iPad mini I just returned my Mini and here is why

[panzer06]

Many of the folks here are forgetting the iPad mini is really positioned to those folks who have never owned an iPad. My business partner loves the new mini and has nothing but praise for it. Now she wants to ditch her Android phone for a used 4s.

The screen is only weak if you've lived on the iPad 3 and are thinking of downsizing. New users think the mini is awesome.

Cheers,

 

[slffl]

I so wanted to love the Mini. I pictured myself casually pulling the mini out of a coat pocket at some coffee bar and surfing the s, more ram, and if you couldn't fit it in the size you released then you shouldn't have released it, Steve would not have...

OMG you people just don't get it! Would you rather have a heavier, thicker, ipad mini with retina??? Or the thinnest and lightest 7 inch tablet? I want the latter.

Of course the perfect tablet will always be retina display at non-retina display size and weight, but it's not here yet. Until then stop wasting your life complaining.

 

[fertilized-egg]

I only said it because you brought up engineering. It is a technical barrier, Apple buys components, not designs them. If nobody has a screen like this, Apple can't buy it.

You're absolutely right. For the umpteenth time, where is this amazing 300 DPI+ Retina-quality display used in another small tablet? You cannot find one because it's very hard to make.

Before someone wonders why the bigger iPads have it, the bigger iPads use a different screen transistor technology(a-SI) which is thicker and uses far more electricity than the technology used in the iPhone display(LTPS). And the technology used in the iPhone display is very expensive to make in a larger size. We're in the transition period until the illusive IGZO technology is ready or they figure out how to make LTPS cheaper for large displays.

 

[Max(IT)]

Bottom line people is that you are all crying over the fact that the iPad mini does not have retina. There is NOTHING wrong with the display. apple will no doubt add retina next year or the following year. I absolutely love the mini and quite frankly after upgrading from the iPad 1 to the iPad 3 I couldn't tell the difference in the retina display vs the iPad. Actually took both to my local Apple store to make sure the iPad 3 was actually an iPad 3 over the 2. I won the iPad 3, and was told it was a 3, but not seeing that much of a difference between the iPad 1's screen I had to be sure it wan't a 2 because if I recall they really didn't change the outer packaging.

Just my rant. Enjoy your iPad mini's, the screen is really quite remarkable.

I absolutely agree with you

 

[DarwinOSX]

I'm really tired of people making idiotic comments about what Steve would have done.

I so wanted to love the Mini. I pictured myself casually pulling the mini out of a coat pocket at some coffee bar and surfing the web or maybe playing some angry birds. In reality the mini is too big and I had all of the same problems toting it around that I did with the normal size iPad ***but that is Not why I returned it. The screen... well I can honestly say that not having the retina was not a huge deal at first... I am old my eyes aren't what they used to be... but it kept bothering me for some reason... oh yeah, no... I got it ... the price. The reason I buy the best is... to... get... the best and I feel that my MBP retina is hands down the best laptop out there, and I feel that if I called apple support they will have an answer for me ( a company so far that isn't trying to do more with less...) so why Apple did you cheap out on the mini? It could have been the best thing ever just like all of your other products and at the premium that I paid over it's competitors it should have been. It should have had a better screen, better camera that did at least what the iPhone 5 camera does, more ram, and if you couldn't fit it in the size you released then you shouldn't have released it, Steve would not have...

 

[AzN1337c0d3r]

Actually, in a sense it does, because in order to get the same brightness in the middle of the display on a much larger, edge-lit screen, you need to pump much more light in because there is a lot of loss in the light guides.

This is completely irrelevant. Modern day light-guides work by TIR and are pretty much 100% efficient. Here is a paper which I will quote below:

We have found experimentally that PMMA light guide solution offers the best efficiency due to almost zero losses by TIR.

******************************************************************************************

In other words, in order to get the same flux density on a bigger display, you need to pump proportionally more power into it.

This is exactly what I said is it not? 4 times the display surface area = 4 times the power, compensated by 4 times the volume of battery area.

----------

I only said it because you brought up engineering. It is a technical barrier, Apple buys components, not designs them. If nobody has a screen like this, Apple can't buy it. I'd like you to point out the component Apple could have bought instead for a retina mini display. Go ahead and find it, I'll wait here. But if you can't find it, don't claim it could have been done.

