Apple iPad mini with Retina Display: Reviewed
by Anand Lal Shimpi on November 16, 2013 8:00 AM ESTCamera
The iPad mini with Retina Display features the same 5MP iSight rear facing camera and 1.2MP FaceTime HD camera as the iPad Air. Both are quite good for a tablet, aided by iOS’ excellent camera UI and the A7’s high performance ISP. The cameras also benefit from the same dual-mic setup of the iPad Air. I won’t talk too much about quality here as it’s no different than the Air, which I've already gone over in greater depth.
| Rear Facing Camera Comparison | |||||||
| Sensor | Resolution | Aperture | Focal Length | ||||
| Apple iPad Air | 5MP | 2592 x 1936 | f/2.4 | 3.3mm | |||
| Apple iPad 4 | 5MP | 2592 x 1936 | f/2.4 | 4.3mm | |||
| Apple iPad 3 | 5MP | 2592 x 1936 | f/2.4 | 4.3mm | |||
| Apple iPad 2,4 | 0.7MP | 960 x 720 | f/2.4 | 2.0mm | |||
| Apple iPad mini | 5MP | 2592 x 1936 | f/2.4 | 3.3mm | |||
| Apple iPad mini (Retina) | 5MP | 2592 x 1936 | f/2.4 | 3.3mm | |||
| Front Facing Camera Comparison | |||||||
| Sensor | Resolution | Aperture | Focal Length | ||||
| Apple iPad Air | 1.2MP | 1280 x 960 | f/2.4 | 2.15mm | |||
| Apple iPad 4 | 1.2MP | 1280 x 960 | f/2.4 | 2.18mm | |||
| Apple iPad 3 | 0.3MP | 640 x 480 | f/2.4 | 1.8mm | |||
| Apple iPad 2,4 | 0.3MP | 640 x 480 | f/2.4 | 1.8mm | |||
| Apple iPad mini | 1.2MP | 1280 x 960 | f/2.4 | 2.2mm | |||
| Apple iPad mini (Retina) | 1.2MP | 1280 x 960 | f/2.4 | 2.15mm | |||
WiFi & Cellular
The iPad mini with Retina Display inherits the same Qualcomm MDM9615 modem and 2-stream dual-band 802.11n from the iPad Air. The move to 2-stream 802.11n more or less doubles peak WiFi performance compared to last year’s mini. The mini's peak WiFi performance is pretty close to that of the iPad Air as well.
Lately I’ve really begun to appreciate the flexibility offered by tablets equipped with cellular modems. Especially now that it’s not terribly expensive to add a tablet to a shared data plan (or even free), the $130 LTE adder for the iPads is something worth seriously considering. The convenience of being able to pull out your tablet, wake it up, and immediately hop on the web/check email/tweet/etc… is awesome. Qualcomm's MDM9615 is a well known quantity at this point. I didn't run into any issues with its performance on the iPad mini.
| iPad Cellular Speeds | ||||||
| Property | iPhone 3G/3GS/iPad 1 3G | iPhone 4 / iPad 2 (GSM/UMTS) | iPhone 4 / iPad 2 (CDMA) | iPad 3 | iPad 4/iPad Mini | iPad Air/iPad Mini w/Retina |
| Baseband | Infineon X-Gold 608 | Infineon X-Gold 618 | Qualcomm MDM6600 | Qualcomm MDM9600 | Qualcomm MDM9615 w/RTR8600 |
Qualcomm MDM9615 w/WTR1605L |
| Max 3GPP Release Feature | Release 5 | Release 6 | Release 7 | Release 9 | Release 9 | Release 9 |
| HSDPA Category | Cat.8 - 7.2 Mbps | Cat.8 - 7.2 Mbps | N/A | Cat. 24 - 42 Mbps | Cat. 24 - 42 Mbps | Cat. 24 - 42 Mbps |
| HSUPA Category | None - 384 Kbps WCDMA only | Cat.6 - 5.76 Mbps | N/A | Cat.6 - 5.76 Mbps | Cat.6 - 5.76 Mbps | Cat.6 - 5.76 Mbps |
| EVDO | N/A | N/A | 1x/EVDO Rev.A | 1x/EVDO Rev.A | 1x/EVDO Rev.A | 1x/EVDO Rev.A |
| LTE | N/A | N/A | N/A | 100/50 UE Cat. 3 | 100/50 UE Cat. 3 | 100/50 UE Cat. 3 |
The new iPad mini, like the iPad Air, is extremely flexible from a mobile operator standpoint. Regardless of what operator you choose at the time of purchase, you can switch to others as long as you have an activated nano SIM (there’s apparently an exception for Sprint, but AT&T/T-Mobile/Verizon should all be easily switchable). The unlocked nature of the device makes it ripe for global use, especially with support for a total of 14 LTE bands (1,2,3,4,5,7,8,13,17,18,19,20,25 and 26).
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solipsism - Sunday, November 17, 2013 - link
It's the best product for my needs even though other, cheaper tablets that sell at a lot less volume do have better color gamut and higher PPI.ruggia - Saturday, November 16, 2013 - link
yes and yet, they no longer receive pre-release review units Apple anymore.ruggia - Saturday, November 16, 2013 - link
*from Applesolipsism - Sunday, November 17, 2013 - link
the terms "yet" and "because" are very different between your two comments.pliablemoosethebanned - Sunday, November 17, 2013 - link
No one knows for sure why The Verge doesn't get Apple sponsored review units any longer (they're not talking), but it's likely Josh's rant about iOS 7 violated the NDA they signed.cheinonen - Sunday, November 17, 2013 - link
Yeah, so I'll chime in on this. Without samples, review sites won't exist. As to every concern people have over those, they really aren't valid.- "If you don't give them a good review they won't send stuff anymore." Fine, that's a company shooting themselves in their own foot. No more reviews of their stuff, no more publicity, nothing.
- "Companies will rig samples." And if they do, they wind up getting caught, and the fallout is much worse than if their product was bad to start.
Would it be nice to be Consumer Reports and go out and buy everything? Sure, but they're in financial trouble now. Can I afford to go buy $1,500+ in monitors every month to do a review? No. And reviews of displays from NEC or 4K monitors would never happen as that's unaffordable. You'd wind up getting your reviews from a single site that can afford them instead of a huge swath of them.
So if you read a site that never says anything negative (and I don't read a LOT of audio sites for this reason), then stop reading it. But perhaps do a bit of research before you accuse everyone of being on the take and biased.
doubledeej - Monday, November 18, 2013 - link
Companies don't have to keep the products they buy (unless they destroy them, obviously). They can resell them for a minimal loss after they're done.The system we have for reviews is flawed. There is implied (if not real) pressure from companies to write a good review when they provide a product for you. Many companies (including Apple, BTW) will contact a reviewer after a bad review and chew them out for being less than flattering. It absolute happens. It is well documented. It can easily lead to incomplete reviews at best and outright dishonesty at the worst.
In the case of the iPad Mini with Retina Display, go take a look at the review at Ars Technica. It is the most unbiased one I've seen, while still being very favorable.
Death666Angel - Saturday, November 16, 2013 - link
"The face of the tablet is marked by an asymmetric bezel"Looks pretty symmetrical to me: the left and right bezel is the same size and the top and bottom bezels look the same size as well. :)
kyuu - Saturday, November 16, 2013 - link
Not sure if you're being serious or not, but Anand is obviously referring to the fact that the bezels aren't of equal thickness on all four sides of the device, as they generally are on tablets.piroroadkill - Saturday, November 16, 2013 - link
Does this overpriced shiny shit really do it for anyone anymore? I mean, come the fuck on..