i would sell the 4 tbh but only if the mini has a retina screen and at least the A6X processor.
The 4 is just a bit too big and heavy really.
Wifes got a mini atm and I like it.
Still blows me away that some folks consider the regular iPad 'too big and heavy'? My 8 year old son totes his iPad 1 everywhere and has no problem with it on his lap, on the couch. Since the release of the iPad, I've gone nowhere without my iPad. I do run a mobile business, so it's a 'tool'...but in comparison to the 'old days' (Pre 2010) when our choice was to carry around a 5-10 pound laptop and it's associated peripherals to keep it running all day (ala iPad battery life)---equaled a 15 pound plus laptop bag! The iPad, in a small case or man bag even---with it's associated peripherals MAY top 3 pounds. Too heavy? Really??? As well, so many cases/covers available with a 'handle' in order to increase the comfort while holding the 'big' iPad are everywhere and can be bought for as cheap as 15 or 20 bucks! Sorry---just a rant. We've got an iPad (original), iPad 2 and iPad 4---with a family mini. Our business is using iPad 3s---because of their connector and associated equipment with the 30 pin foundation. The mini is awesome! Convenient, light---easy to take with ya, but the iPad 'Major' is
just as Awesome!! The retina display, battery life, LTE....and the 'Speed' of the 4th edition are all extremely positive attributes and to me makes the decision that much easier. Didn't mean to go this long...but the whole 'too heavy' thing to me blows my mind. Again...maybe that 'generational gap' that's becoming so evident on the MR board...those that have grown up with smaller gear and those of us used to lugging around heavy gear.
I am certainly waiting for the iPad mini...
I'm waiting for an iPad mini that will almost 90% be for eReading (but not only on Kindle, else I would already own a Paperwhite). But after the iPhone 5, there is no way I'm going back to the pixel density of my 3GS. It just looks terrible everytime I use it....
Even though they're matching PPI (3gs and Mini)---there are a
whole lot of differences between those two displays. They're not in the same ballpark---the display on the Mini is excellent. While not 'retina' per sé, it's definitely a good, bright, decently color accurate screen. It's been only a year since we've been introduced to high resolution monitors bigger than 3.5"...yet it may as well be a decade. It just seems like no one remembers display technology pre-2012.
This was already pretty obvious. Too bad it's a feature made a bit trivial by the branding even though it isn't. People expect it.
As shown by sales numbers, eh? Almost a 2x increase in Q1 iPad sales (11.x million vs. 19.x million current) beating analyst and Apple expectations both. Apple had a helluva time making enough 'Minis' in the first 4-6 weeks. We (the geeks) expect it. PEOPLE don't!
I was reading a review today of the Samsung Galaxy S4 and the screen was said to be as good as if not better than the iPhone 5 so called 'retina' display.
Can someone please explain why putting a 'retina' LCD display in a 7" iPad mini is so difficult if Samsung can get a full HD 441 ppi OLED display in a 5" phone?
I feel this could get very technical!!
As mentioned earlier...the S4 is double the price and (the display) less than half the surface area of the 7.9" mini. Apple uses an IPS display, not OLED. Not really technical---more like cost prohibitive. The S4 doesn't match half the battery/energy 'lengths of use' of the iPad mini---even though the lit surface area is less than half...mandating a BIG battery improvement (ala iPad 3/4) to guarantee matching battery life performance of a high rez screen. As well---processing both CPU and GPU. Though as time marches forward, so do these options. Lots of discussion on this board and across the interwebs (Anandtech has an excellent idea about this) on why, when and how retina can be enabled on a mini---and to what degree it would affect performance.
There will be a lot of angry customers and Apple knows were waiting on an iPad mini (Retina).
I disagree. If there is a nice performance boost this year (A6/1GB RAM, GPU), most will be happy. I think there would be a bigger back lash if we got a mini with 5 hours of battery life...or similar battery life with a significant weight gain.
To achieve retina, apple either has to use a 3rd resolution (which would force developers to have to recode their apps) or use a 326ppi screen, which might result in excessive battery drain (meaning either shorter battery life or a thicker and heavier ipad mini due to a larger battery).
Apple will likely want to keep the ipad mini as thin and light as possible, so the display will be most probably be sacrificed in this regard.
I was kinda waiting on what else Apple could do---as it looks like you left open 2 possibilities. While I agree Apple wants to maintain the mini's 'figure', I don't think there's any need to create a different resolution. It's the same, exact form factor of the larger iPad @ 4:3, so they only need to worry about the same pixel doubling effort they did with the iPad 2-3 transition or the iPhone 3g(s)--4 change. I don't think Apple would even think about changing the screen format to 16:9 from it's current 4:3. If they did that though---the same could be done from the iPhone 5's resolution. Double it.
I start my clinical rotations in August and love the idea of keeping a mini in my coat pocket to view all the spreadsheets, word documents and pdfs I've made over the past year. Not sure if the non-retina model will work well for viewing small text though. Hope the retina comes out soon. :/
If your eyes are decent, it's fine as it is. You can give it a shot at your local Apple store or any re-seller. I use mine almost solely for reading--documents, PDFs, websites (I've found Mercury to be the best---as you can set a default text size without constantly having to adjust, it's global). Certainly retina will be sharper---I love it on my iPad 4, however...it may still mandate text resizing as this size of a tablet is pretty small...think 9/10pt text size. Upsizing to 12/14pt makes reading much easier.
Wow---didn't mean to elaborate this much to this many responses...but I liked the poll idea, and some of these responses...especially the idea that the public 'demands' high rez displays are just plain silly, especially when you look at actual sales!!! The iPad Mini, with it's
'inferior display', is a phenomenal device!!! If you've waited this long, it probably DOES make sense to wait it out, regardless of retina display or not.
J