And before the iPad Mini came out, you couldn't find a 7.9-inch 1024x768 display either... was it impossible to make before 2012 too?

Are you really that dense? Apple doesn't just go to the component shopping mall and buy components. They have Apple engineers that work with engineers at the LCD manufacturers and together they design and manufacture a screen for Apple. If Apple needed a 7.9-inch Retina display, you bet they could make it.

It's not like Apple decided 1-week ago that "Oh, we'll build an iPad Mini and ask for 5 million screens from Samsung/LG/AUO and build a product with them".

Things are impossible until they are not.

 

[bcaslis]

...
Are you really that dense? Apple doesn't just go to the component shopping mall and buy components. They have Apple engineers that work with engineers at the LCD manufacturers and together they design and manufacture a screen for Apple. If Apple needed a 7.9-inch Retina display, you bet they could make it.

It's not like Apple decided 1-week ago that "Oh, we'll build an iPad Mini and ask for 5 million screens from Samsung/LG/AUO and build a product with them".

Things are impossible until they are not.

Must make you feel better to insult people. Of course Apple tells component manufacturers what they want. That doesn't make the components magically appear. Do something useful and stop acting like you know more about this than Apple does.

 

[AzN1337c0d3r]

Must make you feel better to insult people. Of course Apple tells component manufacturers what they want. That doesn't make the components magically appear. Do something useful and stop acting like you know more about this than Apple does.

Really? Need I say more?

Of course Apple tells component manufacturers what they want. That doesn't make the components magically appear.

Did anyone claim the components would magically appear? I believe I said that Apple and LCD engineers will design and manufacture them.

 

[jsmith1]

I so wanted to love the Mini. I pictured myself casually pulling the mini out of a coat pocket at some coffee bar and surfing the web or maybe playing some angry birds. In reality the mini is too big and I had all of the same problems toting it around that I did with the normal size iPad ***but that is Not why I returned it. The screen... well I can honestly say that not having the retina was not a huge deal at first... I am old my eyes aren't what they used to be... but it kept bothering me for some reason... oh yeah, no... I got it ... the price. The reason I buy the best is... to... get... the best and I feel that my MBP retina is hands down the best laptop out there, and I feel that if I called apple support they will have an answer for me ( a company so far that isn't trying to do more with less...) so why Apple did you cheap out on the mini? It could have been the best thing ever just like all of your other products and at the premium that I paid over it's competitors it should have been. It should have had a better screen, better camera that did at least what the iPhone 5 camera does, more ram, and if you couldn't fit it in the size you released then you shouldn't have released it, Steve would not have...

I did as well, having the iPad 3, it was just too big of a step backwards for me in many ways, no matter how hard I wanted it to work out, it just didn't. Sorry, but my money is more important to me, having the 4s as well I had to pass on iPhone 5 too....maybe next time.

 

[lianlua]

This is completely irrelevant. Modern day light-guides work by TIR and are pretty much 100% efficient.

No. TIR is not a technology or manufacturing method. It stands for "total internal reflection". What the paper claims is that a suitable substrate can capture light at angles causing total internal reflection with almost no losses in the substrate (PMMA in the cited case) contributing to nearly zero additional losses in the light guide media.

Overall efficiency, as noted in that paper, is 40-50%. That's very good, but nowhere near "100%" efficient. And again, in order to push 50% output out an extra inch or two, using the same number of LEDs, requires higher output on each LED, and the output increase requires an even higher power increase, because commercial LEDs are only about 70% efficient.

So if you need 40% more light output to hit the middle, you might need 45% more light output at the LED due to loss in the light guide, which is then about 53% more electricity consumed. It's not just 40% more light = 40% more power.

This is exactly what I said is it not? 4 times the display surface area = 4 times the power, compensated by 4 times the volume of battery area.

It's 4 times the surface area running at more like 5-5.5 times the power, compensated by the corresponding increase in battery volume depending on how much the rest of the system draws.

 

[AzN1337c0d3r]

No. TIR is not a technology or manufacturing method. It stands for "total internal reflection".

Did I claim otherwise? I'm well aware of what TIR is and optical physics that it implies.

