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Picked up a 16 GB wifi model today and sold my iPad 3. The size difference is quite large but I love the weight and actually find it much easier to type on the mini keyboard vs. the full size pad. It's blazing fast as well, definitely loving it so far.
 
Just picked mine up

I just picked mine up at best buy. They got the shipment in this afternoon and only got twelve in. Only had five left when I picked mine up. Anyone looking could get lucky. They said it was the first of possibly three before the end of the year. Will be hard to get your hands on.
 
Is it surprising?


Yea.. because a 1.6GHz dua-core processor with 1 Gb RAM outperform any "high-end" octa-cores processor with 3GB RAM droid devices, in terms of speed, OS structure, apps quality improvement, and battery life...
 
Ordered 16gb Mini w Retina wifi white early this morning. This is my first iPad ever. Goes to show you how picky I am so indeed this is the best iPad ever. Those of you who ordered it too, have good taste.

Those of you who ordered the Air. Should've waited for black friday. $470 at Target + $100 gift card. No sale on the Mini though. Cause the Mini's the best. :D

Yes, because the whole MacRumors community presides in USA...
 
Picked up the 64GB/WiFi in white (time for a change!); I don't anticipate Canada having decent shared data plans in the next two years and I can just use Personal Hotspot (plus the increasing presence of Shaw Open free WiFi in most any urban area nowadays).

Shipping in 5-10 business days so delivery by month's end!
 
Everything else being equal, bigger screen size is differentiation enough to warrant a higher price.
It would if it gave you more real estate, yeah. Unfortunately it does not.

The bigger screen size of the Air is also offset by the fact that it's a heavier product and isn't as portable (though it's certainly much better than the original iPad with the 80's bezel).

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But wouldn't shorter LED strips consume less power?
Yes, and the battery is physically smaller as well... meaning it's a wash. They're both listed as having 10 hours of battery life on the Apple site.

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- No interlaced H.264
Interlaced video is the work of the devil.

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Half the people want the Mini because it's smaller.
Half the people want the Air because it's bigger.

And they all think the other half is stupid. :mad:
So true. However, if it's just a 50/50 game, the Mini comes in at $100 cheaper... which makes it the better buy. :)

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Enjoy your product, why aren't you playing with your rMini or Air?
Please, tell me where a cellular rMini is available and I would be more than happy to. :D
 
The ladies will love it. In a few minutes, I'll be unpacking my new 128GB iPad Air. Thought about getting the retina iPad mini, but the larger screen size of the iPad Air won me over. You feel more immersed when you watch videos and play games. I'm also thinking about the larger iPhones coming out next year that will make the screen size difference between them and the iPad mini even smaller than now. Maybe in a year or two, I'll get a 12.9" iPad Pro if it materializes. Maybe I'll get a 5.5" iPhone if Apple finds a way to make it close in size to the Galaxy S4, if not it's the 4.7" iPhone I'll get. It's an exciting holiday season for me, unpacking my iPad Air today, Sony PS4 on Friday, switching to T-Mobile next month, getting a 5s with the Jump plan.

My 128gb Air is due on Thursday from AT&T, just sold my mini, I decided that for reading mags and comics the larger screen just made more sense I do like the mini thou it was a great tablet.
 
I initially purchased the Air, but even though its lighter with the thinner bezel having already had the original iPad Mini it was still not nearly as convenient to roll up on the couch are in the bed to read. The iPad Air was still just too big and awkward in comparison. So, I returned it and was awaiting the iPad Mini Retina. Ordered 2 of them when the site came back up. I got a 64gb Verizon and a 32gb Wifi only. I got the Wifi only as a Christmas Gift. But the 64gb is mine. I called the friend that was interested in buying my older iPad Mini and she is going to pay me for it on Friday. So, that will give me back $300 to put towards my new toys.

Concerning which is best, I think that is really each persons individual preference. Clearly for me the Mini Retina is best because of the way I use it. I watch news and read blogs, forums etc. You can just get up close and very personal with the mini in a way you can't with the Air. (Alright all you dirty minded scoundrels) LOL Plus I also take it with me to work and use it there a great deal. I am on the road a good bit.

Which ever one you get for yourself ENJOY IT!
 
But how many rams?
Hard to count. They're in rut right now

:eek:

I want to see what gpu performance is like next, iPhone 5S or iPad Air? Or in the middle..

They're so similar, it's not worth the paltry couple points it'll be. Anand did an extremely in depth review of both the 5s and iPad Air (delving deeply into the A7/A8 instruction set). Worth the read. You'll instantly get an answer to your question. Right now, graphically and computationally the A7 sits atop the heap. Expect an insignificant 4-7% decrease

Ah, didn't click on that link. Thanks!

