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iPad mini iPad Mini For Travel

S

shootingrubber

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Mar 7, 2009
256
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What are your thoughts on using an iPad Mini for travel?

I'm going on a 6 week trip to Europe next month and I am considering only bringing the iPad Mini. My girlfriend and I generally only need to check email, browse the web, store pictures from our camera, write some emails, and that's pretty much it. Oh, and of course music, and movies as well, which it would handle well I think.

So, what are your thoughts?
 
Why not? Just make sure you take care of the device and put it in a nice case. I have mine in a moleskine type one. It'll just look like a notebook to anyone passing by. Keep it in my coat pocket all the time.
 
shootingrubber said:
What are your thoughts on using an iPad Mini for travel?

I'm going on a 6 week trip to Europe next month and I am considering only bringing the iPad Mini. My girlfriend and I generally only need to check email, browse the web, store pictures from our camera, write some emails, and that's pretty much it. Oh, and of course music, and movies as well, which it would handle well I think.

So, what are your thoughts?
Click to expand...

I have an iPad mini, and it's perfect for travelling. I've taken mine to Paris and I'm going to be taking it to NY in 3 weeks. For films you'll want 32 or 64GB though as streaming will be a pain in the arse when travelling.

Note: the Starbucks in the Louvre Opera doesn't have a plug socket. As I found this out.
 
You can do everything you want to on the mini. The only item I would question would be the type of "picture taking" you would be doing. if you are just taking a few point and shoots here and there, it should be great. If you are taking hundreds of pictures on a DSLR, then you could run out of storage in a few days.
 
mtneer said:
You can do everything you want to on the mini. The only item I would question would be the type of "picture taking" you would be doing. if you are just taking a few point and shoots here and there, it should be great. If you are taking hundreds of pictures on a DSLR, then you could run out of storage in a few days.
Click to expand...

No, I am not taking pictures on the iPad Mini, simply using it to store them from the SD card from our digital camera.

EDIT: nvm, read it wrong. The camera we are using is a P&S, not a DSLR or anything. I'd venture to guess we'd be taking a couple thousand pictures (3000 maybe?), and at an average file size of 2.5MB that would be around ~7GB. Would this be correct?
 
Not to hijack the thread -

The Mini seems to be a great travel companion. Has anyone used it with a "skype" type application?

Seems it would make a pretty decent 2nd phone but alas, I am not well versed (yet) on the Mini.
 
phrehdd said:
Not to hijack the thread -

The Mini seems to be a great travel companion. Has anyone used it with a "skype" type application?

Seems it would make a pretty decent 2nd phone but alas, I am not well versed (yet) on the Mini.
Click to expand...

Yes, I Skype and FaceTime aaaaa lot with my Mini. Love it! :)
 
Why not upload the pictures to a site so you won't need to worry about gb space?
For me, the mini is perfect for travelling.
 
So it looks like the iPad mini will work for me. I decided to test myself and simply only use it exclusively for the last couple of days and I've had no issues at all. In fact for the majority of things it's more of a pleasure to use the iPad. I love it.

I have the 16 GB version which will be plenty for me. I am using my iPhone as my camera for the trip as well which has 32GB of storage so that's not an issue.

I have also purchased CityMaps2Go (which is awesome btw) for all my offline maps on both the iPad and iPhone. I've also put ebooks on it through iBooks for all my travel guidebooks. Works perfectly.
 
For those uses, the iPad mini should work well for you. 6 weeks is a long time though to go without a "real" computer, but if you don't need to do any real computing then you should be fine.

You will probably be taking a lot of photos on your visit, so if you're just going to transfer the photos from your camera to your iPad, 16GB might run out quickly. As others have said, you can use services to publish the photos online to free space, but that is if you have a reliable internet connection which you might not have. If you want to publish photos you can use Dropbox, or I would also suggest downloading Apple's iPhoto app on your iPad or iPhone and publishing your photos to online journals. This works well, and you can create as many journals as you want with a maximum of 200 photos per journal I believe.

Also I would caution you to secure your electronics very carefully while you're walking around and sightseeing or on the metro. There are a lot of pickpocketing that goes on in very touristy areas, so just be careful and take extra precautions.
 
M-5 said:
For those uses, the iPad mini should work well for you. 6 weeks is a long time though to go without a "real" computer, but if you don't need to do any real computing then you should be fine.

You will probably be taking a lot of photos on your visit, so if you're just going to transfer the photos from your camera to your iPad, 16GB might run out quickly. As others have said, you can use services to publish the photos online to free space, but that is if you have a reliable internet connection which you might not have. If you want to publish photos you can use Dropbox, or I would also suggest downloading Apple's iPhoto app on your iPad or iPhone and publishing your photos to online journals. This works well, and you can create as many journals as you want with a maximum of 200 photos per journal I believe.

Also I would caution you to secure your electronics very carefully while you're walking around and sightseeing or on the metro. There are a lot of pickpocketing that goes on in very touristy areas, so just be careful and take extra precautions.
Click to expand...

I'll be taking pictures on my iPhone which has 32GB of storage which should be plenty. I have ample free space on that.
 
shootingrubber said:
I'll be taking pictures on my iPhone which has 32GB of storage which should be plenty. I have ample free space on that.
Click to expand...


Please correct me if I am wrong, but if you use the camera adapter to put photos into your iPad, you will have to delete them one by one on your own in order to remove them. In other words, photos taken by the iPad can be batch deleted, but photos added from a camera cannot. I discovered this on a trip with the iPad after adding in several hundred photos and completely using up all of the space in the device. Perhaps I am just an idiot and could not figure it out. I suspect, though, that Apple with their (sometimes) insane iOS restrictions is to blame. Your idea to use your iPhone is a good one.