What the paper claims is that a suitable substrate can capture light at angles causing total internal reflection with almost no losses in the substrate (PMMA in the cited case) contributing to nearly zero additional losses in the light guide media.

You say there are losses in the light-guide, I showed there is zero loss in the light-guide. Period. Don't confuse the issue of light transport efficiency with overall efficiency.

Overall efficiency, as noted in that paper, is 40-50%. That's very good, but nowhere near "100%" efficient. And again, in order to push 50% output out an extra inch or two, using the same number of LEDs, requires higher output on each LED, and the output increase requires an even higher power increase, because commercial LEDs are only about 70% efficient.

The bolded section is completely non-sequitir. If you double screen size you don't simply hold the number of LEDs constant.

So if you need 40% more light output to hit the middle, you might need 45% more light output at the LED due to loss in the light guide, which is then about 53% more electricity consumed. It's not just 40% more light = 40% more power.

TIR is basically 100% efficient. Why would you need 45% more power at the LED? We stream light across the Atlantic with little loss using TIR principle in optical fiber cables and that's THOUSANDS of miles. In your example, it should read more like:

So if you need 40% more light output to hit the middle, you might need 40.0001% more light output at the LED due to loss in the light guide, which is then about 40.001% more electricity consumed. It's not just 40% more light = 40% more power.

********************************************************************

Also note that numerous papers claim overall efficiency is a percentage which is a ratioless number! That means it is independent of screen size! Or any other unit of measurement for that matter. If the efficiency was based on distance, the units would look something like 50% loss per meter.

 

[lianlua]

Did I claim otherwise?

Perhaps not. Your phrasing was ambiguous.

You say there are losses in the light-guide, I showed there is zero loss in the light-guide.

No, you didn't. The paper states:

Coupling cavity mirror  91%  97% 
Mixing light guide output  75%  80% 
Mixing-to-main light guide coupling  70%  82% 
Efficiency backlight with single diffuser 40% 50%

Lines 2 and 3 are before and after the light guide. If there were "zero loss" in the light guide, those numbers would be identical. However, there is a 3-7% loss shown in those numbers as part of an overall power efficiency in the backlight of 40-50%.

No matter which way you slice it, the bigger you scale, the more power you have to dump in. It is nowhere even close to the 1:1 relationship you're claiming.

Also note that the overall efficiency is a percentage which is a ratioless number! That means it is independent of screen size!

There's no need for a ratio when the measurements are conducted over a fixed size (a 15" backlight with 43 LEDs in this particular case).

 

[hkfan24]

Too much technical nerd talk in here. There's no retina in the new mini. Move along. Come back to this debate when we see the specs for iPad mini 2. You guys are bickering over nonsense now when it's pretty much irrelevant since none of us work for Apple nor make their decisions.

 

[AzN1337c0d3r]

No, you didn't. The paper states:

Coupling cavity mirror  91%  97% 
Mixing light guide output  75%  80% 
Mixing-to-main light guide coupling  70%  82% 
Efficiency backlight with single diffuser 40% 50%

Lines 2 and 3 are before and after the light guide. If there were "zero loss" in the light guide, those numbers would be identical. However, there is a 3-7% loss shown in those numbers as part of an overall power efficiency in the backlight of 40-50%.

These are known as interface losses. That is, losses that happen when you go from one medium to another, they are not losses in the light-guide itself.

No matter which way you slice it, the bigger you scale, the more power you have to dump in. It is nowhere even close to the 1:1 relationship you're claiming.

The bolded part is obvious. No one is claiming otherwise. The underlined part however, is what is under contention, and you've yet to shown anything that supports your claim that it is not 1:1.

 

[lianlua]

The bolded section is completely non-sequitir. If you double screen size you don't simply hold the number of LEDs constant.

I'm not saying that you do necessarily. I'm saying that whether you add more LEDs or not, it takes proportionally more light to travel further into space. You can do it with higher-output LEDs, or you can do it with more LEDs if those LEDs are bright enough to project far enough.

TIR is basically 100% efficient. Why would you need 45% more power at the LED? We stream light across the Atlantic with little loss using TIR principle in optical fiber cables and that's THOUSANDS of miles.

