Conceived from its sleek,
glossy 10" counterpart, the new iPad Mini boasts one gigantic new trait
over the full-sized iPad: the ability to hold it in one hand. This
almost revolutionary twist on the device that sparked a frenzy in the
tablet world has finally brought joy to those that have held out hope of
such higher portability in an iPad for so long. But does the iPad Mini
live up to the hype? Absolutely.
Turns out, the iPad mini is
indeed more than simply a shrunk-down iPad, though there may be an
argument for it actually resembling something more along the lines of a
blown-up iPod touch. In any case, the big question: is the iPad mini
right for you? I'll endeavor to answer that for you here by taking you
hands-on with the new model, plus I'll share from my past few years of
iPad ownership experience altogether, especially for those who haven't
yet had an iPad to call their own.
Plus, in hopes of making this
the most helpful iPad mini review on Amazon, I'll also reveal a treasure
trove of info on how you can legitimately download tons of quality apps
and games for free!
My
reviews tend to run long, so I've organized information by section,
with headings, to help you quickly locate any specific info you're
after. For example, see the heading "Downloading Apps and Games" for the
info on obtaining free apps and games!
First, let's compare hardware specs between iPad mini and iPad, and what each means for you:
+ Device: iPad mini vs. iPad (4th gen)
+ Weight: 0.68 lbs vs. 1.44 lbs -- over twice as light as the iPad
+ Thickness: 0.28" (7.2mm) vs. 0.37" (9.4mm) -- thin as an iPod touch
+ Display: 163 vs. 264 pixels per inch -- less-crisp text, but equally long life for a smaller battery
+ Resolution: 1024 x 768 vs. 2048 x 1536 -- half as many pixels as the current iPad, but still sharper than an iPad 2
+ Battery: 10 hours (16.3 Wh) vs. 10 hours (45 Wh) -- smaller, lighter battery lasts just as long as the iPad
+
Processor: A5 (dual core) vs. A6X (dual core with quad core graphics)
-- same as the new iPod touch, but not quite as powerful as the latest
iPad, yet it doesn't need to be because the iPad mini display totes a
quarter as many pixels!
+ Price: The iPad mini has a price tag that
is indeed much more attractive than the 10" iPad. It's actually closer
to that of the iPod touch.
===== First Impression =====
At
first sight, there's a feeling of novelty to the iPad Mini, especially
if you've used a 10" iPad or tablet. The more you use it, however, the
more you realize that this is the size an iPad was meant to be:
perfectly portable. The 10" iPad is so bulky and heavy in comparison,
and I felt uncomfortable, embarrassed and awkward taking it with me and
using it places, especially waiting in line. Not so with the iPad mini!
It's super light, more than half the weight of the 10" iPad, and its
sleek rounded edges are much more comfortable for carrying than the
sharply-tapered edges of the iPad.
My initial reaction to the
unveiling of the iPad mini was one of slight disappointment, mainly
because it was closer to 8" than to the desired 7" of other tablets in
its class. Why would Apple bother bringing a smaller iPad to market
that's still not quite as small as some of the other 7" tablets floating
around? Ah, but I was wrong.
Until I held it in my own hand, I
failed to realize that Apple had made better use of the iPad mini's size
than most 7" tablets do. What matters in a 7" tablet class isn't the
screen size but the actual device size. The iPad mini is 3mm shorter and
7mm wider than the 7" Kindle Fire HD, yet it touts nearly an inch more
of physical screen size.
===== Interaction Experience =====
Naturally,
the iPad mini shares the iPad's same phenomenal multi-touch interface
that is undisputedly second to none. Android tablets and other devices
may tout "multi-touch" support, but usually this just means they support
2-finger gestures like pinch-style zooming. Apple, on the other hand,
gives a whole new meaning to the term, supporting up to ten simultaneous
touches, and app developers have certainly leveraged that capacity. For
example, one popular app supporting ten simultaneous touches is the
Piano app.
