Roundup: iPad Air and Retina iPad Mini First Impressions

[HurryKayne]

Very glad that they put the mini on par with the full size iPad as far as internals go. iPad Mini it is!

So basically Ipad Air has the same Mini Retina specs?
I'm very curious to see what sales will crown as the winner here^^
while i will buy a Mini retina this round.
I'm missing the Ram amount spec?Anyone heard about it?
1G as Iphone 5xx ?

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My guess is that both will have 1GB of RAM since it's still called A7. Of course there were examples where the 'same' chip has different RAM config, e.g. The A4 of iPad 1, iPhone 4 and iPod touch 4, but they were first-gen Apple branded chips so I don't think this history shall apply. Given that the iPad Air and iPad mini Retina both have the same config, I don't think their RAM onboard will be different.

Maybe Mini could sport 1G and Air 2?
But i agree with you.Lets see what Ifixit finds.

 

[jansaigon]

The problem really comes when (for whatever reason), one is forced to wait until a few months after launch to purchase. Then what? Wait 6-9 months or buy now? Last year I wanted retina, this year I don't have the cash. The mini is becoming ever move elusive for me lol.

Couldn't agree with you more. Price hike, plus [assuming] continued gouging for cellular at well over $100 , not to mention memory

Will stick with my MBA & mini, but the iOS segment is starting to feel really overpriced. To those who dont mind, enjoy ; )

 

[Trat]

Both new iPads look super. I'm still happy with my current mini and will probably wait until the next refresh before I update. The screen of never old mini never bothered me, although this jump to Retina and the A7 totally makes the 100 bucks extra worth: just not for me in this iteration.

 

[duervo]

These iPads, specifically the Mini, are going to dominate the holiday shopping season. I can't imagine any product being more sought after this year.

My 22 month old son would beg to differ with that statement!

The only way he would be interested in an iPad is if it looked like Mater, or if I played Cars or Cars 2 on it.

 

[chatin]

Smart 2

My 22 month old son would beg to differ with that statement!

The only way he would be interested in an iPad is if it looked like Mater, or if I played Cars or Cars 2 on it.

My 2 year old has an iPad 3 with her name engraved on it. Already knows her ABC's.

 

[CJM]

Great products, but with their flagship iPad missing out on iPhone features like TouchID, I think I'll wait for the next iteration!

 

[Bazooka-joe]

I really like the look and spec of the new mini but I do prefer the larger screen of the air. I have owned an Ipad 2,3 & 4 and I tried a mini the other day and just thought the screen was too small for surfing the next.

 

[phrehdd]

I'll have to take a keen look at the new iPad Mini. I hope its everything the PR team put out about it from Apple. Might serve well to have a more portable tablet than the iPad. Let's all hope it rocks.

 

[dazed]

The mini is the one I want. Don't care about touch ID.

Looking forward to replacing my ipad 2

After recently replacing my 3GS with a Nexus 4, all my toys will soon be Retina

 

[BvizioN]

Great products, but with their flagship iPad missing out on iPhone features like TouchID, I think I'll wait for the next iteration!

Just curious, why is touch ID so much needed on iPads? I can see the need of it on the phone since I get my phone out of the pockets every few minutes, and without touch ID means having to enter passwords hundreds of times a day. It may be just me but I don't use iPad the same way. Not to mention that most of the times my iPad is used in my home and never with passcode ON, only when I take it out on my travels.

 

[Vtwo]

Just curious, why is touch ID so much needed on iPads? I can see the need of it on the phone since I get my phone out of the pockets every few minutes, and without touch ID means having to enter passwords hundreds of times a day. It may be just me but I don't use iPad the same way. Not to mention that most of the times my iPad is used in my home and never with passcode ON, only when I take it out on my travels.

Agree. It would have been nice if the new iPads got touchID. But overall, it is much more useful on the iPhone.

 

[Neodym]

I cannot believe the new iPads lack touchID.

I'm perfectly fine with that. Prefer the concave design of the old Home button over the flat design that comes with TouchID.

