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iPad mini I just returned my Mini and here is why
- Thread starter Quixotic3
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It might. But the risk of detached retinas from continued exposure to the substandard Mini screen is too great.
Wow!
These are all moot points, since everything will end December 21st anyways, right?!
By a raise of hands, who plans to hide out in a doomsday bunker while eating a stash of Twinkies the night before?
These are all moot points, since everything will end December 21st anyways, right?!
By a raise of hands, who plans to hide out in a doomsday bunker while eating a stash of Twinkies the night before?
There's nothing stopping them from manufacturing a 7.9" 2,048 x 1,536 display, but at the end of the day it require a mini that was double the thickness and weight of the current model (using current tech). Given that the whole Raison d'être of the mini is its form factor, launching it with the same thickness and weight of the 9.7 iPad would be a non-starter.
Apple obviously made a choice to go with a much improved form factor over a Retina display. However given the response from reviewers and other members of this forum the trade-off seems to to have been well worth it. Apple will update the mini with a Retina display once new tech (IGZO) comes online that allows for this without compromising the form factor, basically a win-win situation.
You may not agree with Apples choice, but it's the choice they made nonetheless.
Uncle Steve would have done the same exact thing as TC did. Apple does not, and cannot cannibalize the full sized iPad. Apple wants to ensure that their iPad Mini customers are NEW customers, not simply big-iPad customers who've opted to pay less instead. The mini will grow in time, but it will never be just a smaller version of the full sized tablet.
The one problem I see with your statement is that iPad doesn't care about more iPad hardware customers, they want more AppStore customers. So whatever they need to do to maintain that gravy train, which includes killing the full sized iPad in favor of the mini, they will do. Revenues and profits from the iPad hardware are nice, but even nicer are the AppStore revenues.
Apple doesn't make a real profit with the App Store. I think that at least 90% of Apple's profit comes from hardware, but they don't have real numbers for that.
All that is known, though, is that almost all the revenue they make on the App Store is used for maintenance (servers) and building more data centers.
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Yep. IGZO is the way to go and it's starting to get available as of this quarter, so I think we'll definitely see it next year.
IGZO technology will add very little extra cost, but it has many benefits.
Here's a comparison what Apple would have needed to do to release a Retina-display iPad RIGHT NOW:
- Standard IPS LCD technology (no IGZO), 2048 x 1536
- A 45 nm A5X chip (maybe A6(X) chip, but since production on these have only started recently that would have been unlikely), so probably A5X
- Double the amount of LED lights would have been needed
- A much bigger battery would have been needed (LEDs use a lot of energy, the GPU would have used a lot of energy too)
- Thicker device (and thus more aluminium would have been needed)
- Heavier device
Next year they'll be able to do something like this:
- IGZO LCD, 2048 x 1536
- A 32 nm A6X chip*
- Same amount of LEDs
- About the same weight
- About the same thickness
- No bigger battery needed, heck, maybe even slightly smaller will be sufficient
Releasing a Retina iPad mini next year will save Apple A LOT of costs, and they'll also be able to deliver a no-compromise Retina iPad mini.
* A5X and A6 chip have the same GPU power. A6 has a more powerful CPU. A6X has both a more powerful CPU and GPU.
They'll get that either way BUT with NEW iPad 4 sales they will gain higher profits than with the mini. They also don't want to lose market margin that they already have. This would be like an airlines offering newer economy class seats and doing nothing with first-class. A portion of customers will switch from the more expensive first class option to the less expensive one, and Apple doesn't want to see that. They want strong iPad 4 sales with additional mini sales (think of the mini as being frosting on the cake) but they need to mini to compete with smaller tablets on it's own. Personally I don't think this will happen until the mini gets a better screen, probably next version.
I just got my iPad Mini today (Verizon 16GB) and most likely I will not be keeping it. Very difficult to read text on that size screen with a 1024 X 768 display. Apple never should have released it until they could get a Retina Display on that form factor.
It's possible that someone who never used a Retina Display iPhone or iPad may be ok with it, but if you are used to a Retina Display in my opinion it's going to be somewhat challenging to get used to the iPad Mini.
It's possible that someone who never used a Retina Display iPhone or iPad may be ok with it, but if you are used to a Retina Display in my opinion it's going to be somewhat challenging to get used to the iPad Mini.
I've used a retina iPad since the 3 came out. I also had the 2. I also have an iPhone 5. I am typing this post on my Mini. It is not "challenging". It is fine. Magical even.
I just don't understand comments like this. I've had the iPad 3, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, and iPhone 5 all since the day they were released. I have no problem with the iPad mini screen at all. If someone doesn't want or like a mini, that's OK but I just don't get comments like you can't go back. I don't find it a problem at all.
It's human nature. And not the most attractive part of it for what it seems. A psychologist would have a field day here...
It's human nature. And not the most attractive part of it for what it seems. A psychologist would have a field day here...
A psychologist would have fun, no doubt, but I'm not sure one is needed. People who argue about things like the mini confuse their opinions with facts. This causes them to take personal offense when everyone else doesn't agree with them and they believe that if they make enough posts on the same topic, two things will happen; (1) Their opinions will magically morph into fact and (2) Everyone will agree with them. When this doesn't happen, they begin insulting people who disagree with them.
