Detached Retina
I won’t defend Apple over this. The inability to view every pixel of an HD movie on a display only 160mm wide is something that will matter to some people more than others. You can play at 720p resolution externally from the iPad Mini wirelessly using AirPlay and an Apple TV, or physically through an HDMI cable and a £39 Lightning-to-VGA or -HDMI adapter.
FaceTime supported by a mini Smart Cover
As usual, Apple stands to earn plenty of moolah by selling a whole new generation of adapters like this, having ditched the long-standing 30-pin connector for its smaller Lightning connector as first seen on the iPhone 5.
You can, however, capture video in 1080p and 720p, or photos in 5Mp or 1.2Mp, with the tablet's rear- and front-facing cameras, respectively. Unfortunately, the miserable weather over the weekend made it impossible to test these thoroughly, and there's no iPhone-like flash to assist with indoor shots. But I felt a lot less conspicuous holding up a Mini to take a picture than I did last time I took one with a regular iPad. And I do see a fair few folk out and about taking photos with tablets.
Makes light work of gaming
Apple's iOS framework continues to prevent you from doing anything as simple as transferring videos and images from device to computer via a cable, or even directly over the air by Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, at least not without running iTunes. Third-party file-transfer apps, such as Ecamm’s PhoneView, will at least let you drop files over a cable into downloaded apps’ sandboxes.
The iCloud service and improvements in iOS 6 have made it a little easier to share your media files but getting at your 100MB+ videos continues to be a major pain in the arse. Email them to yourself? Yeah, right.
Thumbing a tune on GarageBand
I don't want to brush these limitations to one side, but it's one thing to bitch about Apple's connectivity policy and another to pick up an iPad Mini and play around with it. The size and weight make it ideal for so many everyday situations. I wouldn't dream of heaving out my iPad 3 to read a book or newspaper or magazine on public transport for fear of dropping it or having it stolen, but I don't think twice about whipping out the iPad Mini.
Somehow playing a quick game, dashing off a brief email, interacting with Facebook and twiddling with Garageband – with thumbs! – seems so much more convenient on a smaller screen, as any iPhone owner will tell you. Frankly, I couldn't leave the bloody thing alone. Even back at work, the iPad Mini took up so little space on my desk that I left my full-size iPad in my bag.
Next page: Can't put it down
COMMENTS
Re: Sheltered Life
"Specs specs specs specs specs specs that's all Android fans ever go on about"
... All thanks to its 3.1 million pixels. It’s the best mobile display ever.
The new A6X chip inside iPad is up to twice as fast as the previous-generation A5X chip,
The new iPad with Retina display features advanced Wi‑Fi that’s up to twice as fast as any previous....
And that's all from the iPad's front page,,,,
I personally couldn't give a flying monkeys what OS something is running, so long as it's priced and specc'd for what I want to do.
I use mine for web browsing & videos. So for me so long as it can output 1080p with out add on's (bar a £10 cable) and browse the web I'm happy, for others they may want more power and more toys.
Personally I've been in this game far to long to be bothered by this pointless willy waving. At the end of the day, if you are buying a device because it looks super trendy, or because it's an open platform with no restrictions and you can do what you want, as opposed to buying it because it actually does what you want it to do, then you've still yet to grow up.
So please, buy the device you want and stop this pointless he said, she said crap, some of us are really bored of it now.
Re: Couldn't Happen To A Nicer Company
"Cheap Android tablets feel like shit. They use thin, horrible plastic, they are slow and they are buggy."
Perhaps stop shopping for tablets in supermarkets..
" I work with phones and tablets all day long"
Translation: I work in an Apple Store.
"if you add up the device features as a whole it's worth every penny."
No it's not. No GPS, Shite maps, no NFC, no multi-use logon, and a rubbish 4:3 non-HD panel, couple with a mediocre (by Nexus7 standards) GPU/CPU, and the infamous Apple lock-in to proprietary formats and connectors and all for an extra £150...
Re: Sheltered Life
""Cheap Android tablets feel like shit. They use thin, horrible plastic, they are slow and they are buggy.
If you are only basing on price alone, then yeah, the iPad Mini gets beaten, but if you add up the device features as a whole it's worth every penny.""
.....Oh great, compare a £259 iPad Mini with a <£100 android, 'cos that's a fair fight......................
Why not compare a 16GB/No SDHC/No HDMI Nexus 7 at £159 with a 16GB/No SDHC/No HDMI iPad Mini at £269 then I'll discuss with you. If you want to tell me that quad-core is too slow, or take umbrage at the grippy rubberised back, them I'm confused. So what do I get for paying 70% more?
My fingertip grip on a Mini in Dixons told me that it's too wide for my hands and although tethered to the display, also too wide for my inside jacket pocket.
If I have to put it in my bag, or can't grip it properly when say on the tube, then it's not fit for going out and about which is surely the selling point for a mini??
Re: Sheltered Life
"They use thin, horrible plastic"
There is somethign nice about plastic. My kids' $120 chinese ICS tablet survived way too many drops, with no damage. My pampered iPad on the other hand, has dents even though it never flew.
In fact the chinaPad is much nicer to hold with the rounded edges. And it's lighter, too.
Meh...
Doesn't look like anything interesting.
Then again I didn't bother scrolling the review down. I believe this is the approved way to view Apple pages is it not?
