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... and decided to use a screen that is obsolete (for multiple generations now on its iPad and iPhone). And it charged more than its competition for the now obsolete product.. .

You have a very odd understanding of the word "obsolete". I don't think it means what you think it means.
 
Ouch. Going for the jugular. Apple should have priced it lower to kill the competition. Now it just becomes a slugfest.

Not Apple's style. Particularly since the only advantage to playing loss leader games with your hardware is because you have a snowballs chance of making it up else where. But since they don't charge for iOS and what they make with their 30% basically covers the costs of the servers etc, where would they make up the loss. Amazon at least has their books, DVDs, etc

Besides it's more fun for Apple when Amazon announces they sold 5 million Kindles (across the lineup) in a quarter and then Apple announces they sold 5 million iPads in one weekend.
 
Not a single false word in that Ad.
The Fire HD is very impressive.

to Gizmodo sure. And if their opinion means something to you then that matters.

But to many Gizmodo is the site that paid for stolen goods etc. and thus many folks couldn't give a fig what they think because their rep is tainted.

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That's not true. Heck the first movie is just compared (Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter) is $2 cheaper to buy on Amazon

I found it on Amazon to buy for $14.99, same as iTunes.

But what I can't find any mention of resolution on Amazon other than 720p. the iTunes I can confirm is available to me in 1080, 720, etc.
 
It decided to rely on the fanaticism of its customers (as evidenced by the "defend it to the death" attitude on this thread),
Just as much as Amazon and Google rely on the fanaticism of its customers to bolster its sales. The platform trolls are equally entrenched.
and decided to use a screen that is obsolete (for multiple generations now on its iPad and iPhone).
There is nothing obsolete about the screen. Even the iPad 2 screen outperforms the 7" tablets in most measures, and the iPad mini's is better than that. Were the lower-resolution phones and tablets unusable after the iPhone 4 came out? Of course not.
And it charged more than its competition
When the competition is willing to take a loss, that's a no-brainer. Apple was never going to get into the price wars, because there's no way for them to win.

They took the iPad 2, which is still a competent performer at a reasonable cost, and then they made a series of improvements to it and dropped the price $70. That's pretty big. If you were hoping for a cheaper, smaller iPad, you got it.

If you were hoping for a $200 iPad that Apple would sell at an even steeper loss than the Nexus/Fire/Nook, you were fooling yourself.
 
You have a very odd understanding of the word "obsolete". I don't think it means what you think it means.

Here's the definition I'm using. I don't think you've ever seen the definition of the word:

of a discarded or outmoded type; out of date:

When the device with a smaller screen than this one is on its third generation of a better display, and the device with a larger screen than this one is on its second generation of a better display, the new device is now out of date.

But relax, I was actually paying a compliment to the company for understanding its customer base and knowing what it can get away with. Incidentally, I love and own almost every Apple product. I just believe that if people buy these out of date products in large quantities, it will reinforce Apple's decision to keep making out of date products.
 
Here's the definition I'm using. I don't think you've ever seen the definition of the word:

of a discarded or outmoded type; out of date:

When the device with a smaller screen than this one is on its third generation of a better display, and the device with a larger screen than this one is on its second generation of a better display, the new device is now out of date.

But relax, I was actually paying a compliment to the company for understanding its customer base and knowing what it can get away with. Incidentally, I love and own almost every Apple product. I just believe that if people buy these out of date products in large quantities, it will reinforce Apple's decision to keep making out of date products.

The more common definition is "no longer in use" which obviously doesn't apply here. Just because the processor is two years old and there are newer versions doesn't make the A5 obsolete. It is obviously very much in use and getting the job done.

And I'm not sure the "display generation" is applicable either. Resolution is but one of many specs that determine visual quality and the display on the mini is obviously new at 7,85". Resolution was kept at 1024x768 for a very specific reason that had nothing to do with obsolescence.

Apple just released an ipad that weighs half as much as the previous version that our office the box runs 275000 apps. That was genius.
 
The saying "caveat emptor" (buyer beware) was definitely made for people whose purchases are purely price-driven.

Me, I'll take the ecosystem behind the mini.

Amazon makes enough off me in other ways (Kindle app on all my devices means I buy their ebooks, especially if I feel like using one on a laptop, which I often enough do).
 
When the device with a smaller screen than this one is on its third generation of a better display, and the device with a larger screen than this one is on its second generation of a better display, the new device is now out of date.
There is nothing out of date about the iPad mini's LCD. The iPad mini and the iPhone 5 share several of the same, very current display and touchscreen technologies. In fact, it remains to be seen whether the iPad 4 actually contains a different or upgraded panel than the iPad 3, so it may be older technology in several respects.

Pixel density is just one attribute of an LCD, just as the pixel count in a digital camera is just one factor into its overall quality. You could go back and dust off some ancient display technology and shrink it down into a high-ppi display that would be far more obsolete than anything currently on the market.