===== So What Can the iPad mini Actually Do? =====
Naturally,
there are things you can do with the iPad mini right out of the box.
You can browse the Web with Safari, set up your email, download your
photos and videos from your computer via iTunes, as well as shoot new
photos and videos using either of the two built in cameras. You can also
surf YouTube via Apple's built-in YouTube app. There's also an iPod
built in, so you can listen to your favorite tunes via the Music app, or
download new music, movies and media via the iTunes app. Another
popular app is iBooks, which lets you download and read e-books on your
iPad mini. You can also jot notes, manage your calendar and contacts.
You can even chat face-to-face with other Apple-device users via
FaceTime.
Of course, the fun and usefulness of the iPad mini
doesn't stop there. The App Store app is your portal to unending games
and utilities. One thing Apple has been really good at is showing off
just what you can do with an iPad, and the same goes for the iPad mini.
All iPad apps work on the iPad mini. After all, the iPad mini is still
an iPad. App developers have undoubtedly been busy creating unique
experiences through their iPad apps, most of which have yet to be
rivaled by (or ported to) Android and other tablets.
When Apple
first announced the iPad they didn't tout it so much as an ebook reader
as they did a "netbook killer" (due to its ability to surf the web,
check email, watch videos, listen to music, and do a lot of the simpler
tasks that netbooks were originally designed to do. But along its path
to success, it sparked a revolution in the publication and delivery of
full-color magazines, news and now even ebooks via Apple's iBooks app.
Now, it's quite clear that Apple had the goal of a much more comfortable
ebook reading experience in mind when they set out to create the iPad
mini. You can easily hold it in one hand, just like a real book, and
it's as light as a real book, two traits many users have been hoping to
see come to fruition soon.
On the other hand, to use the iPad
mini for more productive purposes, such as editing office documents,
you'll need to download Apple's productivity suite iWork, a trilogy of
apps including: Pages (word processing), Numbers (spreadsheets) and
Keynote (slideshows). Each of the three apps can be downloaded
separately for $9.99 each. Completely reworked for the iPad, the
complete iWork suite will set you back a whole thirty bucks. So be aware
of that before you go ahead and grab the iPad mini for use with
work-related document editing, and so forth.
Also note that if
you do intend to use the iPad for heavy writing or word-processing
purposes, you'll find that your ability to type quickly will be greatly
inhibited by the virtual keyboard. Thus, you should snag the external
keyboard as well (Note: I'll also explain some typing techniques below).
Either way, be prepared to pay more than merely the price for the iPad
mini alone. There's clearly more than meets the eye if you intend to
transform the iPad mini into something a little more productive than it
might be for you out of the box.
===== Downloading Apps and Games =====
Downloading
apps on your iPad mini couldn't be easier. Once you set up your iTunes
account with a password and credit card (or iTunes gift card), all you
need to do is launch the 'App Store' app, browse or search to find the
app you want, tap the download button (usually it says the price rather
than 'download', which then changes to 'install app' after you tap it),
then tap again to confirm. Enter your password, and voila, you just
bought an app. Behind the scenes, Apple then charges your card (or
deducts from your gift card balance) the amount of the app plus tax,
while you're already off enjoying your new purchase. This ease of access
is a blessing and a curse, because you can easily empty your wallet if
you're not carefully considering each purchase.
All apps in the
App Store range in price from Free and 99 cents on up, always
incrementing in whole dollar amounts (1.99, 2.99, 3.99, etc). The
maximum price for an app is set to $999.99, of which there are only
eight currently priced so outrageously. And don't even think of toying
with them. Apple does not allow refunds on apps you have purchased--all
sales are final!
Now for the juicy money-saving secrets of the
App Store! With the proper resources, you can legitimately download
thousands of high quality apps for free. I do it all the time and it's
perfectly legal. You see, Apple allows developers to temporarily put
their apps on sale (and even drop the price to free). Usually they do
this in hopes that you'll write a rave review for the temporarily-free
app. The secret to your success here is having the resources to help you
spot these special app sales--so you know when and where to get them
during these often extremely-limited-time promotions.
