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What to Make of the Apple Ipad Mini

The tablet market is changing rapidly and Apple’s new Ipad Mini shows that the consumer is the big winner. We don’t win because the Mini is such a great product, we win because the tablet makers have no choice but to have low retail prices on amazing devices due to ferocious competition.


The funny thing about the Mini is that it’s most direct competitor seems to be the standard Ipad models. We’ll go over the specifications in a bit, but consider that the Ipad Mini is very similar to the Ipad 2, just a bit smaller, and the lowest model debuts at $329 USD, where the Ipad 2 (and 3 for that matter) came out at $499 USD. So it’s more than a third cheaper which is significant, but it’s still not cheap enough to compete with the most popular $200 tablets, like the Kindle Fire HD and the Google Nexus. IF someone considers price the most important factor in their decision, they’ll still opt for the Kindle Fire or the Google Nexus. So who would actually buy the mini? I think anyone who was contemplating buying an Ipad, that’s who. The Ipad Mini is actually larger than the Nexus and the Fire by about an inch, and smaller than the Ipads by a little under 2 inches. In my opinion it’s the perfect size for a tablet. So being that it’s the same as an Ipad 2 in many respects and just a bit smaller, which might even be a good thing, The Mini is attractive to anyone who is in the market to buy an Ipad. Sure the Ipad 3 has some upgrades, but it’s probably not as upgraded as the Ipad Mini 2 will be, and that’s just a never ending cycle of nonsense anyway. They’re all really thin and they’re all really great, so price is what counts. So I think the Mini will gobble up the Ipad market in no time.

Why did Apple compete with itself and not with its actual competitors? I believe Apple just doesn’t think their ass-kicking 9.5 inch tablets can continue to maintain a large chunk of the tablet market with fierce competition out there from very good tablets that are 60% cheaper. I think Apple also realizes that most people don’t mind having a 7 or 8 inch screen compared to 9.5 inches. Sure there will still be a market for the brand new top end 9.5 inch screen model Ipads that will come out. But it’ll just be one small piece of the pie with many favoring Apple’s Ipad Mini or not favoring Apple at all. It’s a win-win for us because it signals the industry’s reluctance to put a high sticker price on any of these items. The Ipad mini is really good and it’s only half the price of an Iphone. Price has officially won in the tablet wars and in a very short time. Discount laptops took a decade+ to really take it to the laptop market, while in just a couple of years Apple is already down to $329!

The Ipad Mini comes with 16, 32, or 64 GB. Here are the stock specifications of the unit:

• Height: 7.87 inches (200 mm)
• Width: 5.3 inches (134.7 mm)
• Depth: 0.28 inch (7.2 mm)
• Weight: 0.68 pounds (308 g)
• 7.9-inch (diagonal) LED-backlit Multi-Touch display
• 1024-by-768 resolution at 163 pixels per inch (ppi)
• Fingerprint-resistant oleophobic coating
• Dual-core A5
• 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi (802.11n 2.4GHz and 5GHz)
• Bluetooth 4.0 wireless technology
• Built-in 16.3-watt-hour rechargeable lithium-polymer battery
• Up to 10 hours of battery life
• Charging via power adapter or USB to computer

Isight Camera

• 5MP photos
• Autofocus
• Face detection
• Backside illumination
• Five-element lens
• Tap to focus video or still images
• Tap to control exposure for video or still images
• Photo and video geotagging
• 1080p HD video recording
• Video stabilization

FaceTime HD Camera

• 1.2MP photos
• 720p HD video
• Face detection
• Backside illumination
• Tap to control exposure for video or still images
• Photo and video geotagging

One of the big selling points about the Mini is that there are already 250,000 apps that will sync with the screen size. They’ve made it so that anything that would work on an Ipad2 is going to work for this. So while Google Play can boast about 600,000 apps, most of those are for phones. Out of the box the Mini is capable of running every application you could ever need.

The Ipad Mini is superior to any droid tablet in terms of its components and reliability; however there is nothing Earth shattering about it that would cause a devout Android user to switch over to it. If you were like many people out there who love Apple products but just couldn’t justify the $500 cost of a base model Ipad over a $200 Nexus or Kindle; the Ipad Mini is your ultimate compromise. Also keep in mind that prices in Thailand on Apple products are usually just a bit higher than in the U.S.


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About ParadiseCity

M. Schwartz is an expert in all things Thailand. Having seen and done it all, there is nobody more equipped to teach about a successful ex-pat transition to Thailand. He wrote the cult classic guide book for men in Thailand called, How to Get the Most Bang for Your Buck in Thailand

One Response to What to Make of the Apple Ipad Mini

  1. Vast November 6, 2012 at 4:21 pm #

    What most people use computers/tablets for now days just does not need too much processing power. movies/musice/facebook,internet, twitter etc. Only really games need the power. They can only get cheaper and better in the future.

    The Microsoft surface is the most interesting to me. tablet with USB port/ Sd card slot and a keyboard cover!

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