@eltoslightfoot, when the iPad mini2 and iPad Air had only 1 GB RAM, I found that Safari kept having to reload pages--VERY annoying to say the least. At that time, a number of sites alleged that the reason for this was the paltry 1 GB RAM. I don't know for sure if that's the case, but I do know that the same behavior rarely happens on my 12.9 IPP. I'm thinking this is because the IPP has 4 GB RAM.
So, now that I know the 9.7 inch IPP has only 2 GB RAM (see article on MacRumors homepage), I have zero interest in it. I can envision a number of situations in which the paltry amount of RAM could be a real impediment--particularly when running two apps side-by-side, which I LOVE to do on my 12.9 IPP.