In hopes of
making this the most helpful review on Amazon for the iPad mini, here's
how to obtain these special promotional-sale and temporarily-free apps
for yourself!
There are several resources you can use, both on
the Web and on the iPad mini itself. I prefer to use an app called
"AppShopper" which lists all apps that recently went on sale or dropped
to free. You can filter just iPad apps, or show iPhone apps as well, and
you can also filter just the free products or just the sale apps. But
so many apps go on sale, making it hard to cut through the clutter,
which is where AppShopper truly shines: the "popular" tab shows only the
most popularly downloaded sale apps. If several other people aren't
downloading an app, you won't see it listed there! AppShopper is a
phenomenal little gem, and it has gotten me tons of apps FREE! It also
has a companion website that lists the same apps. You can even create an
account and track the apps you own, so you don't end up trying to
redownload them if they go on sale again! It also supports watch lists
(via your account) with push notifications, and can alert you whenever
an app you're interested in goes on sale. It's a real thing of beauty!
There are other apps such as AppZappPush, AppSniper, AppAdvice, Apps
Gone Free, and more, but none of them leverage the power of the masses
to help you filter out the unwanted apps. Feel free to check them out if
you like, though!
===== Typing on the iPad mini =====
Typing
on the iPad mini has certainly become a bit less burdensome than with
its 10" iPad counterpart, especially in the way of thumb-typing.
However, typing lengthy messages can still be a concern. Obviously, the
iPad mini is no laptop--you won't be speed-typing, so it may not be
conducive for heavy usage like typing lengthy emails or blogging, let
alone writing this review. With that in mind, there are a couple
approaches you can try to determine what typing method is right for you.
The ideal method might also change depending on where you are and how
the iPad is oriented when using it.
Typing Method #1: Thumbs
The
most flexible approach is to type with your thumbs, which can be done
whether sitting or standing. In portrait mode: grasp the bottom of your
iPad with your palms facing each other, and your pinky fingers towards
you for the iPad to rest on. To stabilize the iPad and prevent it from
flopping over and falling out of your hands, stretch both of your index
fingers upwards towards the top of the iPad as much as is comfortable.
Using your thumbs, hunt & peck the keys on the virtual keyboard to
your heart's content.
Alternately, if you press and hold the
show/hide button on the bottom right corner of the keyboard, you can
choose to split the keyboard, which makes it easier for your thumbs to
reach all keys. You can also choose to undock the keyboard, which
centers it vertically on the screen, instead of at the bottom. Undocked
keyboard can be split or merged, per your preferences.
Typing Method #2: Two Fingers
If
thumb-typing isn't your style, try holding the iPad mini in one hand,
like a book, and use your index and middle fingers to go back and forth
across the virtual keyboard. Alternately, if the iPad mini is resting on
a surface and is in landscape orientation, you could try using two
fingers from each hand, but I don't think the iPad mini is big enough to
type with your full range of fingers like the 10" iPad is.
Typing Method #3: Speech to Text
With
iOS 5 and Siri, Apple has brought us an even more convenient way to
type, thanks to Siri! Just hit the microphone icon on the lower-left
side of the keyboard, and start speaking. In most cases, your words will
be transcribed into the currently active text field, with potentially
mis-interpreted words underlined in blue. Just select any such word, and
a list of possible alternates will pop up for your choosing.
You
can also speak most punctuation, such as 'period', 'question mark',
'exclamation mark', 'open-paren', 'close-paren', 'hyphen', 'single
quote', 'double quote', 'ellipsis' and more. Siri is built into the iOS
software and is a free service, but one caveat of using Siri for speech
transcription is that you must be connected to the Web at the time of
transcription, because Siri is a primarily Web-based service (albeit a
free one). At times, network congestion has been known to hinder the
ability for this feature to work properly, but that happens much less
frequently now and usually only occurs if your device is connected to a
poor cellular signal instead of WiFi.
