Apple iPad mini with Retina Display: Reviewed
by Anand Lal Shimpi on November 16, 2013 8:00 AM ESTCamera
The iPad mini with Retina Display features the same 5MP iSight rear facing camera and 1.2MP FaceTime HD camera as the iPad Air. Both are quite good for a tablet, aided by iOS’ excellent camera UI and the A7’s high performance ISP. The cameras also benefit from the same dual-mic setup of the iPad Air. I won’t talk too much about quality here as it’s no different than the Air, which I've already gone over in greater depth.
| Rear Facing Camera Comparison | |||||||
| Sensor | Resolution | Aperture | Focal Length | ||||
| Apple iPad Air | 5MP | 2592 x 1936 | f/2.4 | 3.3mm | |||
| Apple iPad 4 | 5MP | 2592 x 1936 | f/2.4 | 4.3mm | |||
| Apple iPad 3 | 5MP | 2592 x 1936 | f/2.4 | 4.3mm | |||
| Apple iPad 2,4 | 0.7MP | 960 x 720 | f/2.4 | 2.0mm | |||
| Apple iPad mini | 5MP | 2592 x 1936 | f/2.4 | 3.3mm | |||
| Apple iPad mini (Retina) | 5MP | 2592 x 1936 | f/2.4 | 3.3mm | |||
| Front Facing Camera Comparison | |||||||
| Sensor | Resolution | Aperture | Focal Length | ||||
| Apple iPad Air | 1.2MP | 1280 x 960 | f/2.4 | 2.15mm | |||
| Apple iPad 4 | 1.2MP | 1280 x 960 | f/2.4 | 2.18mm | |||
| Apple iPad 3 | 0.3MP | 640 x 480 | f/2.4 | 1.8mm | |||
| Apple iPad 2,4 | 0.3MP | 640 x 480 | f/2.4 | 1.8mm | |||
| Apple iPad mini | 1.2MP | 1280 x 960 | f/2.4 | 2.2mm | |||
| Apple iPad mini (Retina) | 1.2MP | 1280 x 960 | f/2.4 | 2.15mm | |||
WiFi & Cellular
The iPad mini with Retina Display inherits the same Qualcomm MDM9615 modem and 2-stream dual-band 802.11n from the iPad Air. The move to 2-stream 802.11n more or less doubles peak WiFi performance compared to last year’s mini. The mini's peak WiFi performance is pretty close to that of the iPad Air as well.
Lately I’ve really begun to appreciate the flexibility offered by tablets equipped with cellular modems. Especially now that it’s not terribly expensive to add a tablet to a shared data plan (or even free), the $130 LTE adder for the iPads is something worth seriously considering. The convenience of being able to pull out your tablet, wake it up, and immediately hop on the web/check email/tweet/etc… is awesome. Qualcomm's MDM9615 is a well known quantity at this point. I didn't run into any issues with its performance on the iPad mini.
| iPad Cellular Speeds | ||||||
| Property | iPhone 3G/3GS/iPad 1 3G | iPhone 4 / iPad 2 (GSM/UMTS) | iPhone 4 / iPad 2 (CDMA) | iPad 3 | iPad 4/iPad Mini | iPad Air/iPad Mini w/Retina |
| Baseband | Infineon X-Gold 608 | Infineon X-Gold 618 | Qualcomm MDM6600 | Qualcomm MDM9600 | Qualcomm MDM9615 w/RTR8600 |
Qualcomm MDM9615 w/WTR1605L |
| Max 3GPP Release Feature | Release 5 | Release 6 | Release 7 | Release 9 | Release 9 | Release 9 |
| HSDPA Category | Cat.8 - 7.2 Mbps | Cat.8 - 7.2 Mbps | N/A | Cat. 24 - 42 Mbps | Cat. 24 - 42 Mbps | Cat. 24 - 42 Mbps |
| HSUPA Category | None - 384 Kbps WCDMA only | Cat.6 - 5.76 Mbps | N/A | Cat.6 - 5.76 Mbps | Cat.6 - 5.76 Mbps | Cat.6 - 5.76 Mbps |
| EVDO | N/A | N/A | 1x/EVDO Rev.A | 1x/EVDO Rev.A | 1x/EVDO Rev.A | 1x/EVDO Rev.A |
| LTE | N/A | N/A | N/A | 100/50 UE Cat. 3 | 100/50 UE Cat. 3 | 100/50 UE Cat. 3 |
The new iPad mini, like the iPad Air, is extremely flexible from a mobile operator standpoint. Regardless of what operator you choose at the time of purchase, you can switch to others as long as you have an activated nano SIM (there’s apparently an exception for Sprint, but AT&T/T-Mobile/Verizon should all be easily switchable). The unlocked nature of the device makes it ripe for global use, especially with support for a total of 14 LTE bands (1,2,3,4,5,7,8,13,17,18,19,20,25 and 26).
