscribing, shoot me an email, and I’ll get you on the list. Thanks for the consideration!