Here's where your getting stuck: keeping light inside a cable is a totally different problem from a backlight, whose entire purpose is to emit light. Trying to send light out in a uniform way is much more challenging.

Don't change the quotes. Each stage introduces a loss. Larger screen areas are less efficient than smaller ones. That's a simple fact that you've reinforced well with your paper.

If you double the power for a display twice as large, you lose light at every step of the way and end up with a significantly dimmer display. You lose 30% at the LED, 50% through the backlight assembly, and a non-zero loss because of the increased circuitry running on the LCD itself (more pixels means more light-blocking circuit pathways to address them). Power consumption increases faster than area for this reason.

----------

These are known as interface losses. That is, losses that happen when you go from one medium to another, they are not losses in the light-guide itself.

They're a combination of both. No one is suggesting that the light guide media itself is "eating" a lot of light, but it is distributing some of it in undesired directions.

 

[ZBoater]

I think that the electrons caught in the positronic matrix are being accelerated to the speed of light causing a temporal rift and resulting in a paradox that is causing a tear in subspace, making the screen images not as sharp as they could be or once were. Just a thought.

 

[AzN1337c0d3r]

I'm not saying that you do necessarily. I'm saying that whether you add more LEDs or not, it takes proportionally more light to travel further into space. You can do it with higher-output LEDs, or you can do it with more LEDs if those LEDs are bright enough to project far enough.

I don't think you understand how light-guides and diffusers work in an LCD panel. The LEDs don't "project" anywhere, the light is fed into a light-guide, transported to key locations, and a diffuser spreads it out evenly from there. If we depended on the "projection" capabilities of the LED, we'd have severely unbalanced backlighting.

Here's where your getting stuck: keeping light inside a cable is a totally different problem from a backlight, whose entire purpose is to emit light. Trying to send light out in a uniform way is much more challenging.

My point was relating to light-guides ONLY, which is a completely analogous problem to optical fiber.

Each stage introduces a loss. Larger screen areas are less efficient than smaller ones. That's a simple fact that you've reinforced well with your paper.

Here comes the non-sequitir again. The question is: "Whether does the % light loss change with a function of the area?" The paper I linked completely does not address that, thus it has reinforced nothing. It does however address the problem with whether or not light-guides have losses (they do not).

If you double the power for a display twice as large, you lose light at every step of the way and end up with a significantly dimmer display. You lose 30% at the LED, 50% through the backlight assembly, and a non-zero loss because of the increased circuitry running on the LCD itself (more pixels means more light-blocking circuit pathways to address them). Power consumption increases faster than area for this reason.

Again, a non-sequitur. Let's put some concrete numbers on your example shall we?

Imagine you have a 1 sq in iPhone screen that requires 1W of power to hit a target brightness.

So basically you are saying the LED emits .7W (30% loss) of light. Then you are saying the backlight assembly will emit .35W (50% loss) of light.

The final brightness is then 0.35W/sq ft.

Now let's imagine you want iPad Mini screen which is 4 sq in. Since you have 4 times the power, you also are able to throw in 4 LEDs. Each LED emits .7W as before, totaling to 2.8W. Then the backlight assembly will have 50% loss as before, and bring you down to 1.4W of emitted light.

The final brightness is then again 0.35W/sq ft!

Again, the efficiency, if in %, does not matter.

----------

They're a combination of both. No one is suggesting that the light guide media itself is "eating" a lot of light, but it is distributing some of it in undesired directions.

No. It's not a "combination" of both. The ONLY losses are at the interface. Hence the name Total Internal Reflection.

 

[lianlua]

I don't think you understand how light-guides and diffusers work in an LCD panel. The LEDs don't "project" anywhere, the light is fed into a light-guide, transported to key locations, and a diffuser spreads it out evenly from there.

And in that process, light is lost. Look at that article and the measured output. Notice the uneven distribution of intensity? That's a result of loss due to imperfections in the backlight, namely in the ability of the light guide to deliver light from the edges in a perfect fashion.

If we depended on the "projection" capabilities of the LED, we'd have severely unbalanced backlighting.

We do and we do. Look at the variation. LEDs are driven at 4300 nits, delivering actual brightness of 3076-4132 nits on the display.

My point was relating to light-guides ONLY, which is a completely analogous problem to optical fiber.

