I'm the previous owner of the iPhone 3G, 4, and now my wife and I both have the 5 (one black, one white, both 32gb). I also owned the original iPad and I just sold my "new" ipad that I had purchased in March (32gb+LTE).
I normally upgrade devices every two years so upgrading the iPad in around 7 months is unusual, but I actually have a valid reason. My phones are on AT&T whereas my iPad was on a separate Verizon plan. The Verizon plan costs $30 a month for 2gb and I normally don't use even half that data, now that I'm on a mobile share plan I can add an iPad to my AT&T account for $10 a month. Over the course of the year that's going to save me $240. I also just found out that AT&T will knock $100 off the price of the iPad for signing a 2 year agreement, considering I just resigned for 2 years with my iPhone 5 purchase I really don't mind locking in the tablet too. So, I sold my "New" iPad for $500 and can buy the "Newer" 32gb LTE iPad for $629+tax. In all honesty, when I decided to upgrade I didn't realize that AT&T offered the $100 off and I ordered the iPad through Apple, it looks like I'll have to cancel that order.
Another reason why I wanted to upgrade from my 3 was because of the lightning connector. It's nice having one cable to charge all of our devices. We normally keep a cable in the car, living room, bedroom and office. I don't want to keep two cables at each location (Apple's evil plan worked).
On to the Mini. My wife is always checking out things with her phone (news apps, videos, etc.). I think she'd really like to have a tablet of her own (I'm not the best at sharing) so it'd make a great Christmas gift for her. I had planned on just buying the 16gb wifi white model, but now that AT&T is subsidizing tablets it may be worth it to get the LTE model. Any thoughts on this?
Also, buying the mini is kind of a tough choice. Considering what Apple is selling refurbed iPads for, it would probably be a smarter choice to buy the base model iPad 3 for $379 (or even the iPad 2 @ Walmart on Black Friday, $324). But, the mini is so much lighter than it's bigger brother, I think my wife would like it better. And yeah, that lightning connector is kind of the trump card.
And not that I haven't already given Apple enough money this year, I just ordered a refurbed 4th gen 32gb iPod Touch ($179 through Apple). My 12 year old nephew lives in a house with no iOS and loves playing with our phones and iPad when he comes over. We split the purchase with my parents and plan on giving it to him at Christmas. He's the only child in the family and we are all pretty close, it will be great being able to iMessage and FaceTime him.
I normally upgrade devices every two years so upgrading the iPad in around 7 months is unusual, but I actually have a valid reason. My phones are on AT&T whereas my iPad was on a separate Verizon plan. The Verizon plan costs $30 a month for 2gb and I normally don't use even half that data, now that I'm on a mobile share plan I can add an iPad to my AT&T account for $10 a month. Over the course of the year that's going to save me $240. I also just found out that AT&T will knock $100 off the price of the iPad for signing a 2 year agreement, considering I just resigned for 2 years with my iPhone 5 purchase I really don't mind locking in the tablet too. So, I sold my "New" iPad for $500 and can buy the "Newer" 32gb LTE iPad for $629+tax. In all honesty, when I decided to upgrade I didn't realize that AT&T offered the $100 off and I ordered the iPad through Apple, it looks like I'll have to cancel that order.
Another reason why I wanted to upgrade from my 3 was because of the lightning connector. It's nice having one cable to charge all of our devices. We normally keep a cable in the car, living room, bedroom and office. I don't want to keep two cables at each location (Apple's evil plan worked).
On to the Mini. My wife is always checking out things with her phone (news apps, videos, etc.). I think she'd really like to have a tablet of her own (I'm not the best at sharing) so it'd make a great Christmas gift for her. I had planned on just buying the 16gb wifi white model, but now that AT&T is subsidizing tablets it may be worth it to get the LTE model. Any thoughts on this?
Also, buying the mini is kind of a tough choice. Considering what Apple is selling refurbed iPads for, it would probably be a smarter choice to buy the base model iPad 3 for $379 (or even the iPad 2 @ Walmart on Black Friday, $324). But, the mini is so much lighter than it's bigger brother, I think my wife would like it better. And yeah, that lightning connector is kind of the trump card.
And not that I haven't already given Apple enough money this year, I just ordered a refurbed 4th gen 32gb iPod Touch ($179 through Apple). My 12 year old nephew lives in a house with no iOS and loves playing with our phones and iPad when he comes over. We split the purchase with my parents and plan on giving it to him at Christmas. He's the only child in the family and we are all pretty close, it will be great being able to iMessage and FaceTime him.