I will most likely get it then. The lack of RAM in the previous model made it almost unusable (for me).

Weird. Mine works great. As does my Air. And iPad 4. Love my mini and getting the new one for my wife. Keep in mind, that RAM is help to the display as well. Original mini is an excellent device. No rMini is a grand slam. Those benchmarks, and the speed differences will be cool, the display a HUGE step up

That said...the OG Mini is a damn good device.

That's pretty bad news, particularly if there's also thermal throttling as in the 5s, vastly reducing the performance after 1-2 minutes of full-speed operation.

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Frankly, secretly I hoped for the same CPU speed as with the Air. After all, Jim Cook (or the Apple Store homepage?) did state it has exactly the same internals as the Air. While the difference isn't as big as between the 4 and the Mini 1, it's still significant if you, for example, use software decoding for, say, MPEG-2 1080i60 video.

Now, I may still be going for the Air and just keep the Nexus 7 2013 as my truly pocketable tablet.

Lol...you're supposed to be transcoding on a laptops desktop...or something other than a an iPad. Compressor, Handbrake....what the hell are you trying to transcode 1080p video on an iPad for?

As far as thermal throttling, you should go back and re read Anand's review. He says, while the 5s indeed is clocked at the same speed as the mini...1.3Ghz, the reason the 5s throttled to 900-1000Mhz was because of its lack of heat dissipation 'room' or area. The Air has significantly more room than the 5s, hence no throttling. The Mini is much larger than the 5s as well. I don't see it throttling 'as quick' :rolleyes: as the 5s. Anand was BLOWN away the 5s maintained 1.3Ghz as long as it did! Very VERY few instances if any will utilize your SoC's power maxxed out for the 2+ minutes it finally took to throttle. That the Air didn't, another amazing feat in silicon engineering.

Indeed 'Tim Cook' did mention similar in parity with its big brother. 100mhz decrease in clock doesn't change that one iota.

Guaranteed bud, you won't be transcoding or encoding h.264 1080p @ 60fps on your Nexus either. We aren't there yet. But getting damn close. And with Apple's release of a 64 bit processor gets us closer, faster

You should applaud him, and buy a laptop

If that happened it would be the worst iPad ever. Retina graphics assets + apps built for the 64-bit chip would mean RAM would be eaten up way too fast. It would probably be worse than the original mini...

Actually...I'll say it again, the Mini doesn't suck. It's easily the second best tablet on the market! Keep in mind (I've got an iPad Air and '4') the RAM on 64 bit architecture extends its footprint while 'lending' some memory for the display/graphics on the SoC. You'll still get to repopulate your safari tabs, I promise. With the 32bit, low Rez display of my original Mini, I'm seeing almost the amount do free and wired RAM on my mini and Air in comparison with the same apps open. There's still plenty of A5/6 processors on the market and the mini runs everything on the App Store currently without a hiccup. While this new mini is a MONSTER upgrade for sure...you'll be waiting along with me for those developers to continue updating 64 bit apps and optimizing them for the A7


Nice try to justify what you just bought while you realize you bought the wrong product. ;)

Not sure who the bigger dick is. You or the four people they 'up' voted your jack ass comment

The iPhone is too small and the Retina iPad Mini is too big. I want one that is between the two size wise. I guess I'm the odd man out. :)

Lol. You kinda are! Have you tried Android? Hopefully for you the recent bigger phones are your answer. That said...man, the Air as an extreme improvement on the older iPads, and this new mini...a game changer @¾ of a pound. Pretty amazing and portable/discreet piece of quality computing power....in your pocket!

bigger screen of Air might be better only for watching movies.for rest of the tasks the 7.9 inches retina mini's size is actually more suitable.
Air is still bulky and heavy when compared to the retina mini.
mini is overall a much better form factor.
I'm so glad I didn't jump to buy the Air! now I'll have the superior iPad.:cool:

As an owner of both, neither is superior. I'm glad you got the one you wanted. No need to out others down. Anyone considering the Air to bulky and 'heavy' (it's a pound man!) might enjoy the cliché response....forget the 'screen time'. Time to get to the gym, do some waking, exercise. Ya know. What we did in gym class back in the 'old' days

Yup, if it does have throttling, it'll surely not be as bad as that of the 5s.

Nevertheless, Anandtech will surely report on this as well. We'll soon see.