With compounding errors abound. An LCD backlight is not like one, point-to-point fiber link with less than 0.1% loss. It's analogous to hundreds to thousands of them, only instead of being wrapped in nice little reflective jackets, they're etched onto an open face sheet of plastic.

The final brightness is then again 0.35W/sq ft!

You're conveniently leaving out the part about what that brightness level is and how consistent it is across the surface of the display, which are the only relevant concerns. Of course doubling power will result in the same wattage per unit of area, but you're not actually demonstrating the luminance of that power output. And you can't, because there's not enough information in your example to make any calculation.

The larger an LCD gets, the more light it blocks because of the greater number of traces physically obscuring the light, even if pixel density remains constant. The light guide is also impacted. The etched surface can only carry so much light so far. Having to transport light longer distances means more channels and reflective structures and more loss along the way. It also means more careful work in the channels closest to the LEDs to prevent excess leakage. All of this contributes to higher power consumption.

It's the same reasons, albeit on a smaller scale, why retina displays need so much more backlight power: it is harder to get the light where it needs to go the more you put between the LED and the measuring instrument.

In just one example, you can see that the relative power efficiency of the larger iPad displays cannot match that of the smaller iPhone. That's due to a combination of factors and is not chiefly because of the screen size difference, but it is part of the equation. This PDF contains a number of insights, such as that relative power consumption of TVs continues to grow as their size increases, offset partially but not completely by efficiency improvements in backlights. An edge-lit 46" TV had a typical 324 LEDs, with comparable 32" models at 100 LEDs, both typically 0.32W apiece. So that's roughly double the area (903 sq in vs. 437), but more than triple the power.

No. It's not a "combination" of both. The ONLY losses are at the interface. Hence the name Total Internal Reflection.

If each medium were capable of achieving 100% TIR, that would be true. But they're just not. PMMA is very good, with losses below 5%, but it's not zero.

Every material absorbs some light. We have no perfect reflectors or transmitters.

 

[aka777]

I have both the 4 and mini and it's a tough call. I really do enjoy the mini's size and weight but Retina for a device this small is a must. I have to zoom in on a range of sites to read the Full-site text clearly. Whereas the 4 displays them clearly.

I do think next years ipads will have everything we need. The mini will have the A6 with a retina and the ipad 4 will have the same light shell and smooth bezel of the mini. The ipad 2/3/4 feel like they are cutting into you, because they so sharp at the corners. Whereas, the mini is smooth, flat and looks fantastic.

Apple knows how to give you just enough, but leave that bit out, for you to come back for more with these things.

I do wish the ipad 4 at the very least had the ipad mini shell.

 

[clyde2801]

I think that the electrons caught in the positronic matrix are being accelerated to the speed of light causing a temporal rift and resulting in a paradox that is causing a tear in subspace, making the screen images not as sharp as they could be or once were. Just a thought.

Wow, Trek technobabble with a bit of Whovian thrown in for good measure. I'm genuinely impressed.

I can almost imagine you typing that while wearing a LaForge visor AND a Tom Baker scarf.

 

[interfreak]

My thoughts on the Mini:

If Apple had of included a retina display with the first Mini, it would have eaten too much into the full sized iPad's market.

Think about it. The current iPad design is close to 18 months old and looks quite dated compared to the Mini.

Why would you buy an older, heavier iPad with retina display when you could get a cheaper, lighter, nicely designed iPad with retina display?

The main difference would be size - but I think most people would take retina, less weight and portability over an extra 1.8" of screen real estate.

Before the iPad Mini 2 is released, there will be another upgrade to the iPad (iPad 5) which will include most elements of the Mini's design (smaller bezel, chamfered edges etc) and probably utilise IGZO screen technology to cut back on the amount of battery needed, making the device thinner and lighter.

The iPad Mini 2 will release shortly after this, with retina display technology from the iPad 3/4 (non IGZO) and the same form factor as today's. It may be slightly heavier, but advances in battery technology should help minimise this.

The choice between the iPad 5 and the Mini 2 will be much clearer. You can have both with retina, both will be light and both will be quite portable as the form factor for the iPad 5 will be significantly closer to the Mini.

