iPad Mini... Is It Worth It?

The Student Multimedia Design Center has a couple iPads (1st generation) that have become available for students to check out and use. Some of you may have already tried them out, and as many of you may know by now, the new iPad Mini and iPad "4" (4th generation) will be released tomorrow. With  iPad 4 (which I will refer to from here on out as just the iPad)  only $170 more expensive, is it worth the lower cost for a smaller size? Let's compare the two and find out!

So Apple came up with the iPad mini as a way to compete with smaller sized tablets such as the Nook and the Kindle, which both have versions that are currently around 7 and 9 inches. The iPad is at 9.5 inches and the mini will weigh in around 8 inches. So, not too much of a size difference.

Now looking at the mini and the iPad side to side lets look at all aspects and see if you get more bang for your buck from one over the other.

Capacity
 The mini and the iPad both come in the same 3 standard sizes of 16Gb, 32Gb, and 64Gb.

Price
The mini costs $329, $429, or $529 (with respect to the sizes above) and the iPad comes in at $499, $599, and $699.

Size
The mini will come in (in inches) at 7.87 x 5.3 x 0.28 while the iPad will be 9.50 x 7.31 x 0.37.

Display
As for the display, the regular iPad has a retina display while the mini does not.

For those of you who don't know quite exactly what the retina display is, it is what apple refers to if their product has such a high pixel density that the human eye can not see the individual pixels from a normal viewing distance, thus providing a clearer sharper image.

Chip
The mini runs on dual-core A5 chip, while the iPad runs on a dual-core A6x chip with quad-core graphics.

This means that the iPad has an easier time running and displaying higher quality graphics, and Apple actually claims that it will at least double its graphic and processing speeds compared to the A5.

Camera, Battery, and Siri
Both versions have the same Facetime HD and iSight cameras and both allow 1080p video recording. Both have the same battery life, and both have voice assistant Siri, so no competition here.


Ok now that that's over, lets see if the iPad is worth the extra money. Strictly speaking in screen size and lets say the 64GB price, if you were to take no other factors into account, with a mini you are paying about $67 per diagonal inch. For the iPad you are going to pay about $72 per diagonal inch.
-So only about a $10 extra for screen size.

So for $170 more you get an increased sized, retina display, and also the A6x processor. For me personally, I would choose the full sized iPad. The A6x processor would be worth the price for me and also the clearer display is a big plus when watching movies, playing games, or really viewing anything. Maybe, the iPad is too big for some people in which case, the mini is a good choice. However, I believe that if size is not important when choosing a tablet then the full sized iPad is the way to go.