Die ersten ‚iPad mini‘-Reviews
In lockeren 2.5 Stunden lässt sich das vollständige Review-Feuerwerk fürs iPad mini abfeiern. Daraus im Folgenden eine Auswahl an Zitaten (sortiert nach persönlicher Leseempfehlung der kompletten Artikel), die ich für erwähnenswert halte.
The Mini feels optimized for reading. It also seems optimized for kids.
If the Mini had a retina display, I’d switch from the iPad 3 in a heartbeat. As it stands, I’m going to switch anyway. Going non-retina is a particularly bitter pill for me, but I like the iPad Mini’s size and weight so much that I’m going to swallow it.
Now, the lower-res screen isn’t sad evidence that Apple is chintzier than Google, Amazon and Barnes & Noble. It’s an inevitable result of the way the iPad’s iOS operating system works: it supports only two iPad resolutions, 1024-by-768 and 2048-by-1536. On the Mini, apps look exactly the same as they do on the identical-resolution iPad 2, only smaller.
“O.K.” is also how I’d describe the speaker system.
In the camera department, the Mini does outclass the $199 tablets
Moments after I held the iPad mini at Apple’s event in San Jose, I hurriedly wrote that it made other tablets in this class feel like toys. Perhaps I was a bit hard on the competition in the heat of the moment, but I will say that there isn’t a single product in the 7-inch tablet market that comes close to the look, feel, or build quality of the new iPad.
Though the iPad mini sports a slightly larger display than other devices in this class, its profile feels extremely lean. Sometimes too lean. The device weighs just 0.68 pounds, and it’s only 0.28 inches thick (noticeably thinner than the Nexus 7’s 0.41 inches or Fire HD’s 0.4 inches). I actually had a little trouble holding onto the device when I wasn’t using the Smart Cover due to the back being as smooth as it is, and the frame being so thin. Maybe it’s just my big hands, but I wanted a little more to grab onto. In that regard, I prefer the feel of the Nexus 7.
Minor quibbles aside, the iPad mini stands head and shoulders above the competition in terms of design, the caliber of its components, and the solidness of how it’s been built. But it also has another quality, one that’s nearly as important: the device has personality.
It’s easy to become used to how vast and impressive the library is for the iPad, but using the mini reminded me of just how right Apple got this part of their ecosystem. Compared to the Nexus 7 or the Fire HD… well, there is no comparison.
And it does raise the floor here. There’s no tablet in this size range that’s as beautifully constructed, works as flawlessly, or has such an incredible software selection. Would I prefer a higher-res display? Certainly. Would I trade it for the app selection or hardware design? For the consistency and smoothness of its software, or reliability of its battery? Absolutely not. And as someone who’s been living with (and loving) Google’s Nexus 7 tablet for a few months, I don’t say that lightly.
Apps do load more slowly but most are still up and running within a second or two and when it comes to general web surfing tasks the iPad mini easily kept up with our taps and swipes. So, perhaps not the greatest performance in the Apple lineup, but there is one place where it bests the rest: battery life. […] In our standard battery run-down test, which entails looping a video with WiFi enabled and a fixed display brightness, the iPad mini managed an astounding 12 hours and 43 minutes.
It’s [Smart Cover] still attached magnetically, but where the 10-inch model will immediately snap into the perfect placement every time, we found the mini cover just as eager to attach either too high or too low. It requires a little more precision. Hardly a deal-breaker (how often are you removing your Smart Cover?) but a bit of an annoyance.
By comparison, the regular iPad feels like you’re holding a full flat-panel monitor. And the Nexus 7 feels like you’re holding a piece of plastic with a screen bolted on. Apple has really nailed the feel of this device with its slightly rounded sides (much less pronounced than the larger iPad), chamfered edge (just like the iPhone 5), and flat aluminum back.
If Apple had only made the iPad mini as a gaming device, I think it would be one of the best-selling gadgets of all time. Some of the iPad games play so beautifully on the iPad mini that you’d think they were custom-tailored for this form factor. Playing games on the regular iPad is great. Playing games on the iPad mini is fantastic because the device is much easier to hold for extended periods of time in the landscape position.
Apple isn’t looking at this as $329 versus $199. They’re looking at this as an impossibly small iPad 2 sold at the most affordable price for an iPad yet. In other words, they’re not looking at the tablet competition. This isn’t a tablet. It’s an iPad. People love these things.
I am a firm believer in “you get what you pay for.” The iPad mini is a perfect example of that. If you want to save $50 and buy a cheap-ass tablet, go ahead. If you want quality the iPad mini will be waiting for you when you come to your senses.
For those particularly curious about raw benchmarks, the iPad mini scored 757 (higher is better; the iPad with Retina display scored 1,768 in comparison) in Geekbench and completed the SunSpider test of browser JavaScript performance in 1,698.9ms (lower is better; the iPad with Retina display managed an impressive 879.2ms).
In the end, it’s about an overall package, an experience which Apple is offering. Not the fastest tablet, nor the cheapest, nor the one that prioritizes the most pixel-dense display, but the one with the lion’s share of tablet applications, the integration with the iOS/iTunes ecosystem, the familiarity of usability and, yes, the brand cachet.
Apple has been dismissive of 7-inch tablet computers and has therefore been keen to emphasise that the iPad mini isn’t one. The extra 0.9-inches of screen on the iPad mini are the crucial difference, Apple says, and having tried it for a week and compared it to some rivals, I’d have to agree.
This is a new standard for little-tablet design. It makes the iPad feel fresh. After a week of using the iPad Mini, it seems to find a way to follow me everywhere. It’s extremely addicting, and fun to use.
The more booklike 4:3 aspect ratio and its more natural compatibility with PDF files, comics, magazines, and layout-sensitive graphic books give it an edge over other 7-inch tablets. For pure text, the iPad Mini may not be the best. For other media, it has its advantages, even without Retina. I never found myself unable to enjoy a magazine or book, although I did find myself wishing the resolution were sharper (reading the „Dark Knight Returns“ comic, in particular).
If you love the iPad, or want one but just found it too large or heavy, the iPad mini is the perfect solution.
Remember the iPod mini? When Apple launched that in January 2004, at a time when a huge swathe of the fast-growing digital music player market was still up for grabs, people thought Apple was crazy. Only 4 GB of storage – less than in the original 5 GB model launched in 2001? A $249 price tag – only $50 less than the base level „iPod“. Well, said the critics, Apple had finally messed up after a couple of years of getting it right. It was doomed.
Turned out it wasn’t; the iPod mini became the best-selling iPod (until the iPod nano in September 2005).
Those tablets don’t have the complete experience that the iPad does. Come on: The iPad is still the gold standard for tablet computing after all. With stellar hardware and hundreds of thousands of apps, the iPad is the Kleenex of facial tissue. The Tivo of DVRs.
The most striking thing about the mini is in how thin and light it is. It is really thin and light. Crazy thin and crazy light, even.
Soweit die Testberichte der Technikpresse mit dominierendem Fokus auf Hardware-Details und den Konkurrenzvergleich. Einzig und allein Vincent Nguyen hat das Mini in die Hände einer anderen (zentralen) Zielgruppe gelegt und mischt den IT-Kolumnen damit eine erfrischende Perspektive unter.
