When Apple announced the iPad mini many thought that it’s their response to the cheap, 7 inch tablets taking the market by storm. In a way it might’ve been true, but iPad mini is neither cheap nor 7 inch. It is the best small tablet on the market though and here’s why:
Form factor
4:3 form factor is WAY better for a tablet than 16:9. Nexus 7 browser looks silly compared to the iPad. All pages seem small and hard to read. Same with books and magazines. It’s odd that most companies are making those 16:9 tablets. We have covered the aspect ratio battle before and apparently not much have changed since then. And I can’t believe Apple patented the 4:3 ratio. That would just be plain silly ;)
Screen
The screen is not retina, and probably will not get the bump in the next version because that would affect portability (weight and size) a little bit and right now it’s just perfect. The density is higher than on the iPads 1 & 2, and it doesn’t look bad. It is lower resolution that some of the Android tablets, but that doesn’t matter much when most Tablet apps are in Apple’s basket anyway. And they generally look much better anyway. After a while (and that’s from someone who used a retina iPad since March 2012) the screen doesn’t appear as low res as many would like it to be. It works and looks good (enough).
Apps
All tablet apps work just as well on the mini which makes it the best all around tablet in the world right now. It is portable and has the biggest tablet app selection out there. Everything is a little bit smaller but I didn’t encounter any problems with misplaced touches. It works and it works well.
All in all that is the best iPad yet and will replace my 3rd generation Retina iPad as my main travel tablet. It’s also much better as a nightstand Flipboard reader due to the smaller weight – much easier to hold for longer periods of time. We got over 11 hours of continuus video playback from this device, so battery life is also outstanding. The small tablet market has a new leader. All the megapixels and megahertz don’t really matter. The device still works better than most tablets and it’s build quality is far ahead of ANY tablet out there, even including the big iPads.