Next iPad Mini to Have Retina Display?

I don't think we'll be seeing a Retina iPad Mini until Apple makes the transition to 20 nm TSMC chips in 2014. This will also allow Apple and Sharp to improve IGZO yield at the higher resolution.

But the Mini will get a significant hardware upgrade in 2013 to keep up the sales momentum, probably one comparable to the upgrade from the iPad to the iPad 2.

nia820 said:

umm duh? Did anyone think it wouldnt have one?

And I will be the first in line to get it. It should have came out with retina in the first place.

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You'll always have to wait to the 3rd generation of an Apple product to get what you should have gotten in the first place. It's just the standard Apple Money Milking Process, no matter what technical excuses people always try to seek in order to justify their dear company's actions.

irDigital0l said:

Even though its DigitTimes...

How could the iPad mini not have a retina display? Its literally the only it needs to become an amazing device.

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Retina means higher price and less battery life. As small as it is, the pixel density is just fine.

What the Mini needs is a CPU upgrade and a price drop. If they started at $250 I'd have bought six of them as xmas presents for the kids.

Nuts to that, I'm waiting for 17th gen with the holographic display; it "will be the best iPad mini [they] ever made".

Hastings101 said:

I'm going to fly to California and slap Tim Cook if he calls the iPad Mini with a "retina display" revolutionary. The original product should have had one.

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That's Resolutionary Bro.

mantan said:

Just like they a lot of folks around here mocked the idea of a smaller tablet and now say 'it's the perfect size'.....

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How do you know it's the same people? By tracking usernames?

Oh, you were just guessing to make your point seem valid. Gotcha.

saud0488 said:

A lack of one still hasn't bothered me. If anything it's better w/o one since it doesn't drain a gigantic battery which would take an eternity to charge. A la iPad 3/4

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I use my iPad 3 all the time I probably charge it every other day. Probably the most foolish thing I heard all day that its better without retina lol

One LED light bar is really starting to ask for uneven backlighting, it is very hard to evenly diffuse light from one side of the screen all the way across the screen. I can't image an LED light bar adds any significant amount of weight.

iapplelove said:

I use my iPad 3 all the time I probably charge it every other day. Probably the most foolish thing I heard all day that its better without retina lol

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It's just a justification of their purchase. Some people want the others to think that they bought the iPad mini out of very objective measurable rational reasons. While in fact, a lot of purchase are out of impulse and subjective desire. That's human nature and there isn't any problem with it.

So when people ask me why I purchased XYZ product, I just answer "yes, because I like it"
"Oh you seem to really like company ABC's products!"
"Yes."

At the same time making it thicker and heavier, which will make it much less useful, not to mention we will have to hear complaining from the bloggers and trolls for months after.

"If you don't cannibalize off yourself, someone else will". - Steve Jobs

helluin said:

Retina means higher price and less battery life. As small as it is, the pixel density is just fine.

What the Mini needs is a CPU upgrade and a price drop. If they started at $250 I'd have bought six of them as xmas presents for the kids.

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Which meant that the iPhone 4 and iPad 3 should have been more expensive than their previous models and had less battery.

This hasn't been the case in the past...what makes you think its going to happen now?

There were a ton of rumors suggesting that the iPad 3 would be priced like $70 more and that never came true.

helluin said:

Retina means higher price and less battery life. As small as it is, the pixel density is just fine.

What the Mini needs is a CPU upgrade and a price drop. If they started at $250 I'd have bought six of them as xmas presents for the kids.

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If they started at $49.99 I would've bought 500 of them. What's the point.

Digitimes: "Throwing stuff against the wall and seeing what sticks since 1998."

iapplelove said:

I use my iPad 3 all the time I probably charge it every other day. Probably the most foolish thing I heard all day that its better without retina lol

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Foolish? Please. The retina display is horrible for battery life. On top of that the battery is gigantic and takes forever to charge when compared to 2 and mini. I had an iPad 3. Went back to 2 because for long plane rides the battery was MUCH better.

The 3 is better for looking at pictures (which I do maybe .5% of the time I'm using it, if that) or staring at the higher res icons....I guess.

helluin said:

Retina means higher price and less battery life. As small as it is, the pixel density is just fine.

What the Mini needs is a CPU upgrade and a price drop. If they started at $250 I'd have bought six of them as xmas presents for the kids.

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Justification again. Who tells you that retina means higher price? And less battery life? It depends on whether there will be technology that reduce the power usage of the screen.

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saud0488 said:

Foolish? Please. The retina display is horrible for battery life. On top of that the battery is gigantic and takes forever to charge when compared to 2 and mini. I had an iPad 3. Went back to 2 because for long plane rides the battery was MUCH better.

The 3 is better for looking at pictures (which I do maybe .5% of the time I'm using it, if that) or staring at the higher res icons....I guess.

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The iPad 4 also has the same retina display but even better battery life than the 3. It's because the new CPU architecture (32nm Apple Swift instead of 45nm Cortex A9) that saves a lot of power. My personal experience is that iPad 4 has about 1/3 to 1/2 more battery life than the 3. Anandtech / Ars technica have some more objective test showing similar results. Also, with Apple's new 12W adapter charging is much faster now.