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Well, for high-res video decoding, even that of the simple(r) MPEG-2 (let alone the more complex H.264!), you need as much CPU performance as possible. Proper (meaning few dropped frames) MPEG-2 1080i60 decoding isn't even possible with the A6. Even 10% of a perforormance difference does matter in this case.

No iPad has done this to date. What are you trying to do? Are you seriously considering using your Air as a video transcoding system?

I'm glad you're starting to understand 'throttling'. And I'll agree with an earlier poster. Interlaced video is demon brew. And dead at that. What are you doing with it....on an iPad?


Only for non-interlaced H.264 up to 1080p.

- No MPEG-2
- No interlaced H.264
- No for example 2K

etc. With these, you must use software decoding.

And, of course, hardware acceleration can only be used with either the mov / mp4 / m4v containers or with background remuxing from MKV's, which rules out for example proper AirPlay playback.

So use one of the many video conversion apps that'll play all files stored on YOUR computer! Not your iPad. There are a load of video playback apps...and why in the world are you trying to play interlaced? 2k? That's 1080p. Easily playable in the retina mini or Air. Mpeg2streamclip, grab the app (on you computer) and/or handbreak. Your issues are solved. While the iPad is an amazing creation tool and an excellent 'field' unit while shooting, I'm thinking you're trying to get a bit more from it than possible....on ANY tablet other than a Surface (as it's a computer!)

How many Safari tabs can you keep open without having to reload the closed ones? 3? 4? Now, that's one of the major issues of having 1GB of RAM only.


Again: among other things, Safari is REALLY suffering from the (compared to the alternatives) low RAM. Don't tell me you simply love having to wait for the killed pages' reloading.

'Wait' for killed pages? Lol....my LTE is 45 down, 38-40 up. Website repopulation is almost instantaneous. Even my home internet, 30 down, 20 up, it screams! No...I don't get annoyed, but if you're on EDGE, I can understand.

Mine is incredibly fast at reloading. Especially with these current LTE speeds. Amazing now matter where you are. As well, my Mini's browser is Mercury pro. My larger iPads are using iCab as our go to browser. You don't have to lock in to Safari

I just picked mine up at best buy. They got the shipment in this afternoon and only got twelve in. Only had five left when I picked mine up. Anyone looking could get lucky. They said it was the first of possibly three before the end of the year. Will be hard to get your hands on.

Hard to believe one of the blue shirts at best buy has any clue about the inventory his or her store should expect pre Christmas. You know Apple's making 'em. Can't wait? Buy one from best buy...they're doing January 15 returns right now (because of the holidays). By then, you'll have a shot at one or can turn it in for full refund and order one up as more inventory is being constantly released. Kinda cool. Fresh of the factory line. 80-88% battery! haven't been laying around on shelves, excellent post purchase support if something happens. Win/Win


I am not saying the iPad Mini was a piece of crap, merely that the specs were pretty paltry at release time.)ImageImage

Good. Because it's not. Not when you consider so many important jobs now being handled by iPad 2s (pilots, doctors, inventory control and POSale systems...built on the updated chip for the ,2,4). While the charts show 6x improvement, I've got an Air and it's not exactly 6 times faster in my day to day tasks. That'll change as time matches on and I'll get rid of mine for excellent resale and buy another. Just one of those things!

J
 
Just tried Excel Web App in Safari on rMini using the household budgeting spreadsheet I keep in Sky drive; this thing is blazing fast, completely eclipsing my 3rd gen ipad. Absolutely no compliants about the speed here, nor the experience of doing productivity/data entry on the smaller screen. Apple have knocked it out of the park on this one in my opinion.
 
Slower speed please

Since my original model iPad Mini is ABSOLUTELY fast enough for every single thing I want to use it for, can I please have a SLOWER clock speed than 1.3GHz, just fast enough to compensate for the greater number of pixels, and take the benefit in a longer battery life?
 
If you are talking about Windows Phone, then sir, you are certainly wrong. Windows Phone is so efficient, 512MB is more than enough. Howver, iPad Mini with 512MB on iOS 7 is certianly not enough. I am constantly running out of memory. One example is Safari constantly maximizing the memory and page constantly refreshing itself.

If you taking about Android, it is true or not true in same time. Android on Nexus line up runs beatifully with 2GB of memory, never runing out of memory in my case. Samsung TouchWIze however, it huge memory hog....

If you comparing iOS with Windows on desktop, then you sir, comparing wrong animes.

Absolutely agreed. Many Apple fanboys don't know anything about competing OS'es but still spread completely ungrounded FUD about them.

