Apple iPad mini with Retina Display: Reviewed
by Anand Lal Shimpi on November 16, 2013 8:00 AM ESTThe Display
The big story behind the new iPad mini is of course its 7.85-inch Retina Display. We’re talking about the same 2048 x 1536 resolution as the iPad Air, but in a much smaller form factor. The result is the highest pixel density of any Apple display ships today, tying with the iPhone 5S. The impact on the overall experience is pretty significant. Text is obviously a lot sharper, but even graphics are a lot nicer to look at on the new Retina Display. The gains aren't quite as obvious as they were on the larger iPad, but after living with the Retina mini for a while I can't easily go back to the previous version.
iPad mini (left) vs. iPad mini with Retina Display (right)
I ran Marco Arment's image retention test on the Retina mini and didn't see even the slightest degree of image retention. My old, non-Retina iPad mini on the other hand exhibited image retention. I suspect Apple is multi-sourcing its displays here, which could obviously contribute to varied behavior. At least on the two minis I have, image retention isn't an issue.
In the conclusion of my iPad Air review I wrote about the new mini as finally being a no-compromises smaller iPad. Much like my assertions last year of a Retina mini not being in the cards, it turns out that I was wrong on this point as well. Although display resolution is no longer a concern on the mini, color gamut hasn’t changed between the old and new minis. A quick look at our gamut test gives us an idea of what’s going on:
The iPad mini with Retina Display has the same color gamut as the standard iPad mini, which is narrower than the iPad Air and less than the sRGB coverage we normally look for. The biggest issue here is that there are other smaller tablets in this price range that do offer sRGB coverage (e.g. Nexus 7, Kindle Fire HDX 8.9).
I suspect the justification here is Apple likely views the bigger iPad as being a better fit for photographers/those who care about color reproduction, but it’s a shame that this is a tradeoff that exists between the two iPads especially given how good Apple is about sRGB coverage in nearly all of its other displays.
One of the simplest visual tests is to use one of iOS 7’s more colorful wallpapers and compare the Retina mini and iPad Air side by side:
Pay attention to the color of the red triangles in the lower left
From left to right: iPad Air, iPad mini with Retina Display, iPad mini
The difference is small but apparent, particularly if you’re used to panels with full sRGB coverage like the iPad Air or any of the rMBPs/iMacs. The biggest deviations are in reds/blues and magenta in between as you can tell from the CIE chart above.
Within its gamut coverage, the mini’s panel is fairly accurate. A look at our GMB checker test shows performance competitive with the Nexus 7 and not far off the 4th generation iPad. Grayscale reproduction is also quite good. The display looks really good otherwise, but you don’t get the same visual punch you do on the iPad Air.
Compared to the previous generation mini we’re obviously talking about a much better panel. But for those of you on the fence between the mini and Air, the Air does still hold a display advantage.
Black levels are competitive and contrast ratio stays fixed at around 800:1 regardless of whether we’re talking about max brightness or the 200 nits we run all of our battery life tests at. Max brightness is down a bit compared to the iPad Air.
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identity - Saturday, November 16, 2013 - link
What do you, know another troll bitching.Morawka - Saturday, November 16, 2013 - link
not trolling, i just find it convenient to point out anand doing all apple reviews despite having a dedicated mobile reviewer who has never done a full blown apple tablet or phone review (only previews)Friendly0Fire - Saturday, November 16, 2013 - link
I'll also say that I like Anand's work a lot but I have absolutely zero interest in Apple stuff, which makes me sad because it means I rarely get to read something from Anand.Apple product reviews are rarely a surprise anyway, so they're not even particularly informative. Iterative improvements, if anything special arose it'll have been talked about for at least six months everywhere you look at.
kyuu - Saturday, November 16, 2013 - link
Exactly. Anand does great reviews, but his time is wasted doing these Apple reviews. The only part of the review that contains any information we didn't already know from the glut of Apple coverage everywhere is the display metrics.But, it's pretty plain Anand has a love affair with Apple at this point.
ws3 - Saturday, November 16, 2013 - link
I know it must be maddening for Apple-haters when every review of an Apple product is at least generally positive, but you know what Apple says: "We don't ship junk."Puberticus - Saturday, November 16, 2013 - link
More junk! Ananda must review more junk! Only then will the masses be happy!!!Eyes rolling…
volebamus - Saturday, November 16, 2013 - link
So just curious, how many reviews in Anandtech did you actually read? I rarely actually look at the writer of these articles, but I notice that Anand in general does all of the flagship product reviews.How can you say you rarely get to read about Anand reviewing non-Apple products when he's involved with all the other manufacturers not just in Android, but Windows?
volebamus - Saturday, November 16, 2013 - link
No, I can tell you're trolling, and I created my account on Anandtech just to point it out. If you were anywhere close to objective, you'd look into the several categories of smartphones and tablets to see exactly how many reviews Anand does in mobile devices. Like I just did. Spoilers: he does MOST of the mobile reviews. Samsung, HTC, LG, Nexus, and even SURFACE out of all things. His name as reviewer is tied to all of them.But you notice a "trend" in him not letting the other reviewer do Apple tablet/phone reviews. Of course, this is completely ignoring the reviews that Anand does on ALL the other tablet/phone reviews as well.
Your bias is showing.
Morawka - Saturday, November 16, 2013 - link
The tough pill for me to swallow is the expensive storage upgrades. apple charging $100 going from 16GB to 32GB is absurd. The nand probably cost them $5 extra on the Bill of Materials, and all the other companies are only charging $50 for nand upgrades.Additionally, $130 for LTE connectivity is a bit high, but no where near the magnitude of the NAND pricing. It's sad that apple fans have to pay $630 for 32GB LTE mini. If you maxed your ipad mini with retina's specs, it would cost $830!!!!! Almost a grand for a 7 inch tablet that will be obsolete within a year. And those who buy all the bells and whistles will lose their ass when they go to sell it next year and upgrade to the new device.
Daniel Egger - Saturday, November 16, 2013 - link
Every premium vendor does that with their premium products. No matter whether we're talking BMW, Apple or HTC. The HTC One Max costs 150€ more to go from 16GB to 32GB internal storage while the HTC One is a whopping 220€ more expensive when doubling from 32GB to 64GB; and those are definitely not cheap to begin with! With that in mind $100 can be viewed as a real bargain, especially for the jump from 64GB to 128GB.