iPad mini Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi & Vivek Gowri on November 20, 2012 6:10 PM ESTCamera
The iPad mini features a 1.2MP front facing FaceTime HD camera and a 5MP rear facing iSight camera. The rear camera shoots photos at 2592 x 1936, the same resolution as the 4th generation iPad. Both of the new iPads have the same f/2.4 lens, however the mini features a wider field of view thanks to its shorter 3.3mm focal length.
| Camera Comparison | |||||||
| Sensor | Resolution | Compressed JPEG Size | Aperture | Focal Length | |||
| Apple iPad 4 | 5MP | 2592 x 1936 | 3.4MB | f/2.4 | 4.3mm | ||
| Apple iPad 2,4 | 0.7MP | 960 x 720 | 344KB | f/2.4 | 2.0mm | ||
| Apple iPad mini | 5MP | 2592 x 1936 | 3.1MB | f/2.4 | 3.3mm | ||
| Apple iPhone 5 | 8MP | 3264 x 2448 | 3.1MB | f/2.4 | 4.1mm | ||
| Apple iPod Touch 5 | 5MP | 2592 x 1936 | 3.1MB | f/2.4 | 3.3mm | ||
Still performance of the rear facing camera is very similar to the 5th generation iPod Touch, and not as good as the 4th generation iPad.
The front facing camera is also similar to what you find in the iPhone 5 and 5th generation iPod Touch:
| Camera Comparison | |||||||
| Sensor | Resolution | Compressed JPEG Size | Aperture | Focal Length | |||
| Apple iPad 4 | 1.2MP | 1280 x 960 | 426KB | f/2.4 | 2.2mm | ||
| Apple iPad 2,4 | 0.3MP | 640 x 480 | 105KB | f/2.4 | 1.8mm | ||
| Apple iPad mini | 1.2MP | 1280 x 960 | 372KB | f/2.4 | 2.2mm | ||
| Apple iPhone 5 | 1.2MP | 1280 x 960 | 400KB | f/2.4 | 2.2mm | ||
| Apple iPod Touch 5 | 1.2MP | 1280 x 960 | 406KB | f/2.4 | 2.2mm | ||
Performance of the front facing camera is decent, and a significant improvement compared to the iPad 2 (you can see comparison shots in the gallery above):
Although I'm continually impressed by folks using tablets as their primary cameras at trade shows and press events, I don't believe the same standards apply to tablets as they do to smartphone camera systems. That being said, it's good to see continued improvements here.
Video
The iPad mini shoots 1080p video from its rear camera and 720p on the front. It looks like Apple is borrowing from the iPhone 5's encoder improvements here as video shot with the rear camera is encoded using High Profile H.264 (L4.1) at 17.1Mbps. The improvement in encode quality is possibly unlocked through software/firmware rather than an actual hardware change since this is still running on A5r2 silicon. In our iPhone 5 review, Brian pointed out that the A6 uses the same encode/decode hardware as the A5 but its full capabilities weren't unlocked until the A6. Given that encode quality has also improved on the A5r2 based iPad mini, it would seem that Apple limited earlier designs either due to a lack of time or to stagger its improvements across generations.
The front facing camera shoots baseline video at roughly 10.6Mbps, a huge improvement over the iPad 2 and iPad 3:
Video quality is definitely good enough for web use:
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jaydee - Wednesday, November 21, 2012 - link
Keep in mind those FPS benchmarks don't take into account screen resolution. Nexus 7 is driving a higher resolution display, pushing 30% more pixels.Azuredragoon - Wednesday, November 21, 2012 - link
The GPU test does take into account screen resolution with the offscreen 1080 testslowlymarine - Thursday, November 22, 2012 - link
GPU performance isn't anywhere near "better than even the newest Android-running hardware." It's identical to Exynos 4412's Mali400 MP4 and the ubiquitous MSM8960's Adreno 225, and markedly behind Exynos 5's Mali 604T and APQ8064's Adreno 320. Unless you were forgetting to look at the "offscreen" results?http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph6429/51693...
DeciusStrabo - Thursday, November 22, 2012 - link
1 GB RAM and the iPad Mini would be so much better, at basically no cost for Apple or in battery life.drx11 - Sunday, November 25, 2012 - link
because more RAM is free and takes up absolutely no space or battery power? What are you smoking?So it looks like Apple did install more RAM - its invisible and takes up no space and does not use any energy/battery at all ... and well its not actually in the iPad mini because Apple has to deal with the pesky physics of the world.
seanleeforever - Tuesday, November 20, 2012 - link
few things here:nexus 7 actually fit in all my pant's pocket, it has portability of a phone as far as i am concerned.
nexus 7 has usb host mode which can access your usb device.
if i need to carry ipad mini in a bag, which i will have to, i might as well just get regular size ipad.
just my 2 cents.
seanleeforever - Tuesday, November 20, 2012 - link
also, could we please have a nexus 7 and ipad mini display at the same size at least?the side by side thing you guys have shows a zoomed in nexus 7 vs zoomed out ipad mini, it shows the illusion that ipad mini displays much more content than nexus 7 while in reality the nexus 7 packs more pixel.
Mumrik - Tuesday, November 20, 2012 - link
Actually a pretty good point.EnzoFX - Tuesday, November 20, 2012 - link
Is this not the default behavior of the Nexus? Everything in Chrome always looks so big to me, all of Android I think actually. The UI, the buttons, just are way too big.Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, November 20, 2012 - link
Done, updated :)