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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psyside1 - Sunday, November 17, 2013 - link
@Renasena ,No TouchID no thanks I'll wait till next year.
ROFL!!!!!
kwrzesien - Monday, November 18, 2013 - link
Do you want retina mini's or not? TouchID is constraining the 5s production, and retina displays are constraining the mini. Why risk it? And yes, there is next year...TouchID, laminated glass with correct color gamut (as they get production worked out on the panels and multiple manufacturers), A8 processor with 2GB RAM, and 802.11ac/other radio & cellular band improvements. And 32GB of base memory with $75 upgrades to 64 and 128, please!BreakingStrata - Saturday, November 16, 2013 - link
Seems like every time a review of an Apple product gets put up on this site there's always several people who are up in arms over a perceived positive bias towards Apple products. That's probably because the author of this article (and owner of this website) uses all Apple products. He also pretty much never reviews anything but Apple products now. That doesn't paint a very good picture does it? Someone who rarely reviews anything that isn't Apple but always finds the time to review a Apple products and primarily uses only Apple products clearly would not be in a position to give clear, unbiased reviews.This is very sad to me. I've been a regular reader for years. This site helped me fuel my passion for technology and I've learned so much from here. I used to have a tremendous amount of respect for this site and Anand but I can't anymore. I think people like myself read reviews because we want accurate and unbiased information. If we wanted biased information we would look at press releases or ask peoples personal opinions.
The only thing that keeps me coming here is the excellent reviews put out by the other authors here. I can still read their articles without a bad taste in my mouth. It all boils down to this one thing- actions speak louder than words.
ws3 - Saturday, November 16, 2013 - link
The bias is all yours.Anadtech reviews Apple products and gives them mostly positive reviews because they are mostly high quality, high performing products. That is all.
Whether or not you like iOS or the iOS App ecosystem is completely irrelevant. It's like me griping about a car review site that spends a lot of time reviewing two-seat sports cars when I'm interested in minivans. It's not bias on the part of the reviewer when he gives good reviews to a Ferrari.
Commodus - Sunday, November 17, 2013 - link
That's a slightly amusing remark given that he recently reviewed the Surface Pro 2 and liked it. I think you're confusing the nature of the product cycle with review preferences. Apple launched a flood of new gadgets recently, ergo they're going to get reviews shortly afterward.The issue isn't bias; Anand clearly qualifies his statements. Are the new iPads not faster overall than other mobile OS tablets on the market? Do they not have long battery life and good displays? I also suspect that it was wise to keep OS preferences out of the review, since that invariably devolves into a religious war. To me, it sounds more like your real beef is that he said something good about Apple, and you will not let that stand.
HarryATX - Sunday, November 17, 2013 - link
Oh come on please he reviewed the Surface 2, Surface Pro 2, Asus Transformer Book T100, Galaxy Note 10.1 2014(with Brian), Galaxy Note 8.0, Nexus 7(2013), Asus MEMO Pad HD7, Nexus 7(2012, with Brian), Acer W510, HTC Flyer, just to name a few. You can say that he reviewed the iPhone 5s alone but almost every iPhone prior to that he did with Brian, and IMO a big reason he was in every iPhone review had a huge part to do with the silicon.If you read the 'About' page of this site you will find that Anand is the ONLY senior editor of tablets. If you listen to the AnandTech Podcast you will hear repeatedly that Brian does not classify himself as a typical tablet user and therefore does not review 'normal' tablets.
Please be fair. Anand does SSDs, CPUs, and other stuff. They just don't come out as quickly as phones or tablets does. Yes he does Macs, but why do you let someone who does not use OS X do Mac reviews?
Plus I do not see endorsement in this review. All other sites simply say the iPad mini is as fast as the Air and has a display that's just as nice as the Air's. Anand dug all the differences out and what can you blame on him? The A7 does perform better than the Snapdragon 600 and I do not doubt that this iPad is quick and well-built. In the comparison he pointed out the advantage of Nexus 7 where it's due.
So please... don't just look at the author's name under an Apple review; do look at the author's name for every review.
KoolAidMan1 - Sunday, November 17, 2013 - link
Are you just not paying attention to all the other products Anand reviews or is your life so devoid of drama and excitement that you're just making things up to get angry over on the internet?lilo777 - Sunday, November 17, 2013 - link
No compromise device? Really? First of all such thing does not even exist in principle. More importantly let's look at some of the obvious omissions in this review. So the display exhibit s not image retention... What a surprise! Display in a tablet hand picket by Apple for a reviewer is "perfect". One can only wonder what all of those people complaining about display on MacRumors about are thinking. They should have waited for AT review. But wait... there is more. Image retention is not the worst problem of this display, not by a long shot. Way more people are complaining about uneven yellow tint. Again, somehow Anand's device escaped this problem. It amuses me when people start using car analogies while discussing Apple prices. Mercedes this, BMW that... How about more relevant analogies. Let's take TV for example. Not a single tech Web site will recommend you buying LG TV set over Samsung. Yet put a fruity logo on this screen and voila! Suddenly it's become better than Samsung. Then of course one might be lucky even to get a device with a display panel from second tier supplier like LG. What if it comes from Sharp or worse yet AU optronics?Another major issue that people are having with new iPads is the old amount of RAM. People complain that Safari starts reloading Web pages after the number of tabs reaches four. I have three times more RAM in my phone than what iPads have. Sure because of the superior OS (iOS) iPads may never need a lot of RAM. After all iOS devices still do not allow the user to run more than one application on the screen. Why bother with RAM? Let's just call it "no compromises". And I can run at least three apps (probably more but for obvious reasons I did not try it) on my phone simultaneously sharing the screen. Sure, it's not very useful on the phone but on a tablet with very high resolution?
And what about the placement of speakers on iPads? Could it be more stupid than it is? Firstly they are too close to even pretend to be able to produce stereo sound. Secondly who needs stereo in a portrait mode? What for? Reading AT reviews? How about watching videos which is probably the only use case where it matters? And the so called ecosystem? It's a joke. Ecosystem with a single phone screen size? With no support for stylus or touch screens on the laptops (convertible devices)? Is not it a little bit too backward?
Sadly lately I find AT reviews more and more compromised by site owner bias.
ruggia - Sunday, November 17, 2013 - link
are we reading the same review here?First off, the article is quite clear that the iPad mini DIDN'T turn out to be a no-compromise alternative to the iPad Air that Anand hoped it to be. (mainly because of the display)
Second, whenever Anand uses the word "no-compromise", it is in always relation to iPad Air. (i.e. a smaller version of the 10-inch tablet with everything else being the same). He is not using it to refer to a device that has no flaws.
beggerking@yahoo.com - Monday, November 18, 2013 - link
well said! Anand is now biased.. which is sad.