Apple iPad Mini: Review

The iPad Mini has been rumored for as long as since the original iPad was released. Well, the long rumored iPad Mini is this: technically a smaller, updated version of an iPad 2. 

Apple wanted to it to be clear that it was not simply just a shrunken-down version of the iPad 2. The differences include a different case design: the iPad Mini's has a anodized aluminum design and the new Lightning connector. 

The WiFi-only Mini weighs 0.68 pounds, or 308 grams, which is less than half the weight of the fourth-generation iPad. It's also much thinner too, at 7.2 mm, compared to 9.4 mm. On the front is a 7.9 inch, 1024 x 768 IPS LCD.

With the iPad Mini, holding the slate in the same way you would a another tablet, it can be a bit of a reach. You will probably need rather large hands to be able to easily grip the iPad Mini. But overall, the tablet is very comfortable to hold in your hand.

The layout of the buttons is familiar, but different. The volume and orientation lock switches are on the top right side of the device, but here up and down there are buttons. The power button is on top, looking and feeling like very much of the other iPads. There is a small slit for a microphone up there as well, and on the other side, the 3.5 mm headjack. On the left side of the device is nothing. The only other button is on the front, and that's the extemely familar home button. Ironically, the home button is smaller than the home button of the new iPhone 5.

Display-
No, the iPad Mini doesn't have the retina display, but maintaining the same resolution while shrunk down increases pixel density. Naturally, this means the text isn't as sharp as on the new iPads, but it still has a very nice display.

In fact, the brightness and color reproduction was better over the iPad 2, comparable to the latest Retina displays. Colors are  pleasing to the eye and viewing angles do not disappoint. 

Performance/Battery Life-
The iPad Mini runs on a 2-year old dual-core Apple A5 processor with 512 MB of RAM, same as the iPad 2. In battery-run tests, which entails a looping a video with WiFi enabled and a fixed display brightness, the iPad Mini, surprisingly, lasted 12 hours and 43 minutes. 

Cameras-
The iPad 2 never saw HDR nor the Panorama mode found on the iPhone 5, and neither does the Mini. It does, however have a better camera than the iPad 2 at 5 megapixels. Unfortunately, they don't quite pop out as much as the 8 megapixel camera shots of the iPhone 5. It also takes reasonably good video, shooting at 1080p like the most tablets. 

Conclusion-
This is an iPad made for people who cant swallow the $500 starting price tag on the original iPad. This is, in many ways, Apple's smaller version of its best-selling tablet that offers a thin and light design and good battery life. No, the performance does not even match the $199 Nexus 7 and is lacking in resolution. At $329, this tablet has a lot to offer over Apple's more expensive tablets.

 Its cost is a little high for a tablet that doesn't have the latest hardware, but it has an excellent design, and gives access to the best selection of tablet optimized apps. Even though this is a completely usable tablet, you'll find your hard-earned money better spent on competing Android tablets, such as the Nexus 7 which offers a higher resolution IPS HD display and a quad-core 1.3 GHz Nvidia Tegra 3 processor. 


© Review by 2012 Andy Chin, revised by Grant Han

© 2012 Apple, Inc.