Other methods of typing on
the iPad include the external keyboard, as well as third party
speech-to-text transcription apps like Dragon, but with Siri's voice
transcription feature built in, the latter is no longer necessary.
===== Web Browsing =====
Alongside
email, and spending money in the app store, Web browsing is one of
Apple's biggest suggestions for using the device. The iPad mini's small
stature is no less capable, and its screen resolution of 1024x768 tends
to concur, especially in landscape mode. Most websites are around
800-1000 pixels wide, so when the iPad mini is in landscape orientation,
Apple's built-in Safari Web browser or Google's downloadable Chrome app
will render any sites that are less than 1024 pixels wide at their
intended original size, meaning you see them at their true size, rather
than seeing a smaller, more compressed version of the site. Chrome lets
you keep an unlimited number of browser tabs in the background, while
Safari limits you to 9 tabs (at least until iOS 6 is released).
The
good thing about Web browsing on the iPad and iPad mini is that you can
rotate the orientation. Content on the Web was born to be viewed
vertically (in portrait orientation), not horizontally (landscape
orientation) as most laptops and desktop computers use. In general, I
tend to prefer browsing the Web in portrait mode, since web pages are
almost always taller than they are wide. Still, even in portrait mode,
the iPad mini allows you to see more content at a still-decent size. Of
course, even in portrait orientation, the compressed pages rendered are
still easily readable without squinting your eyes, which isn't often the
case for Web browsing on the iPhone/iPod Touch. Plus, you can always
zoom into any section by quickly double tapping any region of the active
page. Even zoomed-in regions are displayed with crisp clarity, and the
browser's interface is swift and responsive.
However, not all
your sites will work desirably on the iPad. Apple closed-mindedly
refuses to support Adobe Flash on the iPad (as it has with the
iPhone/iPod Touch). Flash content is now being used less and less, in
favor of newer content technologies like HTML5's canvas and JavaScript
effects, which can emulate some of Flash's most familiar capabilities,
but sites using Flash do still exist. Flash is often used for
advertising, video playback, browser-based online gaming, and for many
other interactive site components, from graphs to product demos.
However, the Flash experience on tablets that do support it is still
quite poor in the interactivity department, especially considering that
Adobe never intended for it to be used on touch screens. Thus, certain
Flash content may expect a mouse hover and you can't emulate that with a
finger on a touch screen.
While I found browsing the Web with a
10" iPad to be a literal pain in the neck, the lightweight and small
stature of the iPad mini has certainly improved the experience. It's
easier to handle, to hold upright with a single hand while browsing the
web with the other, and it's more comfortable to hold. Since I didn't
surf much with my 10" iPad, I have no qualms about the lack of a retina
display. I'd rather have this iPad mini with the same resolution as the
iPad 2 and a 10-hour battery life with a much smaller batter, than to
have an iPad mini with a retina display and either a 4-hour battery
life, or a battery as heavy as that of the 10" iPad!
===== Email, IM and Social Networking =====
Email
on the iPad mini's Mail app is best viewed in landscape mode, as it
allows you to see both your list of messages on the left as well as the
selected message itself on the right. It also makes managing emails
easier, such as moving messages to other folders (or to the trash).
Another reason for landscape mode is to make typing those lengthy emails
easier (using typing-method #2 mentioned above).
You can have
multiple email accounts, including Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, MobileMe,
Microsoft Exchange and other custom POP3 and IMAP accounts.
Important
Note: With the growing number of portable web connecting devices, there
is one concern I want to express on your behalf. When you close the
Mail app, it continues running in the background, even after
disconnecting from one WiFi hotspot and reconnecting to another. My
concern with this is that if haven't set up your e-mail with a secure
connection, and you connect to a public WiFi hotspot that a malicious
user is monitoring, then the instant your mail app connects to the
hotspot to check your e-mail, your e-mail credentials may be suddenly
compromised. To avoid this you definitely want to be using some kind of
secure connection for your e-mail if at all possible. Web-based email
such as Gmail typically support this out of the box, and Gmail accounts
are the easiest to setup on the iPad mini.
