iPad Mini Tablet: Visual Tour

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iPad Mini Tablet: Visual Tour

photo : InformationWeek

Apple iPad Mini: More or Less?

In trying to position its long awaited iPad Mini, Apple managed to avoid employing the overused expression, "less is more." Instead, it offers a more perplexing value proposition: Less is the same. Apple on its website says about its iPad Mini, "There's less of it, but no less to it."

As Apple designer Jonathan Ive put it, the iPad Mini is "a concentration, not a reduction, of the original." Ignore for a moment that a "reduction," at least in the culinary sense, is synonymous with "concentration." Apple insists that the iPad Mini is the same iPad you know and love, but in a different size.

However, sameness and difference don't play well together. The iPad Mini is clearly less capable in the graphics department: Its display, while sharp, is not the Retina display that makes the 9.7-inch iPad, now in its fourth generation, so compelling.

The iPad Mini also features a less powerful processor than its big brother. The Apple A5 is a fine chip. It powers the second generation iPad. But it's no A6X, which runs about twice a fast, in the fourth generation iPad.

The iPad Mini is less bulky than the 9.7-inch iPad and competing 7-inch tablets. Measuring 7.2 mm thick and weighing 0.68 pounds, it's "pencil-thin," to borrow Apple's characterization. It's just the thing for traveling light, and it nicely fills the gap between its full-sized sibling and the even smaller iPhone 5.

As a wireless device, the iPad Mini includes almost everything you'd want to see, except for 802.11ac. It supports dual-band 802.11 a/b/g/n wireless networking, at speeds up to 150 Mbps, and those models that include a cellular chip support LTE and DC-HSDPA.

The iPad Mini comes with an Apple Lightning connector, designed for a more compact connection port. Intriguingly, the Lightning connector can support a USB adapter, enabling direct connection of cameras or SD cards, as well as VGA or HDMI digital video sources, to the iPad Mini and the fourth generation iPad. This could make it even easier to get files on or off iOS devices, if Apple and its third-party partners support peripherals designed for this purpose.

Then there's the price: $329 and up. The iPad Mini costs more than Amazon's $199 Kindle Fire HD and more than Google's $199 Nexus 7. It remains to be seen whether the iPad Mini would have been better off with more "less to it" in terms of price.

Dig into our slideshow to get a close look at the tiny tablet and see how it compares to its larger peers.

I've Got The Whole iPad In My Hand

If you're considering an iPad Mini but haven't made up your mind, this picture frames the value proposition quite nicely. Of course, you can probably hold the larger 9.7-inch iPad in one hand, but your arm would almost certainly prefer to be holding the iPad Mini.

The Skinny

Could the iPad Mini be anything other than "every inch an iPad"? Not really. But every inch, or more accurately every absent inch, makes the iPad Mini more appealing to potential buyers. The iPad Mini is really thin and light. It's a one-handed device. With Apple's improved iBooks app, it's a really nice ebook reader.

The iPad Mini Is Free...

... of many nasty chemicals. The iPad Mini's display contains no arsenic or mercury. The device is free of BFR, or brominated flame retardants. It also lacks PVC, or polyvinyl-chloride. It is, as Apple puts it, "highly recyclable"--hinting at the unfortunate fate of older model iPads following the release of new models.

Meet The New CPU, Same As The Old CPU

While the 9.7-inch fourth generation iPad is getting speedier silicon, in the form of Apple's A6X chip, the iPad Mini relies on the A5 chip, the same model found in the second generation iPad. It should perform better, though, with fewer pixels to push around.

Picture This

The iPad Mini comes with a front-facing FaceTime HD camera and a rear-facing 5 megapixel iSight camera. Be warned: Your colleagues will be able to see when you're not paying attention during video conferences.

iPad Mini Math

At the media event introducing the iPad Mini on October 23, Apple SVP of worldwide marketing Phil Schiller pointed out that Apple's 7.9-inch screen--measured diagonally--has a display area that's more than one-third larger than the display area offered by Google's 7-inch Nexus 7 tablet. He didn't mention that the $329 iPad mini is almost two-thirds more expensive than Google's $199 tablet.

photo : InformationWeek

What About Apps?

The iPad Mini's reduced form factor matters, but on the inside it's still an iPad. It runs the 275,000 apps made specifically for iPads, as well as larger set of more than 700,000 apps designed for any iOS device.

Lightning Connector

Apple has included its new Lightning Connector in the iPad Mini and the fourth generation iPad. The Lightning Connector debuted in the iPhone 5 earlier this month and was cited as a potential downside in many reports because it's not compatible with existing iOS peripherals--unless you have a $29 adapter. But a recent ChangeWave survey found that none of the respondents who expressed disinterest in the iPhone 5 saw the Lightning Connector as an issue.

The Price Is Right?

The iPad Mini ranges from $329 for the 16-GB model to $529 for the 64-GB model. If you want cellular networking, the range is $459 to $659, not including monthly data fees. Check back in three months to see whether that's enough of a premium to send customers to Android tablets.

Source : InformationWeek - http://www.informationweek.com