The words you seem to be looking for are that the iPad mini's display is not competitive in pixel density when compared to the likes of the Kindle Fire. That's true, but nowhere near equivalent to being obsolete.
 
Gloves are off, competition will be fierce. As I've said on here before, competition is a good thing for us a consumers.

I wonder what ads Samsung and Google will pull out. Slightly off topic, but the ad company Samsung hired is KILLING it right now. The new 'work trip' spot they have right now is brilliant. (and I have way more Apple stuff than Samsung stuff. Of course I always thought the 'I'm a Mac' spots were phenomenal even though I owned a PC)
 
to Gizmodo sure. And if their opinion means something to you then that matters.

But to many Gizmodo is the site that paid for stolen goods etc. and thus many folks couldn't give a fig what they think because their rep is tainted.

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What a silly thing to hold against them. Should we all stop buying Apple products since they use slave labor?
 
Actually, Apple Maps already got me lost once so I'd rather not have any than to have that crap...

I have used the Apple Maps around the NYC area (where I live) and during a weeklong visit to San Francisco and did not get lost either time using it.
(Now someone will I am sure point out that San Fran is basically Apple's backyard OF COURSE they made sure the maps and directions there worked!!!)
 

Thanks Amazon for spanking Apple's ass for not including the retina display with the iPad mini's price. ;)

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So we care about HD resolution on a 7" display? Really? Put a movie on each and hold it away from your face at a normal distance and tell me they won't look "close enough". I mean c'mon...the iPad mini isn't going to look like a TV from the 80's.

Can the Kindle HD Airplay 1080p to my 46" HDTV? Because my iPad mini can.

Amazon is doing the only thing they can....reverting to what the PC industry has done for years.....display raw specs and numbers, regardless of whether the average person really cares.

-Kevin
But you care about HD resolution on a 3.5" display then 4" display.
 
But you care about HD resolution on a 3.5" display then 4" display.

Exactly. You've got apple marketing all their products with their rich beautiful retina display and all of a sudden they release this thing and retina is no longer important or useful to the buyer.
 
But you care about HD resolution on a 3.5" display then 4" display.
For movies? No. Full HD on a phone or even a small tablet isn't really a big deal.

What makes high resolutions important on a <5" screen is that you can render text much more smoothly and that extra definition makes it easier to use at smaller sizes. Once you start increasing the distance from your eyes, and therefore increasing text size on the screen, it starts to matter less. That's the main reason there's a big group of people who still don't really see what the big deal is about a retina iPad.

I like my Kindle, but for videos, I've never seen a major difference between it and an iPad 2. I suspect that when I go check out the mini in stores, that will be true of it, too. I'm curious to see whether the text suffers. The iPad 2 is just a touch too blocky for me for reading, so I'm thinking the improvement of the mini will probably serve it just fine.
 
What is not mentioned, is the user experience, the OS responsiveness, the number of apps available, and the quality of apps.

Yes, apple should add "user experience" as one of the reasons why the tablet is overpriced. That'll make up for the inadequate hardware.
 
$100 more upfront for a much better OS, app selection, and aluminum unibody design is worth it to be honest. I went with the iPad 4 myself, but I would never consider all these cheap ass Android based tablets quality products or better than the iPad mini overall.
 
To be fair these are both media devices and IMO need at least 32 GB of memory so there is really a $180 difference in cost - $250 for a 32 GB Kindle Fire HD and $429 for a 32 GB iPad Mini.

Note - it costs Apple $6.40 for 16 GB of memory - see report issued in September 2012, by RBC Capital Markets which points out that the cost to device makers of flash memory used in tablets has declined 46% since the beginning of the year. Doug Freedman, the analyst at RBC who wrote the report, points out that while the cost of the chips has fallen, the final cost to the consumer has barely decreased at all. The report states that Apple’s memory costs is about 40 cents a gigabyte, so 16GB costs Apple about $6.40
 
Yes, apple should add "user experience" as one of the reasons why the tablet is overpriced. That'll make up for the inadequate hardware.


You've seen benchmarks? Because that's a ridiculous claim to make, otherwise. I also like how every point but one, in Amazon's graphic, is saying the exact same thing, and the stereo one is just idiotic.
 
I agree that I expected a higher resolution display however, 163PPI is hardy "low resolution". The no HD movies or TV quip is also very misleading. While the screen isn't full HD, movies and TV shows are downloaded in HD and scaled to fit the screen. The iPad mini also has two distinct speaker holes on the bottom. So unless one is fake, Amazon is also wrong about that. Amazon also conveniently left out that the iPad mini has MIMO wireless.

About the price difference, take away the "Special Offers"(advertisements), add a wall charger(included with the iPad), and the price climbs up to $233.99. That leaves you with a $95.01 difference between the Kindle HD and the iPad mini.
 
Specs mean little to me..
I am sticking with the mini mainly for iOS + apple build quality (and resale!)
 
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