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'Wait' for killed pages? Lol....my LTE is 45 down, 38-40 up. Website repopulation is almost instantaneous. Even my home internet, 30 down, 20 up, it screams! No...I don't get annoyed, but if you're on EDGE, I can understand.

Mine is incredibly fast at reloading. Especially with these current LTE speeds. Amazing now matter where you are. As well, my Mini's browser is Mercury pro. My larger iPads are using iCab as our go to browser. You don't have to lock in to Safari

Still, reloading means

- you often lose the scroll position and/or possible input you've already entered in forms
- capped / slow connections do suffer.

I'm certainly aware of iCab's somewhat better memory management. I've even thoroughly discussed the memory problems with its dev back in the iPhone 3G days. It tries to shoehorn as much pages into memory as possible. Too bad it's the iOS memory handling is pretty much unpredictable when using UIWebView's as you, as a program running, can't know how much memory a page will be allocated before loading and if you do force load a page with little available memory, your third-party app will crash. This is why not even iCab (which is certainly the best browser, memory usage-wise) can be absolutely failsafe.

The memory managegement of iOS should at last be fixed by providing programmers a way of NOT crashing the entire app when the memory is exhausted during a large malloc() (or simple UIWebView loads).
 
So use one of the many video conversion apps that'll play all files stored on YOUR computer! Not your iPad. There are a load of video playback apps...and why in the world are you trying to play interlaced?

Because you don't want to deinterlace it? Look, deinterlacing will almost always result in information loss - unless you use high-quality prediction with keeping the original fieldrate in the resulting video (now with framerate). The conversion (again, if you create a 60p video out of 60i) will take AGES (even on today's i5 computers, 2-3 times of the original footage) and the resulting file size will be typically significantly larger than that of the source. It's only with simpler (60i > 30p) and destructive (half the temporal info is lost & other possible losses in resolution depending on the algorithm) deinterlacing that conversion is fast(er) and the resulting file isn't bigger.

Also, desktop-based deinterlacing just can't be used when you quickly import (via the CCK) MOV (mp4 / m4v) files from cameras recording interlaced video and saving them as MOV. For example, most Olympus cameras belong to here. You can't properly review these videos in the stock Videos app as the hardware doesn't play back interlaced videos (properly, without the awful green tint). You, then, do need third-party apps (with access to the camera roll) for proper review.

2k? That's 1080p.

Not necessarily. 2K is used by video folks to denote videos with the horizontal resolution of 2048, not 1920. While, technically, 1080p videos can also be called 2K, video folks only use (in practice) 1080p when referring to true 1080p videos. There are a lot of truly 2K videos as some cameras allow for 2K recording at OK framerates instead of the somewhat lesser-resolution 1080p. Then, why not shoot at that resolution?

While the iPad is an amazing creation tool and an excellent 'field' unit while shooting, I'm thinking you're trying to get a bit more from it than possible....on ANY tablet other than a Surface (as it's a computer!)

Again, out in the field, CCK-based video importing & reviewing (where there's no desktop deinterlacing) from interlacing cameras is very common. Then, the CPU power really counts - with 1.4GHz instead of 1.3 GHz, you will have about 7% better framerate.
 
Yea I just got an ipad mini 1 and it seems pretty fast (about as fast as my iphone 5). Excited to see the new retina mini but the mini 1 seems to work for me now.
 
Bought my ipad mini retina 16gb at the apple store yesterday. I am just curious why people complain about 16gb being too small. All my pictures are on Dropbox, and I can't see why you would put music on it when you undoubtedly have a phone. So whats everyone filling their 64gb/128gb ipads with? I'm just curious, NOT HATIN' YALL.
 
Since my original model iPad Mini is ABSOLUTELY fast enough for every single thing I want to use it for, can I please have a SLOWER clock speed than 1.3GHz, just fast enough to compensate for the greater number of pixels, and take the benefit in a longer battery life?

Doesn't work that way. Slower clock speed just means the CPU is busier longer to do the same work. And Apple is quite capable of reducing the clock speed at any time they want when apps don't actually need it. If you're looking at a website that doesn't do anything, the CPU doesn't eat any power.
 
Bought my ipad mini retina 16gb at the apple store yesterday. I am just curious why people complain about 16gb being too small. All my pictures are on Dropbox, and I can't see why you would put music on it when you undoubtedly have a phone. So whats everyone filling their 64gb/128gb ipads with? I'm just curious, NOT HATIN' YALL.

I use mine primarily as a reader, and HD magazines and comics take up quite a bit of space.
 