 

[TommyA6]

2GB RAM, 2560 x 1600 pixels, 10.1 inches (~299 ppi pixel density), Corning Gorilla Glass 2, 1.9 MP Front Cam, Dual-core 1.7 GHz Cortex-A15 (this beats many quad core Android processors even)

VS

1GB RAM, 1536 x 2048 pixels, 9.7 inches (~264 ppi pixel density), No Gorilla Glass, 1.2MP front cam, Dual-core 1.3 GHz Cyclone Processor

I do concede that the Nexus 10 is heavier and thicker than iPad Air and battery life is 1hr less but that's because it's pushing more pixels and it's more powerful. Keep in mind the Nexus 10 is ONE YEAR older which is like a light year for tech. The new Nexus 10 that will be released in the next few days will blow iPad Air out of the water on pure specs no question. I'm not saying the experience will be as pleasant though. We'll have to see.

I can't tell you enough how wrong you are. First, iPad air's CPU and GPU are light years ahead of what nexus 10 offers. In fact it's faster than latest and greatest exynos and snapdragon processors. The screen has just a bit smaller resolution and you won't be able to notice those 20 or 30 ppi. Other than resolution, the iPad's screen has better color reproduction, much better viewing angles (IPS vs TFT on nexus) and much better responsiveness. (And has a much better aspect ratio of 4:3, which is better for everything except for watching movies).
Next, iPad Air has a longer battery life (while being much more powerful), it is much lighter and thinner.
And please don't give me that RAM nonsense. First of all, we still do not know how much RAM iPad air has, but even if it's 1 gb it will perform much much better than that nexus.
As far as cameras go, you do know more mpx doesn't equal better picture.
Finally, you don't know whether iPad uses gorilla glass or not. We do know they use it in iPhones (but it is not listed).

There you go, iPad Air is so much better than nexus 10 (specs, smoothness, user experience.... Vise) and I haven't even mentioned apps and ecosystem.

 

[needfx]

the touch ID sensor is likely the supply constrained part that is slowing down iphone 5s sales. since more people lock their phones and theyre more likely to be single-user, it makes sense to direct the limited-supply sensors to the phone.

Apparently, thanks

 

[GavApple]

I was considering getting the HP 11 Chromebook as a portable way of taking notes in class, but it looks like I might just get the iPad Air or iPad Mini instead! I had the original iPad and I loathed it after the first year because it was so ungodly slow. Might have to give iPad a second chance.

You should give it a go. I mean, it is meant to be 70 odd times quicker than the 1st ipad

 

[TroyBoy30]

If we're talking about specs on paper I can just name the nexus 10 (released about the same time as ipad 4) as having much better specs in everything including screen PPI. That's just the first non-apple tablet that came to my mind. There are many more.

yea the nexus might have better specs on paper but still runs worse. hmmmm

the only specs on the nexus 10 that are better are resolution and ram. I can tell you now that the 16x9 is great for movies on my nexus 7 but makes everything else terrible.

android needs those high specs to run..ios does not

 

[whooleytoo]

Just curious, why is touch ID so much needed on iPads? I can see the need of it on the phone since I get my phone out of the pockets every few minutes, and without touch ID means having to enter passwords hundreds of times a day. It may be just me but I don't use iPad the same way. Not to mention that most of the times my iPad is used in my home and never with passcode ON, only when I take it out on my travels.

Yeah, it'd be nice to have but I think it's less necessary on an iPad (for many people). In fact, I wish I could turn off the 'swipe' as well, so I could just wake it by pressing the Home button. My iPad is just sitting on my coffee table all day so there's no need to worry about accidental presses.

I'm more upset about the lack of ac Wifi, was hoping to get all ac devices over the next year. Now that I've 100Mbps broadband with 150Mbps on the way, the (real world) Wifi performance is lagging behind.

 

[locust76]

The Verge calls the iPad Air "really beautiful,"...

That's amusing. It has a brick shape (as are all other tablets). What exactly is so beautiful about it? One could not come up with a more boring shape even if he tried.

What would be a more aesthetically pleasing shape for you? Maybe a star-shaped iPad?

