iPad mini If you want to get an idea of how much the rMini weighs [FREE GYM ROUTINES INSIDE]

[syd430]

Try strapping 3 pencils to the back of your iPad mini.

Weight of iPad mini (Wi-Fi): 308g
Weight of iPad mini w/ Retina (Wi-Fi): 331g
Difference: 23g
Weight of pencil: 6-8g (source: http://www.ask.com/question/how-much-does-a-pencil-weigh)
Weight of 3 pencils: ~21g
Weight of tape: negligible

 

[syd430]

Nobody else think that's actually a lot of the extra weight? Now that I've gone back and looked at the specs, I can see that it only barely got thicker (0.3mm is an incredibly small number) yet relative to thickness it got MUCH heavier. As above, pretty much the equivilant of strapping 3 pencils on to the back. That is not insignificant. What effect on weight did IGZO have here exactly?

This thing has the same lame trade offs as going from the iPad 2 -> 3 minus the graphics problems of the 3. The difference here is they've decided to charge $100 more for a much heavier device unlike the 3, which stayed around the same price from what I can remember. The 3 also improved other aspects of the screen apart from the resolution, unlike the rMini.

All this makes me believe that Apple dramatically increased their margins from the Mini to rMini. It's clear that they made huge compromises to get the retina display in the cheapest way possible.

 

[deeddawg]

23 grams is a lot of weight?

 

[iPhoneApple]

People don't know what heavy means nowadays.

 

[syd430]

23 grams is a lot of weight?

If you asked this forum last year if they would accept strapping 3 pencils to the back of their mini in order to get a retina display, most people here would of said "no". And that's before anyone even knew that they were going to jack the price up by another $100.

 

[morningsong]

In my day, we had to carry 5 pencils to school....and you didn't hear any of us complain!!!

;-)

 

[JGWolven]

After reading so many posts complaining about how heavy the Air is to lug around to work and such I'm not surprised there are people who think 22 grams is heavy.

 

[Tehpsyc]

Nobody else think that's actually a lot of the extra weight? Now that I've gone back and looked at the specs, I can see that it only barely got thicker (0.3mm is an incredibly small number) yet relative to thickness it got MUCH heavier. As above, pretty much the equivilant of strapping 3 pencils on to the back. That is not insignificant. What effect on weight did IGZO have here exactly?

This thing has the same lame trade offs as going from the iPad 2 -> 3 minus the graphics problems of the 3. The difference here is they've decided to charge $100 more for a much heavier device unlike the 3, which stayed around the same price from what I can remember. The 3 also improved other aspects of the screen apart from the resolution, unlike the rMini.

All this makes me believe that Apple dramatically increased their margins from the Mini to rMini. It's clear that they made huge compromises to get the retina display in the cheapest way possible.

The increased weight, and size is due to the need for a larger capacity battery to drive the retina display. Pushing more pixels and the need for more backlighting to illuminate 4x the pixels creates a higher power demand, and Apple didn't want to sacrifice the battery life.

Now, I will say the Retina iPad Mini is actually probably one of the best value purchases in the iPad line up (arguments for more storage space aside) and I suspect Apple actually has lower margins on the Mini than the Air. The iPad mini, internally, is identical to the iPad Air (except for a minor underclocking of the A7, most likely for heat issues, but physically its the same chip). This means that for $100 less you're getting the same internal components of the air, and I suspect the cost difference between the 7" display (which is higher DPI, lower yield, and newer technology) and the 10" are negligible, and definitely not on the order of $100. This also means that by paying the extra $100 over the non-retina mini you're not only upgrading to the retina display, but jumping 2.5 generations (A5 to A7, including the A5X) as well. You're essentially getting the premium performance that was once associated with the full size iPad for $100 cheaper. The screen size is a personal preference choice, obviously, but the value is hard to argue. Its essentially the same jump in performance from the iPad 2 to the iPad air for the same increase in price, and I don't think anyone would argue that isn't a worthwhile upgrade.

As an aside, the iPad 2 to 3 transition featured the jump from the A5 to the A5X, which was essentially just graphical improvements to drive the retina display with no relative increase in processing power. This led to the poor performance issues seen in the iPad 3. Its not really the same as what we're seeing here since you're going from the A5 (same as the 2) to the A7.

 

[syd430]

People don't know what heavy means nowadays.

Neither is 100g. I can lift 200g pretty easily too. If Apple increased the weight by 200g you would probably still come to this forum and say "you guys don't know what heavy is. An 80kg bag of cement, now that's heavy!"

In other words, what I'm trying to say is that your post is meaningless.