===== Media =====
If
you own an iPhone or iPod Touch, it's comforting to know that you
audio/video experience will be similar on the iPad mini. You can watch
videos via the YouTube app, which has been updated for the iPad mini to
show YouTube HD videos beautifully. While the 1024x768 resolution of the
iPad mini is a standard 4:3 ratio, not a widescreen 16:9 ratio, the HD
videos as well as other video (including downloads from the iTunes
store) display just fine, albeit with black bars. Some may not like that
though, but I don't see a wide-screen iPad mini coming to market for a
while.
The Netflix and Hulu+ apps are great for members of those
online video streaming services. Netflix videos stream quickly and even
moving the play position back and forth in the timeline, the movie
starts playing very quick without much time rebuffering the video. For
those who want to watch live TV, I also recommend getting yourself a
Slingbox and snagging the SlingPlayer app to stream live TV to your iPad
mini. I do that, and it works quite well!
===== Photos and Video =====
The
new iPad mini brings a phenomenal new high-quality 5MP camera to market
that picks up where the iPad 2's half-megapixel camera left off. 5
lenses inside the aperture, and the more powerful processor, combine to
create the sharpest iPad image yet. Even low-light pictures are better
than ever, though there's still room for improvement there. There's also
a new iPhoto app from Apple that lets you organize, edit and share your
photos right on the iPad mini!
Plus, you can now record full-HD
(1080p) videos, instead of just the previous 720p videos. Though I must
warn you, if you plan to shoot a lot of video with the iPad mini, you'll
want to go with a 32GB or 64GB model! These incredibly high-quality
videos take up an incredibly large amount of storage space!
===== E-Reading =====
Whether
it's books, magazines or news, the iPad is making an impact on the
future of media reading on a whole new level. Apple has been
under-emphasizing the e-book and e-publication reading capabilities of
the iPad to date, but I feel it's one of the iPad mini's greatest
strengths, especially with it being about the size of a book. Magazine,
newspaper and now book publishers have been jumping onboard the iPad
bandwagon by creating their own iBooks and iPad apps, taking their
publications to a whole new level, interactively and financially too.
My
experiences interacting with some of these digital representations of
magazines and newspapers have been a breath of fresh air. Being able to
read them on a screen simply isn't enough. The ability to still touch
them, combined with a rich interactivity on a level that can't be
matched by their printed counterparts has really given new life to what I
feared was becoming a dying trade. Of course, another big perk for me
has been the ability to save space because now I can keep all my
magazines around without ever taking up more than the size of a single
book.
As far as Amazon ebooks go, you're not losing out by
passing up on their Kindle line of tablets, because you have full access
to Kindle books on the iPad mini via Amazon's Kindle app. If you read a
lot outdoors and don't mind reading in shades of gray rather than in
full-color, then perhaps the Kindle Paperwhite (not Kindle Fire) is more
your style. Kindle uses e-ink which is much easier to read in the
sunlight.
All in all, the iPad mini is an great e-reader on a
whole new level. Had it touted a retina display, text would be slightly
more crisp, albeit at the cost of long battery life. I'll take longer
battery life over slightly more crisp text any day. Text on the iPad
mini looks fine, unless it's really small, and that's usually only the
case for an occasional website, but not ebooks.
===== Productivity =====
Productivity
carries numerous definitions. Usually its "getting something done"
though some people tend to believe that it's the ability to focus
without being distracted, which I see as one of the iPad mini's
strengths because of its single-app-at-a-time multitasking approach.
In
the context of software though, applications that allow you to edit
office documents are commonly referred to as productivity software.