You would more easily be able to justify the extra cost of the full sized iPad over the mini. It's an iPad Mini, only larger.

 

[pbrooks]

I still have absolutely no idea what Apple was thinking offering an iPad Mini. I see it as the beginning of the demise of Apple. When Apple was on the rocks in the 90s and were on the brink of going tits up, it was because they had too many Mac models. It was confusing for the consumer and no retailer wanted to carry Apple products because they couldn't support all the variants. Enter Steve Jobs. He nixed the whole product line and went forward with 4 computers, reflecting the philosophy - do a few things and do them well.

Now the exact opposite is happening. Up until now, there was a sufficient "space" between design and purpose of the iPhone, iPad, and MacBook, making it easy to differentiate these products and market them. Where does the iPad Mini fit in? Why not just get a phone or get a regular sized iPad? The iPad Mini is the answer to the question that nobody asked. I hope there won't be a slew of confusing product offerings from Apple in the future, because it will be the 90s all over again.

 

[DribbleCastle]

I still have absolutely no idea what Apple was thinking offering an iPad Mini. I see it as the beginning of the demise of Apple. When Apple was on the rocks in the 90s and were on the brink of going tits up, it was because they had too many Mac models. It was confusing for the consumer and no retailer wanted to carry Apple products because they couldn't support all the variants. Enter Steve Jobs. He nixed the whole product line and went forward with 4 computers, reflecting the philosophy - do a few things and do them well.

Now the exact opposite is happening. Up until now, there was a sufficient "space" between design and purpose of the iPhone, iPad, and MacBook, making it easy to differentiate these products and market them. Where does the iPad Mini fit in? Why not just get a phone or get a regular sized iPad? The iPad Mini is the answer to the question that nobody asked. I hope there won't be a slew of confusing product offerings from Apple in the future, because it will be the 90s all over again.

Hmm, do you remember the iPod? Classic, mini, nano, shuffle, touch? The ipad mini is still an iPad. Just different strokes for different folks. It's the evolution of a product category. Now if Apple starts making and selling printers, bicycles, etc. I'll start to worry.

Also, they are expanding their product line with good products, not the bad products of the mid 90s. Don't agree with your line of thought at all. Just because Steve isn't calling the shots doesn't mean the company is doomed at every corner.

 

[Anti-Lucifer]

WTH - dude, when you go eat a big mac at mickeyD's, do you break down all the chemicals that are inside of that delcious sandwich? I don't care if the big mac is made of all 100% organic crap; if it don't taste like a big mac, I won't buy and eat it.

Leave the techno junk babble to the engineers because none of you are good enough to make any display; if you could, you wouldn't be on this forum wasting your time babbling nonsense.

I don't think you understand how light-guides and diffusers work in an LCD panel. The LEDs don't "project" anywhere, the light is fed into a light-guide, transported to key locations, and a diffuser spreads it out evenly from there. If we depended on the "projection" capabilities of the LED, we'd have severely unbalanced backlighting.



My point was relating to light-guides ONLY, which is a completely analogous problem to optical fiber.



Here comes the non-sequitir again. The question is: "Whether does the % light loss change with a function of the area?" The paper I linked completely does not address that, thus it has reinforced nothing. It does however address the problem with whether or not light-guides have losses (they do not).



Again, a non-sequitur. Let's put some concrete numbers on your example shall we?

Imagine you have a 1 sq in iPhone screen that requires 1W of power to hit a target brightness.

So basically you are saying the LED emits .7W (30% loss) of light. Then you are saying the backlight assembly will emit .35W (50% loss) of light.

The final brightness is then 0.35W/sq ft.

Now let's imagine you want iPad Mini screen which is 4 sq in. Since you have 4 times the power, you also are able to throw in 4 LEDs. Each LED emits .7W as before, totaling to 2.8W. Then the backlight assembly will have 50% loss as before, and bring you down to 1.4W of emitted light.

The final brightness is then again 0.35W/sq ft!

Again, the efficiency, if in %, does not matter.

----------



No. It's not a "combination" of both. The ONLY losses are at the interface. Hence the name Total Internal Reflection.

 

[ZBoater]

I still think that if we can realign the main deflector dish to emit a positronic pulse, the screen of the mini would look a lot better...