It would if it gave you more real estate, yeah. Unfortunately it does not.

The bigger screen size of the Air is also offset by the fact that it's a heavier product and isn't as portable (though it's certainly much better than the original iPad with the 80's bezel).

So you're saying the Air is bigger because it's bigger? If the mini is better because it's smaller and more portable then it sounds like the iPod Touch is your ultimate form factor.
 
Bought my ipad mini retina 16gb at the apple store yesterday. I am just curious why people complain about 16gb being too small. All my pictures are on Dropbox, and I can't see why you would put music on it when you undoubtedly have a phone. So whats everyone filling their 64gb/128gb ipads with? I'm just curious, NOT HATIN' YALL.

I work at home and don't use my phone all that much. So the phone gets the 16 and the pad gets the 64 and the music library.


Doesn't work that way. Slower clock speed just means the CPU is busier longer to do the same work. And Apple is quite capable of reducing the clock speed at any time they want when apps don't actually need it. If you're looking at a website that doesn't do anything, the CPU doesn't eat any power.

Good points. So that just leaves using the chips that didn't quality for the 1.4 speed bin. Helping offset the lower price on the mini.
 
So are the Retina iPad Mini and iPad Air basically equivalent machines in two body styles? I've got an iPad 3 that was zippy at first but now, not even two years later, is really angering me at times. "Yes, I really did press the home button." "Yes, I really did tap the screen."

It's not really enough to make me want to spent $400 on a new one (at least $200 trade-in, $600 for 32GB model of iPad Air). But it's getting there. If the Air had Touch ID, I might forego my whole "I refuse to shop on Thanksgiving" to see if I could get one of those with a $100 gift card.
 
So you're saying the Air is bigger because it's bigger? If the mini is better because it's smaller and more portable then it sounds like the iPod Touch is your ultimate form factor.
It doesn't seem like you understand the concept of screen real estate.

The iPad Air has a screen resolution of 2048x1536.
The iPad Mini with Retina Display has a screen resolution of 2048x1536.

That means that despite the physical size of the screen, they have the same number of pixels. You can fit the same number of elements on the screen at its native resolution. There is zero advantage to the bigger screen unless you prefer to see images larger in scale. It's no sharper than the Mini (in fact, it's less sharp).

The iPod Touch, on the other hand, has a screen resolution of 1136x640. It has the same pixel density as the iPad Mini with Retina Display, but the screen is physically much smaller. By that definition, it actually does have less screen real estate. Here, a larger panel is more advantageous because you're not giving up pixel density for screen size.

In other words, the iPad Mini with Retina display is currently Apple's largest portable device with the highest pixel density. If the Air had a 326ppi screen, it would be superior. But it doesn't (which is what I originally stated). It gains you nothing unless your eyesight sucks (which I also stated). This is also the reason we're starting to see 4K television sets. If you think 1080p is "good enough" for home viewing, then I have an iPad Air to sell you. And yes, that will apply to lots of people.

Nothing wrong with that - but I will be enjoying my iPad Mini with Retina Display and the extra $100 in my pocket.
 
Wow! 5x the performance of the original mini for only $100 more. And you also get 4x the resolution!
 
It doesn't seem like you understand the concept of screen real estate.

The iPad Air has a screen resolution of 2048x1536.
The iPad Mini with Retina Display has a screen resolution of 2048x1536.

That means that despite the physical size of the screen, they have the same number of pixels. You can fit the same number of elements on the screen at its native resolution. There is zero advantage to the bigger screen unless you prefer to see images larger in scale. It's no sharper than the Mini (in fact, it's less sharp).

The iPod Touch, on the other hand, has a screen resolution of 1136x640. It has the same pixel density as the iPad Mini with Retina Display, but the screen is physically much smaller. By that definition, it actually does have less screen real estate. Here, a larger panel is more advantageous because you're not giving up pixel density for screen size.

In other words, the iPad Mini with Retina display is currently Apple's largest portable device with the highest pixel density. If the Air had a 326ppi screen, it would be superior. But it doesn't (which is what I originally stated). It gains you nothing unless your eyesight sucks (which I also stated). This is also the reason we're starting to see 4K television sets. If you think 1080p is "good enough" for home viewing, then I have an iPad Air to sell you. And yes, that will apply to lots of people.

Nothing wrong with that - but I will be enjoying my iPad Mini with Retina Display and the extra $100 in my pocket.

I understand the PPI advantage with the Mini Retina and that it's actually a sharper image but my point is that it's still an opinion that the Mini Retina is the best choice between that and an Air. Some people just like bigger.
 
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