Apple iPad mini with Retina Display: Reviewed
by Anand Lal Shimpi on November 16, 2013 8:00 AM ESTFinal Words
When I concluded our iPad Air review I assumed the iPad mini with Retina Display was a true no-compromise, smaller alternative to the iPad Air. In many senses that’s true. Wireless connectivity is identical between the models, battery life is pretty much the same as well. Peak performance is close and you no longer have to accept a lower resolution display. Last year’s iPad mini was easy to recommend, and this year’s is even easier. To my surprise however, the iPad Air continues to hold some advantages that may resonate well with some users.
The biggest in my eyes is the iPad Air’s wider gamut display with full sRGB coverage. The mini’s Retina Display is good, the Air’s is just better. There’s also more thermal headroom on the iPad Air, which can come in handy if you’re doing compute intensive work on it. If neither of those things matters to you, then the decision becomes one of usage model and portability. I believe the iPad Air does a better job of approximating a primary computing device, particularly in its ability to give you a reasonable sized virtual keyboard to work on. The iPad mini on the other hand is substantially more portable. Although the iPad Air is light enough to come along with me more than any prior iPad, the mini’s form factor makes it even more likely that’ll I’ll bring it with me (the best tablet is the one you have with you?).
As much as I prefer the iPad Air’s display and as much as I love having more performance, I’d probably lean towards the mini personally. The lower weight and smaller form factor are just tough to give up. Apple could’ve made the decision a lot easier by giving the mini true display parity with the Air though.
The mini with Retina Display sits at an interesting point in Apple's iPad lineup. Priced at $399, the higher-end mini is priced identically to the iPad 2 - which Apple continues to sell. I honestly can't see a situation outside of having poor vision where I'd recommend the iPad 2 over the iPad mini with Retina Display.
If you're on the fence about upgrading from an older iPad (or even the first gen mini), the iPad mini with Retina Display is a tempting target. Compared to virtually all previous iPads you're going to notice a substantial increase in performance thanks to Apple's A7 SoC. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that the performance improvement over the previous generation mini (featuring Apple's A5) can be just as noticeable of an uprade as the display. The new mini is a leap forward in performance compared to its predecessor.
While Apple has the 10-inch tablet market more or less locked up with the iPad Air, the mini faces stiff competition. The biggest comes from Google with the $229 2013 Nexus 7. You get an incredibly affordable device and a display with full sRGB gamut. What the mini offers is a faster SoC, a wider display (a Nexus 8 would be nice) and of course, iOS. I’ve heard varying opinions on iOS vs. Android when talking about tablet or smartphone use. Some users prefer Android on one and iOS on the other, vice versa or find themselves exclusively in one camp. This one is best left up to personal preference. At $229 the Nexus 7 is a great option. If you prefer iOS however, the iPad mini with Retina Display is quite nice. The price hike vs. the standard mini can be a tough pill to swallow, but the A7 and display are definitely worth it.
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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.