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identity - Saturday, November 16, 2013 - link
What do you, know another troll bitching.Morawka - Saturday, November 16, 2013 - link
not trolling, i just find it convenient to point out anand doing all apple reviews despite having a dedicated mobile reviewer who has never done a full blown apple tablet or phone review (only previews)Friendly0Fire - Saturday, November 16, 2013 - link
I'll also say that I like Anand's work a lot but I have absolutely zero interest in Apple stuff, which makes me sad because it means I rarely get to read something from Anand.Apple product reviews are rarely a surprise anyway, so they're not even particularly informative. Iterative improvements, if anything special arose it'll have been talked about for at least six months everywhere you look at.
kyuu - Saturday, November 16, 2013 - link
Exactly. Anand does great reviews, but his time is wasted doing these Apple reviews. The only part of the review that contains any information we didn't already know from the glut of Apple coverage everywhere is the display metrics.But, it's pretty plain Anand has a love affair with Apple at this point.
ws3 - Saturday, November 16, 2013 - link
I know it must be maddening for Apple-haters when every review of an Apple product is at least generally positive, but you know what Apple says: "We don't ship junk."Puberticus - Saturday, November 16, 2013 - link
More junk! Ananda must review more junk! Only then will the masses be happy!!!Eyes rolling…
volebamus - Saturday, November 16, 2013 - link
So just curious, how many reviews in Anandtech did you actually read? I rarely actually look at the writer of these articles, but I notice that Anand in general does all of the flagship product reviews.How can you say you rarely get to read about Anand reviewing non-Apple products when he's involved with all the other manufacturers not just in Android, but Windows?
volebamus - Saturday, November 16, 2013 - link
No, I can tell you're trolling, and I created my account on Anandtech just to point it out. If you were anywhere close to objective, you'd look into the several categories of smartphones and tablets to see exactly how many reviews Anand does in mobile devices. Like I just did. Spoilers: he does MOST of the mobile reviews. Samsung, HTC, LG, Nexus, and even SURFACE out of all things. His name as reviewer is tied to all of them.But you notice a "trend" in him not letting the other reviewer do Apple tablet/phone reviews. Of course, this is completely ignoring the reviews that Anand does on ALL the other tablet/phone reviews as well.
Your bias is showing.
Morawka - Saturday, November 16, 2013 - link
The tough pill for me to swallow is the expensive storage upgrades. apple charging $100 going from 16GB to 32GB is absurd. The nand probably cost them $5 extra on the Bill of Materials, and all the other companies are only charging $50 for nand upgrades.Additionally, $130 for LTE connectivity is a bit high, but no where near the magnitude of the NAND pricing. It's sad that apple fans have to pay $630 for 32GB LTE mini. If you maxed your ipad mini with retina's specs, it would cost $830!!!!! Almost a grand for a 7 inch tablet that will be obsolete within a year. And those who buy all the bells and whistles will lose their ass when they go to sell it next year and upgrade to the new device.
Daniel Egger - Saturday, November 16, 2013 - link
Every premium vendor does that with their premium products. No matter whether we're talking BMW, Apple or HTC. The HTC One Max costs 150€ more to go from 16GB to 32GB internal storage while the HTC One is a whopping 220€ more expensive when doubling from 32GB to 64GB; and those are definitely not cheap to begin with! With that in mind $100 can be viewed as a real bargain, especially for the jump from 64GB to 128GB.