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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solipsism - Saturday, November 16, 2013 - link
Or you can save $100 by going with a smaller capacity device. Apple will make their margins regardless so what you're really saying is that they should 1) not make the iPad Mini only start at $299 and 2) they shouldn't even offer the lower capacity options because at $5 increments for doubling of capacity (laughable) it's only $15 between 16GB and 128GB.The fact is companies determine the entire line to figure how to maximize sales, margins and profits, not just an individual model, which is something you should understand even if you haven't taken a single economics course.
kyuu - Saturday, November 16, 2013 - link
Why the hell should the end consumer care about that? $100 for $5 worth of NAND is a rip-off. The end. Nobody cares about the ways in which Apple seeks to pad their already absurd profit margins.And yes, they could very well move their base model up to 32GB, like a lot of the rest of the market.
solipsism - Saturday, November 16, 2013 - link
The consumer (not sure why included the word "end" in there) should buy the product that best fits their needs. The consumer shouldn't say "Hey, cheap NAND is only $5 for 16GB so I shouldn't have to pay anymore for faster and/or reliable NAND that is included as part of a vendor's product."What you have done is foolishly expect that capacity should be sold to you at cost without any other consideration, the most egregious of which is thinking the price points should be defined by *you* and not the vendor.
People like you sicken me. You think it's up to you to dictate the terms of another company. You care nothing for the free market. You actually wrote, "Nobody cares about the ways in which Apple…" without once considering that Apple cares about their profits and that it's their product which gives the right to sell it as they see fit, yet instead of saying, "This isn't the product for me." you instead think they owe you something when they can't even keep them in stock.
It's their product and their price points. If you don't like it, don't buy it. It's really that simple.
Puberticus - Saturday, November 16, 2013 - link
Yep. You did it in a nutshell. The poor guy definitely needs a pinch.kwrzesien - Monday, November 18, 2013 - link
I think our perception of a premium product being obsolete because it fills up 16GB of NAND is important to Apple if they want to keep being a premium product. It not only frustrates users but it limits the sale of the content (apps/music/video) that consumes that space. Don't they want it to just work? Nevermind needing over 3GB free to update the OS.Daniel Egger - Saturday, November 16, 2013 - link
Why pay $3000 for a better engine in the car when the production costs are roughly the same?kyuu - Saturday, November 16, 2013 - link
I wouldn't. Generally, better engines do in fact cost more to produce, though, and generally there are more differences between two models of car than just their engine.RadarTheKat - Monday, November 18, 2013 - link
You are reading this wrong. Can you build a 128GB tablet in your garage with the quality of an iPad? Given that even global electronics vendors like Samsung, Asus, and others can't, I doubt you can either. So at $829, the top end iPad mini with retina display, 128GB of memory, and LTE connectivity.Start with that model, which is a computing miracle compared with anything the world could produce just three years ago, and then you'll see that Apple SAVES you $100 if you're willing to take that same miracle with half the memory. LOL!
Hey, but thanks for playing!
RadarTheKat - Monday, November 18, 2013 - link
* So at $829, the top end iPad mini with retina display, 128GB of memory, and LTE connectivity is a steal!Klug4Pres - Saturday, November 16, 2013 - link
1GB RAM for a 64-bit CPU of this calibre is also an insult, and will mean that this thing will choke on many workloads. It will also mean that come IOS 8 or 9, it will likely be unuseable. Oh well, just drop another $500 on a 2GB RAM, 32GB version next year.