 

[Dstopsie]

Nobody else think that's actually a lot of the extra weight? Now that I've gone back and looked at the specs, I can see that it only barely got thicker (0.3mm is an incredibly small number) yet relative to thickness it got MUCH heavier. As above, pretty much the equivilant of strapping 3 pencils on to the back. That is not insignificant. What effect on weight did IGZO have here exactly?

This thing has the same lame trade offs as going from the iPad 2 -> 3 minus the graphics problems of the 3. The difference here is they've decided to charge $100 more for a much heavier device unlike the 3, which stayed around the same price from what I can remember. The 3 also improved other aspects of the screen apart from the resolution, unlike the rMini.

All this makes me believe that Apple dramatically increased their margins from the Mini to rMini. It's clear that they made huge compromises to get the retina display in the cheapest way possible.

$329 cost of mini iPad 2012
$399 cost of mini retina iPad 2013

Difference=$70. Not $100 as stated in ur post

 

[syd430]

After reading so many posts complaining about how heavy the Air is to lug around to work and such I'm not surprised there are people who think 22 grams is heavy.

It is seeing you're paying $100 more. The retina display has always had trade offs but 1) that was before IGZO. 2) they never jacked up the price by such drastic amount just for the inclusion of retina.

The 2 generation jump from A5 -> A7 doesn't count because that was already an old processor at the time of the original mini. From cost estimates we also know that an extra 512mb of ram costs them next to nothing.

Again, all this points to higher margins from Mini 1 -> Mini 2. We'll see soon enough when the cost estimates come in.

 

[KylePowers]

if you asked this forum last year if they would accept strapping 3 pencils to the back of their mini in order to get a retina display, most people here would of said "no". And that's before anyone even knew that they were going to jack the price up by another $100.

$400-$330 = $70

EDIT: Turns out OP is talking about AUS, not USD. Carry on folks! - Math Police

 

[deeddawg]

If you asked this forum last year if they would accept strapping 3 pencils to the back of their mini in order to get a retina display, most people here would of said "no". And that's before anyone even knew that they were going to jack the price up by another $100.

We're just going to have to disagree since I believe most here would have been happy to trade 23g for retina.

Plus weight is relative. A 7.5% increase is just barely noticeable for most, especially when it's a fraction of an ounce. Your 200g increase wouldn't be very noticeable on a 2.7kg item either.

You're free to think otherwise, but careful with the assumption that your opinion is shared by most.

How do you get $100 from a $329 to $399 price jump? Or are you using the new price instead of what they cost before the retina mini?

 

[adam044]

23 grams is a lot of weight?

Well it is for certain things.....


Not this though.

 

[syd430]

$329 cost of mini iPad 2012
$399 cost of mini retina iPad 2013

Difference=$70. Not $100 as stated in ur post

$400-$330 = $70

Sorry, they actually increased the price by $130 AUD ($122 USD) here in Australia, and I thought the increase was $100 there in the US. I'm not kidding about the $122 USD increase here in Aus either:

http://www.apple.com/au/ipad/compare/

Anyway, too much effort to go back to all my posts and change it now.

 

[iPhoneApple]

Neither is 100g. I can lift 200g pretty easily too. If Apple increased the weight by 200g you would probably still come to this forum and say "you guys don't know what heavy is. An 80kg bag of cement, now that heavy!"

In other words, what I'm trying to say is that your post is meaningless.

That might mean its heavier compared to befor, but it's not crazy.

In other words, your post is meaningless

 

[syd430]

The increased weight, and size is due to the need for a larger capacity battery to drive the retina display. Pushing more pixels and the need for more backlighting to illuminate 4x the pixels creates a higher power demand, and Apple didn't want to sacrifice the battery life.

Now, I will say the Retina iPad Mini is actually probably one of the best value purchases in the iPad line up (arguments for more storage space aside) and I suspect Apple actually has lower margins on the Mini than the Air. The iPad mini, internally, is identical to the iPad Air (except for a minor underclocking of the A7, most likely for heat issues, but physically its the same chip). This means that for $100 less you're getting the same internal components of the air, and I suspect the cost difference between the 7" display (which is higher DPI, lower yield, and newer technology) and the 10" are negligible, and definitely not on the order of $100. This also means that by paying the extra $100 over the non-retina mini you're not only upgrading to the retina display, but jumping 2.5 generations (A5 to A7, including the A5X) as well. You're essentially getting the premium performance that was once associated with the full size iPad for $100 cheaper. The screen size is a personal preference choice, obviously, but the value is hard to argue. Its essentially the same jump in performance from the iPad 2 to the iPad air for the same increase in price, and I don't think anyone would argue that isn't a worthwhile upgrade.

As an aside, the iPad 2 to 3 transition featured the jump from the A5 to the A5X, which was essentially just graphical improvements to drive the retina display with no relative increase in processing power. This led to the poor performance issues seen in the iPad 3. Its not really the same as what we're seeing here since you're going from the A5 (same as the 2) to the A7.

