Apple iPad mini with Retina Display: Reviewed
by Anand Lal Shimpi on November 16, 2013 8:00 AM ESTThe Display
The big story behind the new iPad mini is of course its 7.85-inch Retina Display. We’re talking about the same 2048 x 1536 resolution as the iPad Air, but in a much smaller form factor. The result is the highest pixel density of any Apple display ships today, tying with the iPhone 5S. The impact on the overall experience is pretty significant. Text is obviously a lot sharper, but even graphics are a lot nicer to look at on the new Retina Display. The gains aren't quite as obvious as they were on the larger iPad, but after living with the Retina mini for a while I can't easily go back to the previous version.
iPad mini (left) vs. iPad mini with Retina Display (right)
I ran Marco Arment's image retention test on the Retina mini and didn't see even the slightest degree of image retention. My old, non-Retina iPad mini on the other hand exhibited image retention. I suspect Apple is multi-sourcing its displays here, which could obviously contribute to varied behavior. At least on the two minis I have, image retention isn't an issue.
In the conclusion of my iPad Air review I wrote about the new mini as finally being a no-compromises smaller iPad. Much like my assertions last year of a Retina mini not being in the cards, it turns out that I was wrong on this point as well. Although display resolution is no longer a concern on the mini, color gamut hasn’t changed between the old and new minis. A quick look at our gamut test gives us an idea of what’s going on:
The iPad mini with Retina Display has the same color gamut as the standard iPad mini, which is narrower than the iPad Air and less than the sRGB coverage we normally look for. The biggest issue here is that there are other smaller tablets in this price range that do offer sRGB coverage (e.g. Nexus 7, Kindle Fire HDX 8.9).
I suspect the justification here is Apple likely views the bigger iPad as being a better fit for photographers/those who care about color reproduction, but it’s a shame that this is a tradeoff that exists between the two iPads especially given how good Apple is about sRGB coverage in nearly all of its other displays.
One of the simplest visual tests is to use one of iOS 7’s more colorful wallpapers and compare the Retina mini and iPad Air side by side:
Pay attention to the color of the red triangles in the lower left
From left to right: iPad Air, iPad mini with Retina Display, iPad mini
The difference is small but apparent, particularly if you’re used to panels with full sRGB coverage like the iPad Air or any of the rMBPs/iMacs. The biggest deviations are in reds/blues and magenta in between as you can tell from the CIE chart above.
Within its gamut coverage, the mini’s panel is fairly accurate. A look at our GMB checker test shows performance competitive with the Nexus 7 and not far off the 4th generation iPad. Grayscale reproduction is also quite good. The display looks really good otherwise, but you don’t get the same visual punch you do on the iPad Air.
Compared to the previous generation mini we’re obviously talking about a much better panel. But for those of you on the fence between the mini and Air, the Air does still hold a display advantage.
Black levels are competitive and contrast ratio stays fixed at around 800:1 regardless of whether we’re talking about max brightness or the 200 nits we run all of our battery life tests at. Max brightness is down a bit compared to the iPad Air.
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Jamezrp - Sunday, November 17, 2013 - link
I jumped to the iPad Air from the iPad 4, and have the iPad mini. After reading this, I'm pretty sure that I'll return the Air and not upgrade the mini either. Both have completely different use cases, and frankly, if I have the iPhone 5s (which I do), there's no reason to have all 3.That said, iPhone 5 owners are probably going to love the mini w/Retina. It's a perfect fit: no need to upgrade to the 5s, a significant power upgrade, and no loss of performance. I'd opt for the fullsize Air/4 because I use my iPad as a laptop replacement, though the mini is superior for holding one-handed. As Anand pointed out in this and the Air review, the larger tablet is still a tad too heavy to read on comfortably. The mini is not.
But if you've got the last-gen mini and use it mostly for reading and light web-browsing, no reason to upgrade. But the choice between the two is a no-brainer.
postitnowfool - Monday, November 18, 2013 - link
For the love of god post the nexus 5 review. Its been weeks and your posting this instead? Its the same dang thing as ipad air with smaller batter and screen. Doesnt take days and page and pages of stuff to figure that out. Who's working on it? Anand? Brian? Did you decide to skip it totally?psyside1 - Monday, November 18, 2013 - link
Yep, i said the same, this is the reason why N5 review is so late.Samuel Lord - Monday, November 18, 2013 - link
You said: "Small text is always easier to read when it’s on a larger display, but if you’re looking at content that’s properly formatted for a tablet you’ll be in good shape on the mini. I was asked to look into the comic reading experience on the mini and also came away pretty pleased. Text bubbles were definitely not as easy to read as on the iPad Air..."What a ridiculous standard! Are you such a slave to Apple products that you can't criticise their pitiable UI? Good Phones, tablets, notebooks, and PCs have this thing called WORD WRAP, where you adjust font size for your eyes, not for some twentysomething's idea of style. Need proof? FACT: Todays Macbook Air and all iPADs have a MAXIMUM text size (and only available on some Apple software!) that is smaller than the STANDARD text size on a 30-year-old, 9-inch screen macintosh computer. This is the result of Apple putting nitwits in charge of user interfaces. UIs used to be the crown jewels of Apple products, but now the commonsense approach taken by competitors has cost Apple billions in sales. Elegance will never trump functionality in the long run.
deasys - Monday, November 18, 2013 - link
FACT: Today's MacBook Air and all iPads have no limit on text size. WTH are you talking about?Samuel Lord - Tuesday, November 19, 2013 - link
Do a search for "Zoom Text Only." In a Win 7 machine (hey they suck, but for this feature) you just have ""zoom text only" in the Zoom button of the View menu. Then whenever you push Ctrl+ the text gets bigger, Ctrl- for smaller, as much as you want *without* changing the column widths. No unneeded scrolling! This is how computers should allow you to work: customize for *your* needs, not somebody's idea of *their* needs. Neither iOS Macs nor iPads nor iPad Minis have this feature. Zoom alone, without text re-wrap, is useless for browsing and countless other tasks. Some Apple software allows increasing default text size to 56 pixels...which sounds like a lot but is still much smaller than normal text.deasys - Tuesday, November 19, 2013 - link
Why comment on something you clearly have no knowledge of?Safari has long supported the exact functionality you note. Pull down its View menu and have a ball! And iOS devices have always supported double-tap zooming.
emoemeka - Wednesday, November 20, 2013 - link
You have obviously never used an iOS device because your comment is just ignorant.Samuel Lord - Thursday, November 21, 2013 - link
deasys, thank you. I have been trying for weeks in the Accessibility section of Sys Prefs trying different zoom settings, including maximum and using the Command+- tools, but never got intra-column zoom until now. Total zoom of a window happened, but the columns weren't static. Very strange. I was about to install win 7 with Bootcamp on my MBA just to allow my eyes to rest and to retire my Lenovo. This stuff happens a lot to me, I'll follow every step getting the unexplainable result, then it starts working. But yes, I know all of the text size settings not only in iOS but in 3rd party software. So yes, it works on 10.9, but iOS 7 still does not support text-only zoom.emoemeka, I expect I have put more time on various computers than you've ever seen. Apple did not make their zoom functions clear or simple to use. You might recall that default max and min zooms on the MBA (early 2013, now OS 10.9) are zero and zero. Really helpful, that. And as stated above, text-only zoom does not exist on the iPad for any app I've used with it. Presumably the iPhone and books on iPads are presented better, even Kindle got that right.
kwrzesien - Monday, November 18, 2013 - link
(+$100 for each increase in storage level, ugh)...there, fixed that for you.