I love the mini's form factor, but still undetermined if I will keep it due to the display. I mostly use my iPad at home anyways, and I don't feel that my iPad 3 is heavy at all, quite opposite I like the heft. The mini is featherweight light, but in some use case scenarios I wish it were actually heavier.
The larger iPad is simply more practical for me.
The larger iPad is simply more practical for me.
No, IGZO displays are about 20% more efficient than comparable a-Si IPS LCDs, but a retina display requires about 50-60% more battery power to operate, so you still need a bigger battery. You just don't need as much of a bigger battery.
The key advantage to IGZO is that it is thin and power efficient compared to a-Si, but not as much as LTPS (what's used in the iPhone). Its advantage over LTPS is that it will wind up being significantly cheaper to manufacture than LTPS (but not as cheap as a-Si), which is cost prohibitive above 5".
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It's all a ploy to sell upgraded EPS conduits in six months anyway. They want you to blow them out!
i think there are some Minis out there with hazy/blurry screens that have nothing to do with the resolution or PPI. i think that there are anti-reflective coatings that were improperly applied which yield a hazy finish on the screen similar to the Lenovo X120e when they switched screen suppliers mid-production cycle. i wish i took a picture of what i am referring to, but i saw the same kind of screen defect on the iPad Mini display models as i did on the Lenovo X120e i used to own. at first i thought it was grease so i wiped the screen and it stayed the same. i tried a co-worker's iPad Mini and it also seemed to have a hazy screen. yet the 16GB iPad Mini i bought for my girlfriend seems fine. i think there is a QC issue with the display in the Mini and people are confusing the display defect with thinking that the resolution/PPI is to blame.
the appearance of the hazy coating is minimized if you turn down the brightness, but still noticeable. again, this is a defect that likely doesn't affect most iPad Minis but still a significant amount by Apple standards
the appearance of the hazy coating is minimized if you turn down the brightness, but still noticeable. again, this is a defect that likely doesn't affect most iPad Minis but still a significant amount by Apple standards
It is not just the power efficiency of the IGZO panel but also the LED requirement that shrink the power requirement. here is a discussion of the Ipad 3 display. Note the number of LEDs that Ipad 3 need. Sharp had a demo that show power consumption of 1/5 to 1/10 of an a-si display.
http://www.iclarified.com/entry/index.php?enid=20523
Regardless of the TFT technology, the doubling of the pixel density means a significantly smaller aperture ratio, which means that a brighter backlight is needed. Our research indicates that the iPad 3 panel has at least twice as many LEDs than the iPad 2, which had 36. Even allowing for increases in LED efficiency, this most likely means a significant increase in power consumption for the panel. The slightly larger and heavier case as compared to the iPad 2 suggests Apple is using a larger battery in order to accommodate the high resolution display with more LEDs than the previous generation, without decreasing battery life.
http://9to5mac.com/2012/09/01/sharp...ouch-sensitivity-smaller-bezels-galleryvideo/
Next: Sharp was showing off the benefits of low-power consumption with its IGZO displays by demoing the technologys ability to consume one-fifth to one-tenth of the power consumed by a-Si displays. IGZO consumes less power for both backlight and driving the panel itself, allowing for longer lasting and smaller batteries in mobile devices.
The 1/5 to 1/10 power note is for the LCD, not for the backlight+LCD. Unsurprisingly, that blogger wasn't really paying attention. IGZO is not better in performance or power characteristics than LTPS, which we already have; it's just much cheaper to produce in large panels, which we can't do with LTPS. It's a Goldilocks technology. It's more expensive, but thinner, more powerful and capable of higher pixel densities than amorphous silicon. Simultaneously, it's much, much cheaper than LTPS but also not as good in performance.
A full order of magnitude in backlight power would mean that you'd instantaneously get more than double the runtime out of a smartphone or tablet. That is obviously not happening. The power savings are not even remotely that high.
Overall power savings are on the order of 20-25%. The hands on with Sharp's production phone confirms this:
"The most impressive part of the demo was an installation emphasizing the IGZO-based display’s power efficiency — it used only a quarter of the power of its competitor when idle, and about 25 percent less during active use."
Nothing about switching to any one display technology changes the fact that doubling density requires about 60% more backlight power. The quote you lifted from the analysts also serves as a helpful reminder: "Regardless of the TFT technology, the doubling of the pixel density means a significantly smaller aperture ratio, which means that a brighter backlight is needed." In other words, no matter how much power you save in the LCD, you're still dealing with the need to go to a brighter and more power-hungry backlight. Even if you reduced LCD power consumption to virtually zero, you'd still need a bigger battery for the brighter backlight.
Even LTPS only improves battery life by about 50% in most applications. 75-90% isn't on the table for any display technology.