 

[Sodner]

As I stated before the Keynote... Lack of TouchID on the 5 would be a major disappointment and it is.

I'll still pick on up an "Air" because I want more screen real estate than my mini 1 provides but rather than going "all in" and getting a 32 or 64GB model with LTE that I would intend to keep for years I'm going to pick up a base 16 model with the intention of passing it down to replace my daughters 2 when the Air with Touch ID is released.

Now if Apple can just pull a spring upgrade out of their butt like they did to the iPad 3 to 4 I'd get it sooner rather than later.

 

[Gudi]

the touch ID sensor is likely the supply constrained part that is slowing down iphone 5s sales. since more people lock their phones and theyre more likely to be single-user, it makes sense to direct the limited-supply sensors to the phone.

Or it is not constrained at all and a tablet just isn't the same thing as a phone. Why do iPads still have 5mp cameras without a flash light? Because Apple thinks thats good enough and a tablet isn't used under the same low-light conditions as a phone. Don't be surprised if Touch-ID never comes to iPads and also not to the next iPhone 6c.

The A7 chip is the constrained part right now. So much that Apple can't even tell when exactly the iPad mini 2 will ship. They give a range of a whole month of possible release dates. Still the A7 is so important for the overall usefulness of the device, that Apple rather ships no iPad minis than iPad minis with an much cheaper A6X. Touch-ID is a gimmick in comparison.

 

[Justan00b]

Unless someone here provides some evidence that iPads use GL, we have to assume that they don't. Just because some iPhone at some point used it doesn't mean it's also used in the iPads. Why would Apple not write it in the specs description or mention it in its marketing if it had GL?

Well..... it appears Macrumors disagrees with you.
Please enjoy that article. The title is: Corning, Provider of iPhone and iPad Glass, Announces Stronger and More Scratch Resistant Gorilla Glass 3

 

[AaronTheYoung]

Haven't been on the forums today so I'm not sure if people have been bitching but My God, I cannot believe the new iPads lack touchID.

I was more disappointed that they didn't make the camera any better. Our firm would have loved to be able to take higher resolution images during site visits and inspections with our mobile tools.

The changes in the iPad Mini were expected. It at least got Retina and a new processor. But, iPad Air got lighter and a new processor. What?!?! That's all? No new camera, no TouchID? I was pretty disappointed. I guess if they included those features in this years model, they'd have nothing to put in next years.

Our firm has no reason to buy this iPad.

 

[decksnap]

To prove my point I have some benchmark results.

http://media.bestofmicro.com/A/H/371033/original/geekbenchmem.png

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I have never heard or seen anywhere apple claim that the iPads use Gorilla Glass, let alone Gorilla Glass 2 or 3. Post a link that confirms iPad uses Gorilla Glass if you can actually back up your claims.

EDIT: this link CONFIRMS that Ipads DO NOT use Gorilla Glass!

http://www.corninggorillaglass.com/products-with-gorilla/full-products-list

Unless someone here provides some evidence that iPads use GL, we have to assume that they don't. Just because some iPhone at some point used it doesn't mean it's also used in the iPads. Why would Apple not write it in the specs description or mention it in its marketing if it had GL?

Apple is the reason all these companies use Gorilla Glass to begin with. Of course they use it.

 

[AaronTheYoung]

no touch-id?

I know. Quite annoying alongside no camera upgrade.

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I was discourage because no 802.11 ac. Might wait till the next version since I want the Wi-Fi to be state of the art.

That's right! They didn't even upgrade the WiFi in these units. C'mon Apple. Really?

 

[bevsb2]

Just curious, why is touch ID so much needed on iPads? I can see the need of it on the phone since I get my phone out of the pockets every few minutes, and without touch ID means having to enter passwords hundreds of times a day. It may be just me but I don't use iPad the same way. Not to mention that most of the times my iPad is used in my home and never with passcode ON, only when I take it out on my travels.

Agree. I wish my iPhone5 had it, but it is unnecessary on my iPad. Can't wait to get the iPad Air.