I'll reverse your train of thought.
What does the Mini offer you feature wise over the 3 and 4? Zero
Exactly the point.
Size and weight? That wasn't an issue before, if it was then why did people keep those to begin with if that was such a big deal?
What are you talking about?
The screen isn't as good, the processor isn't as good, I rather watch a movie or play games on the 3 or 4, I rather web browse on those rather than the Mini. Should I continue?????
The processor is just as good or better than the iPad 3.
Your preference for size is the reason both are offered. That one is smaller and one is larger is the point of having two devices, but the iPad mini lacks no features nor contains any "dated" technology. It has no retina display; that's the price you pay for paying $170 less and getting a smaller, thinner, lighter package.
But you're not getting something that's old or limiting.
I own an iPad 2 which I'm still happily using, but if it were released as a new product alongside the iPad 4 I would consider it dated and somewhat deficient when compared to the iPad 4.
If the iPad 2 and iPad 4 were released initially at the same time, then by definition one could not be dated.
The whole point is that some people are using "dated" as some sort of fictionalized code to paint the iPad mini as a recycled product rather than a new, miniaturized version of something else. How long does it take for a notebook to catch up to a desktop's performance? 3 years? How long does it take for an ultrabook to catch up to performance notebooks? It hasn't happened yet.
The Nexus 7's Tegra 3 SOC draws on the exact same technological foundation as the A5. Is it "dated", too?
Then again, if I had never driven a Camaro I wouldn't necessarily consider a Chevy Cobalt to be dated or deficient.
Exactly the problem. Neither one is dated: some parts of the 2012 Camaro are much older designs than some parts on the 2012 Cruze and vice versa. Neither one is deficient: a Cruze isn't supposed to be a Camaro and no one expects it to be.
You can look at it rather simply: the day before the launch of the iPad mini and the iPad 4, you had the iPad 2 and the iPad 3. The only meaningful difference between the two products was the display. Performance was essentially identical between the two (iPad 2 actually ran a little faster, but occasionally the added RAM of the iPad 3 would give it an edge in non-graphics intensive tasks).
Then the next day, the iPad 2 got upgraded: better display, smaller, lighter design, new wifi/cellular/camera/audio/touchscreen hardware. It also got $70 cheaper.
The iPad 3 got upgraded, too, because the display alone isn't enough to justify the $170 difference: more powerful SOC and expanded LTE. From a hardware perspective based on the average age of parts, the iPad mini is actually the newer device, but that is still a stupid metric to use in the first place.
Is the Nexus 7 dated or deficient because the Nexus 10 is around? Of course not.
