Ive been Apples biggest fan of the original mini mainly cause I truly do believe its the perfect size and the most portable tablet today. Ive been looking forward to the rminis release for some time now, primarily for the retina, only to be in shock when I found out that Apple isnt sliding this into the original minis pricing, but $90CDN more! GREEDY!
I paid $330CDN for my mini the week it came in 2012. Best Buy here is giving gift cards for your ipads and for my 16GB mini, they offered me $210CDN, which I think is more than fair. But no, having to pay an extra $90 on top of the $330 for a new one, that is just wrong. So essentially it would cost me $230 with tax to upgrade to the rmini.
Now you tell me what is wrong with this pricing. $330CDN vs $420CDN for the 1st and 2nd gen minis in Canada is a complete joke. Thats 21% more for one gen upgrade?
Now factor in that this week, the 16GB Air was $20 off, making it $499, which made it only $80 more than the 16GB rmini. I compared the two and for $80 more, the Air was a much better value and showed just how overpriced the rmini is. Really its a no brainer. Only $80 to go from the rmini to the Air I think is a steal.
If Apple wants to jack up the price, the very least they could have done was upgrade the ram to 2GB, then i would see the value. I wont support this business practice as I believe its very greedy and criminal. But Apple doesnt care because people will still buy it, so you know whats going to happen next time? Apple will make this a permanent trend.
I would make a one time exception if the new screen blew me away, but unfortunately it didnt. When I first saw the rmini, it was a complete dissapointment on so many levels. I was expecting to be wowed like I was with the 3rd gen over the 2nd gen ipad.
Aside from the infamous yellowing and screen retention (what is this a plasma?), the improvement is very minimul to describe it generously. Screen retention? Gammut problems? Seriously Apple, is this 2001? I put my mini and rmini side by side viewing the exact same text content, and honestly...the only times where you can notice the rminis extra clarity is in portrait mode with super tiny text. View in landscape and its not nearly as apparent. I have very good vision, not 20/20 but very very close to it.
I did the retention checkerboard test on my rmini and what do you know, I have retention. It takes a good 2 minutes for it to go away with testing done with 35% brighness.
Icons, menu fonts and text are a tiny bit crisper by the eye on the rmini, but cmon....$230 for this? $100 i would pay yes, $150 maybe, but $230 is a straight out fleecing. This screen just doesnt wow me like the normal size ipad did when it had retina put in. If you are going to jack up the price, at the very least dont cheap out on the parts. Why did Apple put noticably lower grade screens, speakers, in this gen rmini?
I understand the markup on the original mini wasnt all that high from what I was told compared to the full size ipads. Was the rmini some kind of rebound job? I will say one thing, I also picked up an Air and now that screen floored me and destroys the rminis. Its not even close. Now this is how the minis screen should look. The clarity is unreal on the air. You really notice it with the added screen size. I just dont think with a 7" tab, that you get the maximum benefits from retina. Many reviews have said it that the Air has a much better screen and that the rmini screen didnt wow them.
http://news.idg.no/cw/art.cfm?id=955A74AD-ABC4-7C10-9A43049DA58EC0C2
The rminis screen improvement over the mini is so miniscule, that even though i much prefer the size of the mini, Im leaning more towards converting to the Air as my ipad and no longer supporting the mini, until Apple puts a high quality screen in there and not something manufactured at Dollarama. I dont want to leave the mini because I truly do believe its the best size tablet today for comfort and portability, but the rmini screen is such a dissapointment and for $230 you might as well go play Blackjack at your casino cause you have a better shot there hitting the jackpot than with the rmini.
Honestly, its nice to have the A7 in there, but unless you are running 64bit powerhouse games than its really just not needed right now. By the time it will be needed and put to use, 3rd gen mini with 2gb ram will be out. People can say what they want about the A7 quad core CPU, but the fact is, its not needed right now cause its untapped deadweight.
Speaking of weight, the added weight on the rmini is really unacceptable. The thing is now a brick. My air weighs the same and the weight distribution on the Air is much more balanced in the hands. The mini is so heavy compared to the mini. What a big dissapointment.
I wont even get into how bad the speakers sound. Apple calls these speakers? Really? For a $420 device, you wouldnt expect to have 99 cent speakers put in them. They are just horrid. I just dont know what Apple was thinking with the rmini, but to me it seems like a rushed and very quickly thought out release. Just seems like not much thought was put in to the rmini and they just mocked up all the details over a 30min lunch break.
I dont know what to do. I love the mini but after using the Air, i cant see myself going back to my 1st gen mini. It is night and day difference. I might convert to the Air but I will really miss the size of the mini.