So "battery life" depends on a lot of factors, it's not just the screen. Charging speed is slow? Just give it a more powerful adapter.

Problem solved. It all depends on the advancement of technology! Your computer monitor may use a lot more power than your iPad despite having only half or 1/4 of the resolution.

bwillwall said:

If anything it's better? They kept the battery life of the 3rd and 4th gens. How is non retina better?

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Because non retina doesn't heavily tax the battery. It's two fold. The battery doesn't need to be as big, thus it takes less time to charge. Secondly, the lack of retina makes better use of the smaller battery. The difference is like night and day. I love my mini. It's excellent to type on and an awesome size with great battery performance.

I don't get the big deal behind retina. When I got my iPad 3 on launch day I was extremely underwhelmed. A trip to my local apple store to compare left me even more underwhelmed. Everyone was expecting a jump from 3g/3gs to iPhone 4. It wasn't NEARLY that. On top of that, I was expecting iPad 1/2 battery performance, which it also wasn't. I'm wondering how those of you who claim to "need" retina fare with your old macbooks. I don't know anyone with a retina macbook (mostly since it's pointless) yet so many of you claim that you could never "downgrade" to the iPad mini.

helluin said:

Retina means higher price and less battery life. As small as it is, the pixel density is just fine.

What the Mini needs is a CPU upgrade and a price drop. If they started at $250 I'd have bought six of them as xmas presents for the kids.

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You have 6 kids ! ! !

Didn't you look at the math ? The world is coming to an end buddy, go ahead and get those toys. They really don't have long to play with them.


2036 - The world can not make it past that year with our population growth, climate change, food shortages and resource deficiency.

Oh boy, I want to add to the discourse!!! Duh Macrumors!!! Who writes these things anyway?!?!?!? OMG!!!!!! We all knew this was coming!!!!! LOLOLOL!!!!!

/sarcasm

In all reality, they had to leave something out to make the next model compelling for buyers. It already has the lightning connector and a FFC, really all there is to do at this point is add the retina display and of course bump the hardware specs yearly as they have always done. I am mostly interested in the price point. At $325 it is already competitive, but I think getting it to the $299 mark would be even better. But let's face it' they aren;t exactly having trouble moving these things, so we likely won't see a price drop.

yeah should have been these way with the OG mini.

haruhiko said:

Justification again. Who tells you that retina means higher price? And less battery life? It depends on whether there will be technology that reduce the power usage of the screen.

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The iPad 4 also has the same retina display but even better battery life than the 3. It's because the new CPU architecture (32nm Apple Swift instead of 45nm Cortex A9) saves a lot of power. My own personal experience is that iPad 4 has about 1/3 to 1/2 more battery life than the 3. Anandtech / Ars technica have some more objective test showing similar results. Also, with Apple's new 12W adapter charging is much faster now.

So "battery life" depends on a lot of factors, it's not just the screen. Charging speed is slow? Just give it a more powerful adapter.

Problem solved. It all depends on the advancement of technology! Your computer monitor may use a lot more power than your iPad despite having only half or 1/4 of the resolution.

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I'd rather wait until apple perfects, or even improves, their diet retina on the ipad before making the jump back. 10w should be plenty. And there's conflicting reports of it even being able to utilize anything more. Yeah but with my computer monitor I don't have to worry about it's battery.


Besides, I'm too hooked to the size of the mini to go back to the regular iPad.

Next GS4 and iphone are probably going to be faster as well with enhancements. I also think the PS4 and the XBOX 720 will be better than their predecessors.

Might be off, we will see though.

I don't think an iPad mini will be a viable option for me until the third generation. The main thing I want is a retina display. The second thing I want is fluid performance. I have a third gen iPad and whenever doing anything on it, it is soooooo laggy. Early Android laggy. And it gets even worse when I get a banner notification.

The next gen iPad mini will have an A6, which has about the same GPU power as the A5X in the third gen iPad. So if the second gen has a retina display, it will be just as laggy. Third gen will be where the user experience is up to par IMO.

Wow No its going to get bigger. DuHHHHH its going to have a retina

I WANT it to be the next one (with a 128 GB option too), but I predict the one after that. Cost and battery life (vs. weight/thickness) are key to this product, and even with a high-end model added while the low-end stays non-retina, I don’t see an easy fix for the battery issue. Feels like an 18-month problem to me. But who knows?

strausd said:

I don't think an iPad mini will be a viable option for me until the third generation. The main thing I want is a retina display. The second thing I want is fluid performance. I have a third gen iPad and whenever doing anything on it, it is soooooo laggy. Early Android laggy. And it gets even worse when I get a banner notification.

The next gen iPad mini will have an A6, which has about the same GPU power as the A5X in the third gen iPad. So if the second gen has a retina display, it will be just as laggy. Third gen will be where the user experience is up to par IMO.

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Weird. I have an iPad 2 and only once in a blue moon does it feel laggy to me (occasionally when I start to type in a just-launched app). I’m sure I’d love an iPad 3! I really feel no need to upgrade other than wanting a retina display and more storage for my games and media. (And maybe a reduction in size... I do like that Mini.)

But I too want more speed than the current Mini before I replace my (very similar) iPad 2. So yes, that, plus whatever added speed they can cram in, plus a 128 GB model please