This year iPad Mini happens to be Apple’s biggest releases and will be one of those things that people will love to gift their beloved ones. Truly it is a great choice, but not the best one. It is a known fact that the Mini is light weighted and elegant. Unfortunately, Apple made the biggest compromise in the Mini’s design which is the only factor that makes buyers a little cautious and to checkout for other models of iPad prior to buying.
Available at $329, iPad Mini is indeed one of the cheapest iPad available in the market. When compared to the normal iPad, it is smaller and the size suits the well toned aluminium body. Weighing about eleven ounces, which is half of the full sized iPad available in the market; it is quite light and easy for a person to hold in one hand. Plus it fits into a handbag without any difficulty as it is less than eight inches in length and a 1/3 inch in thickness.
The annoying aspect of the Mini is the display quality. Frankly, it is indeed shocking, as Apple is one of the companies that have been in the vanguard of providing the best, sharpest and color-filled screens. That is known as Retina display as the pixels (the tiny light emission squares which make up most of the screen of the iPad) are so tiny that they are blended in concert seamlessly into our eyes. This removes the impression from our minds that we are basically viewing a grid of tiny discrete objects.
What iPad Mini lacks is the Retina Display. By standards, when compared to last year it is an impressive screen that has the exact number of pixels as the previous iPad and iPad 2 versions. However, the latest one i.e. the full-sized advanced iPad has got four times more pixels which can be easily seen. When compared to other iPad and the previous versions of the same brand, the screen of iPad Mini looks coarse. Plus it looks kind of dull, as it lacks the matching colour-enriching technology that most of the full version models have.
Now this isn’t a fair method of comparing as most of the full-size iPad begin at 499 dollars and they weigh more. But the true issue is not that. This year a lot of tablets have come to the market that costs less than the iPad Mini, even though they are heavier and have a much better screen.
The Kindle Fire HD one of the best tablets from the Amazon family costs about 199 dollars and overall it is the same size as that of the Mini. Even though the screen of the Kindle is quite smaller but it is sharper with thirty percent more pixel formation than the iPad Mini. In addition to that, the colours are brighter too. The Nook HD of Barnes and Noble Inc cost only $299 and the screen is sharper than the Kindle HD. Surprisingly, it has got sixty five percent sharper pixel formations than the iPad Mini.
The question that comes in people’s mind is that how does or at least why does the tablets belonging to the two companies who are known as book stores able to beat Apple’s latest discovery in screen quality.
One logical reason could be because sharper screens are very darker and they require a more powerful backlight to give out a brighter appearance. So this would have in turn forced to increase the battery size. This is why the first iPad which had the Retina display was heavier and thicker than the iPad 2. So what happened is that in order to keep the iPad Mini thin and getting the ten hour battery life like the bigger iPad, Apple had no other alternative but to compromise on its display.
Frankly, this is not a good thing. And by next year, it will be even more obvious that in terms of screen quality, Apple is going to be very much behind especially in terms of small tablets. Somehow it will have to upgrade its coming version to the Retina display. This will make the first generation iPad Mini seem pretty old quickly.
Now that is not the only thing. The display will also cause other problems too. One is when you use the iPhone apps on the Mini. It will use the laid-back graphic version – the version which was designed for the iPhone models up to 2009, i.e. the 3GS. You can still fill the iPhone’s screen with apps, but surely it will look ugly and congested. When the iPhone apps are running, the full-size iPad will be using a higher-quality Retina graphic.
It is true that some of the apps that are adapted for the iPad screen don’t display in a proper manner on the Mini screen. The reason could be because of the smaller screen. At times you will remember Steve Jobs’ comment in 2010 about small tablets as the buttons can be very much smaller when you hit the screen accurately. The deceased founder of Apple was of the ardent opinion that regular iPad which come in small sizes can be user-friendly. Also, in some of the apps, the text that Mini displays will be too small and uncomfortable to read like reading the section fronts of The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.
This doesn’t mean that the iPad Mini is a failure. It does outdo the Nook and the Fire, so it means that it is not a tablet for people who are looking for ones that are thinner and awesome. Frankly, one could feel that the Mini is a great entry ticket into the beautiful and inspiring world of iPhone and iPad family at $329.
In terms of quantity and quality, it just beats other app stores. Surprisingly, there is a great inverse relationship between the app availability and screen quality in this particular category, especially in case of Nook. It has the top-notch screen and lesser applications. While the second-best tablet, which is the Kindle Fire HD gets only middling access to certain apps.
Talking about the camera of the Mini, it has a front as well as back cameras. It is for recording videos, taking pictures and video conferencing. In comparison to that, the Kindle Fire HD has only a front-facing camera for doing the video conferencing. Unfortunately the Nook HD lacks the camera function completely.
Ultimately, one can easily see that the iPad Mini is a way more versatile than its present competitors and it is bound to please a lot of people. Going by Apple’s habits in the past, one thing is for sure. The champion brand will be bringing out something much better than the current model by next year.
Tags: iPad Mini