Your argument would have been very valid in 2012, not anymore since Apple has supposedly begun using IGZO starting with the iPad Air. You can throw most of the information in your post out the window because it's out of date. You're essentially describing the the process that Apple used to shoehorn a retina display into the iPad 3. Given that IGZO uses far less backlighting and far less energy than the old way of shoehorning a retina display in like we saw with the iPad 3, i highly doubt that Apple couldn't keep the Mini the same weight.

My guess is that they wanted to put a retina display in as cheaply as possible, even if it is still technically using some form of IGZO, as evidenced by the greater thickness and weight and poor colour reproduction/gamut of the display, on par with the non-retina Mini (something that you didn't mention at all in your post).

All of that to me, points to greater margins since they also increased the price by so much. You can't simply say that it has faster processor and retina display, therefore their margins are probably less. You're forgetting that component costs drop every year. The A5 in 2012 probably cost around the same as the A7 in 2013, despite the 2 generation jump.

 

[Zellio]

I dunno what half of you guys would do if you went into a gym.

Which reminds me, it's time to go work out biceps. No seriously.

 

[OTACORB]

That might mean its heavier compared to befor, but it's not crazy.

In other words, your post is meaningless

EXACTLY! If you think is such a bad buy then just don't buy the darn thing. END OF THE STORY! In past analyst cost projections Apple's margins were lower on the iPad Mini than on the full size iPad. That is still the case even though they increased the price. However, some folks won't believe that even if Tim Cook called them personal and told them that.

That wasn't directed at you! LOL

 

[syd430]

I dunno what half of you guys would do if you went into a gym.

Which reminds me, it's time to go work out biceps. No seriously.

I know you're just joking around, but it's still funny because I've been progressively lifting weights for years. I'm not exactly weak, so that can't be why I'm complaining about 23 grams . By the sounds of your post though, "time to go work out my biceps", you sound like a complete beginner. I wouldn't be surprised if you go to the gym and only do isolated exercises all day, with the only compound being bench. Years in and I still don't feel the need to do isolated bicep curls, and I only ever hear beginners talk about going to the gym to do curls lol.

 

[syd430]

EXACTLY! If you think is such a bad buy then just don't buy the darn thing. END OF THE STORY!

Actually I'd rather come here and post about it and start a discussion about it. It always amuses me when people like you come here to say "either buy it or shut up and don't post anything negative about it". Why exactly aren't I allowed to bring up this issue here again?

 

[OTACORB]

Actually I'd rather come here and post about it and start a discussion about it. It always amuses me when people like you come here to say "either buy it or shut up". Why aren't I allowed to bring up this issue here, according to you?

You can complain about whatever you like! Some folks just like to complain, go for it!

The reality is that Apple does what Apple does... they won't change unless folks spend less time complaining and more time just not buying the products they complain about. Not sure what it is about that you don't get?

Complaining here will net you exactly what? Maybe kill a little boredom! In the meantime many have bought and are already enjoying it. Do you really think they care what you think or what I think for that matter?

 

[syd430]

You can complain about whatever you like! Some folks just like to complain, go for it!

Not really, I don't really come here just to complain. I have an Air, rMBP, 5s and a few other things. I post both positive and critical things here if you look at my post history.

The reality is that Apple does what Apple does... they won't change unless folks spend less time complaining and more time just not buying the products they complain about. Not sure what it is about that you don't get?

So? I still feel like posting about and discussing it. Why should this forum even exist then? People can go to the official Apple forums if they want technical support.

Complaining here will net you exactly what?

Nothing, other than starting a discussion that I find interesting.

Also, complaining about my complaining nets you what exactly?

In the meantime many have bought and are already enjoying it.

Good.

Do you really think they care what you think or what I think for that matter?

No, I doubt they do care. I've apparently hit a nerve pretty badly with you though.

 

[OTACORB]

Also, complaining about my complaining nets you what exactly?


No, I doubt they do care. I've apparently hit a nerve pretty badly with you though.

My complaining about you complaining nets me the same thing your complaining has. LOL

You are delusional if you think folks really care about your opinion, don't you know the only opinion that counts is our own!

Anyway.. this thread isn't about you. So my replies end here. I'll give you the last word.. like that wasn't going to happen! :roll eyes:

Now we can let this thread get back on topic!

In my opinion the iPad Mini Retina new added weight isn't significant enough that most will even notice. If you want to play you've got to pay otherwise keep your wallet in your pocket and no harm no foul. Apple is only going to respond to one thing... lack of sales. Right now I don't see that happening.

 

[kalt]

10 kleenex tissues (unused) = 23g

It's only a lot if you're talking about really good coke or heroin.