Watch: New iPad Pro easily bends, shatters

A video from YouTube user JerryRigEverything shows him quite easily bending and shattering the brand new iPad Pro. Photo / YouTube

It's described as the most revolutionary tablet ever developed and costs thousands of dollars, but the new iPad Pro appears to have a structural vulnerability.

An alarming video uploaded to YouTube shows a man conducting various durability tests on the high-priced device.

Zack Nelson, who is known online as JerryRigEverything, also demonstrates how easily the iPad Pro can be bent and broken.

With seemingly very little effort, he appears to be able to virtually fold the tablet in half, shattering its screen and cracking open the external casing.

The cracks occurred near the iPad Pro's microphone jack on the left and a magnetic charging strip for the Apple Pencil on the right.

Since going live on YouTube, the video has been shared widely and sparked alarm among technology bloggers.

While previous iterations of the iPad have been prone to slight bending when not handled carefully, the premium nature of this version of the tablet should prevent it from such easy damage, many argue.

"What's a bit alarming to me is how little effort Zack seemed to put in before getting his end result," Chris Welch wrote on The Verge. "Is Apple shaving off too many millimetres?"

While Welch doesn't think iPad Pro owners should be too worries, unless they want to try bending the device in half, he points out the two cases Apple sells do little to protect integrity.

"All four sides of the iPad Pro are left completely exposed when using either of them," he said.

"So if you expect to rough-house your iPad, you might want to keep it in something a little more rugged. Case selection is a bit lacking at the moment."

There have been concerns expressed about the flimsy nature of the iPad Pro in forums online, with several images showing signs of bending after just a few days.

"A few people insist that their devices were a little bent out of the box," Welch said.

Last month, Apple unveiled a range of new iPads, Macs and Mac Minis at an event in New York as part of a major computing revamp.

"We've now sold well over 400 million iPads, making it the most popular tablet by far. No one else is even close," the company's CEO Tim Cook said.

"But what you might not know is we've sold more iPads in the last year than the entire notebook line-up of the big manufacturers."

The new iPad Pro features a 12.9-inch Liquid Retina display inside a significantly smaller body, thanks to the removal of its fingerprint sensor and slimmer borders around the screen.

It carries a new A12X Bionic sensor, Face ID facial recognition for security, storage of up to one terabyte and a redesigned Apple Pencil.

But users have to fork out a lot of extra cash for the latest Apple tablet, as the price of the top model iPad Pro 12.9 rose from NZ$2699 (1TB) to NZ$3049 (1TB).

It's more expensive than many top-tier notebook computers.