Apple's own suite of productivity apps, collectively called "iWork",
lets you do just that. For work-minded individuals, it will probably one
of the most popular uses of the iPad mini. There are three apps in all:
Pages is a word processing app that allows you to create and edit word
processing documents, Numbers allows you to create and edit
spreadsheets, and Keynote, which lets you create or edit presentations
and slideshows (including PowerPoint files). Keynote has been pretty
invaluable in giving personal presentations within small groups or
one-on-one meetings with an iPad, but I'm not sure the iPad mini would
be as comfortable using for presentations.
There's also a
productivity category in the App Store dedicated to additional apps
geared towards helping you be more productive. Remember, any app that
works for the iPhone and iPad will run on the iPad mini, but do note
that there are some exceptional productivity apps specifically made or
updated for the iPad and iPad mini. Some notable iPad-specific
productivity apps include Bento (personal organization/information
management), Things (project management), iTeleport (remote
desktop/VNC), Layers (drawing/painting), and GoodReader (best PDF+
reader around).
===== Gaming =====
If you're like me, you
probably don't have time for games. Ultimately, I still see the iPad as a
productivity device more than as a gaming console. Regardless, the
iPhone and iPad changed the game on that. Millions of people use their
computers for gaming, and with the iPhone and iPod Touch having taken on
a clear role as a gaming console that has been as revolutionary for
mobile gaming as the Wii was for living-room gaming, it goes without
saying that the iPad mini is, and will continue to be, a decent platform
for playing games. Most Android games look terrible on tablet-sized
screens, but iPad game developers have taken care of iPad users with
good quality iPad versions of most iPhone games. Board games and
lap-friendly games are better for the 10" iPad than the iPad mini.
Meanwhile, games heavily dependent on device-rotation and other
accelerometer-based interaction are much conducive for use on the iPad
mini than the 10" iPad.
===== Printing =====
Printing with
the iPad mini is really hit-or-miss. Apple's iOS 4 brought the ability
to print documents from their devices, but there are some caveats. Your
printer must support "AirPrint" or, if yours doesn't, you might have
success using Printopia software, so long as you have a Mac with a
shared printer. Search Google for 'AirPrint' or 'Printopia' for more
info and printer compatibility. From there, printing is easy, for apps
that support it. The first time you attempt to print something, the iPad
mini will walk you through the process of locating the printer and
setting up the printing options. For more information about printing
with your iPad mini, I'll link to some informative off-site pages in the
first comment for this review.
===== Security =====
With
portable devices, there should always be some level of concern regarding
the safety and protection of your data. The iPad mini delivers
surprisingly well in the area--it provides several layers of security to
protect your data. You can require complex passcodes to securely access
important information, encrypt data whether stored or transferred over
WiFi, and even remotely wipe everything from your iPad instantly in the
event of theft or loss (with subscription to Apple's MobileMe service).
Apple even provides a free device-location service.
===== Praise =====
+ Clever use of space to cram an 8" screen into a 7" class of device that can be held with one hand!
+ Apple continues its trend of creating the best multi-touch experience around. Android doesn't even come close.
+ High performance 1GHz A5X processor - provides performance power for cutting-edge gaming and multitasking.
+
Multitasks like a dream with iOS 5 and the dual-core A5 processor,
despite the same 256MB of memory as the third generation touch.
+ Rear camera - 5 megapixel photography goodness, plus it can do HD video.
+ 4G LTE - It's clearly the next big thing for improving connection speed when away from WiFi
+ Supported on Sprint - previous iPads only supported Verizon and AT&T
+ Lower iPad entry price point
===== Caveats =====
+ No Retina Display - But at the added benefit of a lighter battery that holds its charge just as long.
===== Disappointments =====
+
No GPS (or assisted GPS with 4G model) - IP based location just doesn't
cut it at times. GPS has no subscription fee or contract to use
+ No
NFC - Near Field Communications is what powers PayPass in credit cards,
and there are certainly uses for it in devices, especially for data
transfer, if not for making payments or redeeming passes with the
Passbook app.
