iPad mini For those with the mini 1 ...

[akdj]

I don't know, my dad plays so much that he always has reward points but they expire at the end of the year, which is why December always has the most "premium" reward products.

My mom is currently using a crappy 2012 Nexus 7 and I know she wants a mini herself so maybe I should just let her use the mini and she'll give the Nexus to my dad who's a big Apple boycotter.

That's funny---your father being an Apple 'boycotter'
Tougher call now that we know what's on the table as far as models and pricing are concerned....maybe your mom and you could 'split' on the models you'd each like? Let her get the 'free' 16GB mini....and possibly 50% of the purchase of your model of choice could be handled by mom? If she wants one, knows you'd like one....a little negotiation may be in order...

I guess I'm in the minority here but I found the iPad mini screen to be significantly inferior to the Retina model.

I still owned one up until a few days ago but I always disliked the screen, particularily when I was using it to read; text was pixelated, undefined, and soft.

Contrast and color gamut were also lower than my iPad 4.

With a Retina display most likely for the new iteration, Apple will have the mini perfected.

I don't think you're in the minority by any means...other than using the A5 processor (which works fine and fluently with the resolution on the original), the number one complaint by everyone has been the display. I bought it because I had a pretty wicked shoulder surgery exactly a year ago today. Full tear rotator cuff, SLAP repair (labrum) and a SAD (decompression of a bursa sack for lack of better definition)....and what was supposed to be 2.5 hours, I ended up under for almost 7...it was a helluva recovery....and I honestly could NOT hold the big one. The mini was a blessing. I use Mercury as my browser, it allows you to upscale (and remember) your text for each site....remembering it's size when you return. I also own the iPad 4 and know exactly what you're talking about. The differences in resolution and sharpness is like night and day. That said...the Mini (original), for all of it's 'small' faults is an incredible device. Especially at $329 with the half million optimized apps for it. Such can't be said for the competition yet...tablet experience on Android can be dismal, even with good hardware (I've owned both Nex 7s, tried the Nex 10 and still have a Xoom). Most of the software/apps in the App Store for the iPad look like a tablet app....and run extremely well, very fluid on A5 devices....for now.

I'm sure this is likely to change as time moves forward...but as Apple is still selling the 4s and iPad 2, there are some legs to the A5. That's a good thing. In spite of a few others having 'issues' with iOS7 on their 'Mini' (original), mine's been as solid, fluent and glitch free as any of my devices...my wife has the iPhone 5---perfect, my son, the iPod Touch 5th gen, works great! We haven't updated her iPad 2---but have the iPad 4s and the Mini (we use iPads for our business as well)....and I have the iPhone 5s. That's the only device I've seen a rare, weird glitch now and then (reboots for no reason, emailing from Pages did the BSOD, but these have been random....and maybe a half dozen times since launch...hopes are the 3 .0X updates have addressed these challenges...as well as the updating of apps to 64bit capability through Xcode 5 by developers....the instabilities cease pretty soon. I'm sure that's the number one 'coding' priority right now as they get ready to drop the Air and rMini. Both A7/64bit devices.

Uhoh. New dilemma. Turns out my dad has enough points for the 16 GB cellular version.

32 GB wifi or 16 GB cellular?

I mentioned it earlier....couldn't your mother get by with less storage? With the cloud storage (5GB), iTunes Match, etc....I'm assuming she's not going to be a huge Infinity Blade player...nor the big EA games, RPGs, etc. Magazines in Newsstand tend to be large files (on some rags)----but books, music, etc take very little room up. For you--- I would say @ least 32GB, if you were having issues with your iPhone's 16GB of storage. As you said, there are large apps, mags, videos, music collections, and the video @ 1080p takes up about 10GB/Hour of footage I believe, 8mpxl shots aren't small....nor are the 25+mpxl panoramas.

Good Luck! It's going to be a fun couple of months as an Apple fan!

J

 

[Jman13]

If I were buying right now, I'd get the Retina, simply because not only do you get the better screen, but you get a SIGNIFICANTLY faster device as well.

That said, I have an original mini and I will not be upgrading. The screen is fine for me right now. It's not as good as the retina screens, but it's not bad either. I don't have any issues with it, and it would cost me over $200 to do an upgrade, so not worth it right now. I will probably upgrade to next year's mini, though.

 

[Poisonivy326]

Well the ipad mini courtesy casino points arrived yesterday. I decided to try it out to decide whether I could live with it. And ... I love it! Yeah the screen resolution is crappy but I've played with the ipad mini retina and the screen is so small on most webpages you do have to zoom anyway. I love how light it is and the great battery. So ... for now, I'm very happy with the ipad mini 1.

 

[nebrot]

We sold our iPad 4 to get the Air and I would say it was definately worth it, since its much lighter and easier to use. However, I will hold on to my mini 1st gen, since I could not convince myself to upgrade to the retina. Why? No idea really, but I felt the retina mini was a little heavier (sounds strange, but was my feeling) and maybe I was affected by all the (bad) talk about the color saturation of the mini. For me my mini does what it should and am still happy with it. But to be honest, this is on the assumption when you already own a mini, if I had to purchase one as my first device I would probably go for the new rmini. It is up to you in the end to decide, if you get a cool offer then the 1st ten mini is great, but the new rmini would probably be the better choice when finance allows for it to buy.

 

[oVerboost]

For those with the mini 1 ...

I've just bought myself a new space grey mini 1, it's great! I bought an air on launch day, and it was great however the size was still too big for me personally, reading in bed for example still wasn't really a one handed affair, so I returned it.

Yesterday in town whilst doing some last minute Xmas shopping I saw that the iPad mini 1 was in the sale (PC World UK) for just £219, so after playing around in store I figured it was a good deal. Yes the display is not retina but it's more than good enough IMO. My eyesight is far from great, but I have no problems reading anything and I'm getting better at typing on it too lol, compared to on my iPhone 5s.

If you can get a good enough deal on a mini 1 then I'd recommend it it to anyone!

Plus the fact that it's officially the thinnest iPad ever, still, and unlikely to be beaten in that respect anytime soon

 

[CEmajr]

If I were buying right now, I'd get the Retina, simply because not only do you get the better screen, but you get a SIGNIFICANTLY faster device as well.

That said, I have an original mini and I will not be upgrading. The screen is fine for me right now. It's not as good as the retina screens, but it's not bad either. I don't have any issues with it, and it would cost me over $200 to do an upgrade, so not worth it right now. I will probably upgrade to next year's mini, though.

I'm the same way. Actually I bought my Mini back in late September even though I knew a Retina one was coming. I'm fine with the lower resolution for now because it would cost so much to upgrade. If Apple had priced the Retina at the same as the old Mini's original price then I probably would've upgraded. I'll probably get the next Mini in 2014 though.