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So let go with your data. During Idle IGZO save 75% of power while during active it save 25%. And back light go from 60% more for non-retina to retina. But right now Ipad 3/4 use 2 band of LED back light. So if they can reduce the LED backlight to 1.6 time, it still save 20% of the back light power requirement + 75% the power saving of the display during idle + 25% of power saving during active use.. That sound like a great deal of power saving to me. and here is one of rumor mill article about moving from 2 LED back light to 1 LED back light. Anyway you cut it, IGZO is the path to retina in Ipad mini and reduce weight for the Ipad 5.
https://www.macrumors.com/2012/07/0...o-display-and-thinner-enclosure-in-late-2012/
- And now today Digitimes is reporting that Apple is also moving from two LED backlight units to one, an effort that will reduce overheating and along with the battery changes will support the thinner design.
The extra LED is reportedly adding to overheating and that using one LED will help solve overheating issues since more backlights along with more power to heat those backlights is causing overheating.
Sources noted that the one LED backlight module, however, will not affect luminosity and clarity of Apple's Retina Display.
No, it's 20-25% total. Everything. Not 20%+75%+25%. IGZO doesn't directly save any backlight power at all. It simply enables greater transmission through the layers of the LCD, which means they can reduce the required output to get the same level of brightness.
It is a lot of power savings, but when a retina iPad needs close to 70% more battery power to get the same performance and battery life, and you're swapping out a display that saves 20-25% more power, you still wind up needing a significantly larger battery, contrary to the claim posted earlier.
If you take a 25Wh battery, where about 17Wh goes to power the display, and then you put in a retina display needing a 42.5Wh battery to match, that's upwards of 16Wh more for the retina display alone (still leaving up to about 1.5Wh for the higher-power GPU required to run it).
What an IGZO IPS LCD gets you is a 20-25% improvement in power efficiency, meaning that instead of 33Wh, all you need is ~26Wh for the display. IGZO doesn't get you all the way back down to 17Wh as the other poster claimed. Even LTPS could only get you to about 22Wh.
So instead of a 42Wh battery, IGZO allows you to do it with a ~35Wh battery. Still larger, but not as large as it would be without it. The point is that IGZO manufacturing doesn't magically enable them to use the same battery as the current mini and get the same battery life with a retina display. Not even close.
And would you please place quoted text into quotes? It's extremely difficult to follow what you're writing and what you're copying from other sources.
I am not sure why you use 42wh (11666mAh) battery as your starting point. It is the size of the Ipad 3 battery. Ipad mini has 29.6 sq inches of screen and Ipad 3/4 has 45.16 sq inches. So Ipad mini has roughly 65% screen size as Ipad 3/4.. So the 42wh battery in Ipad 3/4 would have reduced to 27wh (7599 mAh) battery assuming that display is the main driver for the battery consumption.
Sharp already announced the first IGZO 7 inches tablet and the battery life look to be really good. Ipad mini at 1024x768 use a battery with 4490mah rating. And the Sharp AQUOS IGZO tablet use 2040mah battery with 1280x800 with much longer hours of operation. I stand by my belief that IGZO is the bridge for Ipad mini to get to retina. The question is when will Sharp be able to produce IGZO glass with 2048x1536 resolution since 2048x1536 is not in Sharp's road map in the initial announcement.
http://www.computerworld.com/s/arti...Sharp_reveals_7_inch_tablet_with_IGZO_display
The 2.5x claim here seems to mean 2.5x Sharp previous tablet that can run 6 hours instead of Nexus 7 or other tablet which run a lot longer with their current battery. So may be 15 hours of battery power instead of 10+ hours for Ipad mini using a battery size that is less than 1/2. Either way it is very impressive.
Exactly. The comparison is between a non-retina iPad (25Wh) and a retina iPad (42.5Wh). The iPad 2/3 comparison is the only one that exists to show the difference in consumption rates.
No. There's no calculation being made based on the retina iPad's battery, other than to illustrate the need to essentially double up on display power capacity in order to power it. On a normal device, the display uses about 2/3 of the battery (~17Wh on the iPad 2). Going retina basically doubles that (~33Wh).
That's not in dispute. A different backplane technology is indeed required to get a retina mini at a marketable price. Again, the issue is the claim that power savings of IGZO will mean that the next mini will not need a bigger battery.
There's just no way. There are three problems with what you're doing:
1. 7 inch tablets have 35% less area to illuminate, already having a built-in power savings of over 40%.
2. You can't compare mAh directly without knowing voltage. Ah*V=Wh. If Sharp is using a higher voltage, then it has the same capacity with lower amperage.
3. They are specifically citing "other technologies" and not providing any specific numbers to support their claim.
Sharp themselves claim a 25% power savings potential. That's all that it is. There is no magic in the laws of physics that will let a retina mini have a battery capacity of 16Wh and still last 10 hours on a charge. Not even LTPS, which cuts power consumption by half, can do that.
An IGZO mini, right now, would drop display power demand from ~10.5Wh to ~8Wh. Bumping up to retina specs would almost double that 8Wh to somewhere around 16Wh. Even in the best case scenario, an IGZO retina mini would need a battery capacity of about 23.5-24Wh. That's still a huge improvement over the 27-28 they'd need for a hypothetical a-Si mini...but 23-24 is still a lot bigger than 16.