+ No 128GB model - would have been useful for high-res videos, or hold more of those 1080p videos you can shoot
+
No USB or SD card slot - for storage expansion, or more importantly,
for importing pics from your external camera for use with the new iPhoto
app
+ No numeric character row in keyboard, despite plenty of space on the iPad and iPad mini's screen.
===== The Bottom Line =====
There's
really not much to complain about in an iPad now. Sure, retina display
would be nice, but if we'd been given that, we'd be complaining about
battery life, heavy weight or performance issues. Meanwhile, the 10"
iPad has its uses, but portability isn't one of its strong suits. The
iPad mini now fills that gap, and it's really been a dream to use. If
10" is comfortable for you, go with an iPad. As for me, the iPad mini
has mostly lived up to my tablet desires.
Do you really 'need'
the retina display? The honest truth is, no. See, Apple has certainly
come to spoil us with its latest and greatest hardware, including the
retina display, but I really don't see the iPad mini's less phenomenal
display as a real deal breaker. I also a believer that the original iPad
or iPad 2 are still great devices if you like the 10" class of tablet,
and they don't have the retina display. So, really, why wait around
another year for something better to come along? Then again, there's no
absolute guarantee that the next iPad mini will even have that retina
display.
The bottom line is, don't wait around and waste these
precious cycles of your life hoping and betting on something better to
come around, when you can always buy the current iPad Mini now, enjoy it
now, and resell it down the road. Apple products always hold most of
their value for a long time, because they're in such high demand.
I hope you've found my hands-on review helpful. Feel free to keep the discussion going via the comments! :)
Just perfect.
By David Paniashvili
First of all I need to say that this product arrived perfectly on time. It was as brand-new as you would have bought in the Apple store.
The product itself is a top class technology. iPad Mini is very mobile, which is the biggest advtange over the regular iPad. It has all necessary and far from necessary functions. Battery life is absolutely amazing. Display quality is not as high as retina, however, you will not even think about its bad sides. If you are an iPhone user and this is your first iPad - you will need to get used to the little specifics of the keyboard on Mini. 1080P HD video is just a beauty to watch. No lagging whatsoever, just pure class. Overall this is a high class product that will let you feel the whole world in your one hand.
Slower at buffering video than my I-pad Retina (and the I-pad 2)
By D. Fichtner
First off, I'm not going to rip this thing apart. I feel the Mini is an absolutely wonderful form-factor, and I recommend it -- just not yet.
The good:
The size of the mini is just short of an inch wider than your typical competitor. You might not think this is much, but seriously, it is. I absolutely love this aspect of it. In addition, the Mini is just wonderfully light and easy to hold (I have big hands, though).
As much as people rip on the screen, it is comfortably bright, and the battery life seems to last quite well, even if brightened up a bit. No complaints there.
The bad:
That same screen, as others have said, suffers from its low resolution. Had this tablet come out a year ago, it would have been earth-shattering. Now, when other offerings from Android are coming out with far better resolutions, it's just meh (the Apple Mini's contrast and color are still superior to the Nexus 7 by far, though). If you are someone coming from an I-pad 2, you won't care about the resolution so much. For everyone else who is used to I-phones with substantially smaller, yet sharper resolutions, you will notice the difference.
Also, and this is a big one for me, I have found that the I-pad Mini is slow to buffer YouTube videos. I'm pretty sure this has to do with it having half of the Ram of its larger pad family members. Cutting the Ram in half was a big mistake. It also seems to cause lags in surfing on only some sites that are more graphic intense. I wasn't sure if this problem was one of my own, so I tried out some other Mini's in the store side-by-side with I-pad 2's and Retinas. Same thing... slow Youtube buffering. Quite a bit slower.
I want to tell you to buy this thing, but I just can't. I want to tell you to wait until next year when the tech is there to up resolution and add more Ram. For the price, the Apple Mini disappoints.