I wonder if plugging it into the computer and using the image downloader (not iTunes) with the delete after downloading box checked would get rid of them. I don't know, and it was a moot point, because I was on a trip without my computer.

The lesson here? Make sure to test everything out in town before jumping in head first on a trip.
 
You're very wise to be testing out your setup before you go!

I have nearly your same setup, though it's a 32GB mini with a 32GB iPhone (4S). It's been working great for me for a few trips now (though nothing close to 6 weeks). Just got back from a nine day trip to the beach with lots of photo-taking, and a bit of video (short clips).

For taking pictures, I think you'll be fine for space with your iPhone/iPad combo. But if end up taking little video clips, you should consider shooting at lower resolution than the stock iPhone app allows. I use a camera app (ProCamera - highly recommend btw for photo & video) that allows me to shoot video at 1280x720 (or less), and even then a collection of little one minute video clips added up to ~10GB on my recent trip.

Even if you don't plan to transfer photos to your iPad "permanently", you might still consider getting the USB camera connection kit ($20). This would allow you to look at your day's pics on "the big screen" in the evening (while waiting for dinner, etc). They transfer VERY quickly, and you can delete them afterwards.

Do you have a rechargeable battery pack? I don't leave home (well, for an extended trip) without one.

Thumbs up on CityMaps2Go, too. Unlike similar apps, it's clear which maps you have on board with this app.

Regards,
Tom
 
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shootingrubber said:
What are your thoughts on using an iPad Mini for travel?

I'm going on a 6 week trip to Europe next month and I am considering only bringing the iPad Mini. My girlfriend and I generally only need to check email, browse the web, store pictures from our camera, write some emails, and that's pretty much it. Oh, and of course music, and movies as well, which it would handle well I think.

So, what are your thoughts?
Click to expand...

If you have the 4G capable, you also have the GPS hardware so getting a mapping app should work very well 'over there'... Have fun!

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shootingrubber said:
I have the 16 GB version which will be plenty for me. I am using my iPhone as my camera for the trip as well which has 32GB of storage so that's not an issue.
Click to expand...

Shooting video can eat up that space pretty quickly though... I took a MacBook Pro with me on my trip to Europe and ended up using it just for saving my pictures and videos. I was amazed at how many pictures and videos I took. Maybe think of buying a 64G iPod Touch and use it to save your pictures/videos on? Running out of space really sucks. Using an online place can get dicey if you can't get an internet connection. (Tip: go to the mothership for such things as wifi and clean restrooms, if there is one nearby)
 
Love my mini, it has served me very well. I have used skype/facetime on it and it works great. Awesome for watching movies and doing email/web surfing. And, it takes up way less space and weighs so my less than my Macbook and even my full size IPad.
 
palpatine said:
Please correct me if I am wrong, but if you use the camera adapter to put photos into your iPad, you will have to delete them one by one on your own in order to remove them.
Click to expand...

If you are using the most updated software then you are wrong. You can do the same edit, select, delete that you can do in the camera roll with your imported album.

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shootingrubber said:
No, I am not taking pictures on the iPad Mini, simply using it to store them from the SD card from our digital camera.

EDIT: nvm, read it wrong. The camera we are using is a P&S, not a DSLR or anything. I'd venture to guess we'd be taking a couple thousand pictures (3000 maybe?), and at an average file size of 2.5MB that would be around ~7GB. Would this be correct?
Click to expand...

If you use a Mac computer I advise turning on photo stream on the computer (assuming you have the correct software) with automatic import on. Set iPhoto as a log in item and set up the computer to turn on for 1-2 hours every day so it can import whatever stills you had roll into your stream. That way if something happens to the mini you don't lose every photo you took.
 
I have used a Mini for a 2week holiday without problems.
Going on a longer holiday later this year.
The only issue that concerns me is security on public or hotel WiFi.
AFAIK you can't lock down the Mini with a firewall or use VPN as easily as with a Macbook Air (you can set up Witopia on IOS, but not as much control).
I want to do a limited amount of banking of necessity.
 
shootingrubber said:
What are your thoughts on using an iPad Mini for travel?

I'm going on a 6 week trip to Europe next month and I am considering only bringing the iPad Mini. My girlfriend and I generally only need to check email, browse the web, store pictures from our camera, write some emails, and that's pretty much it. Oh, and of course music, and movies as well, which it would handle well I think.

So, what are your thoughts?
Click to expand...

I'm wondering this myself. I've got three trips planned in the next 3 months. Mexico, Paris and road trip around the western US states. Each is about 10-15 days long. And I really don't want to lug along my laptop. It would be nice to have something smaller and lighter than my rMBP 13" and not have to worry so much about theft or damage either.

I'm contemplating getting an iPad Mini 2. It's on the refurb store right now for $249.00 with 16gb. I'd only be using it for apps, video streaming (netflix, huluplus, hbogo), web browsing and email. I'm not going to be working on these trips, so no need for productivity items/apps. And I don't think I'd need 32gb, as I have a nice camera with several sd cards and will use my iPhone for music and random photo shots.

Seems like a smart thing. I just haven't actually held one or compared it to the iPad Air. But the Mini to me, seems like a perfect travel companion, where the Air, while light, just seems bigger than I might want. Especially if one wants to limit tech use and actually enjoy the trip.

Others thoughts?
 
The iPad mini at the refurb store is a sweet deal. And a great travel companion. One thing I have learned, is that I wish I had a 32 instead of a 16. Only because it would be nice to be able to put more movies on it for trips. Once you own one you will find it is just more convenient for more stuff than you thought, vs your MBP. Let us know what u end up doing.
 
I love the Mini for travel. I went to Russia in winter with my rMini and it was perfect. Small enough to stash in a big jacket pocket and saved my iPhone battery when I wanted to look something up on the web.
 
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