iPad Mini review - Multimedia
If you're willing to throw money at the tablet, you could quite easily spend a taciturn lifetime consuming music and movies in your bedroom thanks to the iTunes store.
If you want to save your pennies and get your own movies and music onboard, it will have to be synced through iTunes. This is simple but can take time, especially with movies which need to be encoded to the resolution and format best suited to your tablet.
It's awkward to use the tablet as an MP3 player given its width. If considering the iPad Mini as a music device, you'll definitely want to think about wireless headphones or a wireless bluetooth receiver.
In spite of the fact it's not as large as an iPad, the iPad Mini is still enjoyable to watch movies on thanks to its light-weight body. The aspect ratio will result in prominent black bars, making it less suited to video content than the Nexus 7, though the punchy colours and bright picture help things along. Reading eBooks however is something the aspect ratio is perfect for.
Running all the games the iPad runs with impressive performance, the resolution refrains from putting too much strain on the processor and so gaming is for the most part smooth, with the tablet size and weight being perfect for long sessions.
iPad Mini - Storage
Available in 16GB (£269), 32GB (£349) and 64GB (£429) versions, the iPad Mini isn't expandable. When buying your tablet, you'll therefore want to know how much storage you'll need and air on the side of caution.
With 16GB providing enough space for 1500 songs and 27 standard definition movies, it might seem like ample, but as soon as you start introducing podcasts, HD content and games into the mix, you'll realise it fills up in no time.
iPad Mini review - Browsing and web
3G versions are available for £100 more than their Wi-Fi counterparts, the prices of which are listed above. The iPad Mini is in turn well connected for a tablet with bluetooth, aGPS (3G version) and Wi-Fi.
Thanks to the high quality LCD display web browsing delivers pure whites and a bright, rich experience. Where the iPad Mini is let down is in terms of screen sharpness with text looking pixelated, requiring more zooming than on a sharper Android alternative.
The default Safari browser does a fantastic job of zipping through web pages. Scoring impressively on Sunspider, while it doesn't trump the iPhone 5, it sits comfortably between that and the iPhone 4S.
iPad Mini review - Performance and battery
The dual-core A5 processor inside the iPad Mini might not be Apple's most powerful or have four cores like the Google Nexus 7 by Asus, but it does deliver solid performance across gaming, web and general UI. Day to day everything runs in true iOS style - smoothly and lag free. The simplicity of iOS is perfectly matched by the seamless interaction between finger and tablet and the weightlessness of the tablet just compounds the experience.
We were able to get a full day and a half out of the iPad Mini using it intensively on manual brightness. The auto-brightness however is set far too high and naturally kills the battery faster. While not necessarily all that impressive for a ten-incher, translating to about ten hours of use in total it's better than any 7-8-inch tab out there.
iPad Mini review - Conclusion
With its incredibly slim body and decent performance, the iPad Mini is a very worthwhile addition to the iPad line and much more than just a reactionary rushed out product. So good is it that it left us questioning the ten-inch tablet form-factor altogether at times. With apps looking great scaled down and the device being suited to one-handed use, interaction with the UI is more natural than ever.
It isn't perfect though. We find the 5.3-inch width too wide; too big for a breast pocket but not big enough to warrant a bag. It's also pricey, not to mention unsharp and the aspect ratio isn't great for movies.
Despite all that though, thanks to the app selection, portability and polish, it's our favourite iPad to date and a definite consideration for anyone in the market for a premium tablet.
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