iPad mini - quite controversial product. The same opinion about the new apple tablet and Marco Arment, creator of Instapaper and Tumblr in the past leading developer platform. We suggest you read his arguments regarding the characteristics of a small Apple tablet, as well as the reasons why the iPad mini was not equipped with a Retina display.
iPad mini much easier iPad 3 and 4. With them easier to handle, it is more convenient to carry, it is more convenient to hold during use. At the iPad mini at the moment the best design among all the tablets. He is less heated and at a much smaller size and weight of the battery holds almost as much as its bigger brothers. Moreover, iPad mini performance comparable with iPad 2 and 3, in most tests. He charges faster iPad 3 and 4, moreover it allows you to do even with the iPhone charger.
In all of this iPad mini is much cheaper than other iPad.
The greatest number of critics have called it iPad mini screen, because it is not the retina. If, before exploring this tablet you will not see retina displays, it is likely you do not claim to be the screen of the tablet, but if your eyes have been spoiled by the quality of the retina, the image, the difference will be felt from the first moment and will be felt at every glance at the screen of the iPad mini.
Contradictory iPad mini is precisely the combination of high-end and low-end items. In fact, iPad mini is a representative of an entry-level tablet, but with more refinement - This Apple product, and at the moment he goes number two in the list of the key products for this company. The notion of "the budget" devaysa it is hard to apply, as in the case of the 11-inch MacBook Air. It is not byudzhetka, it is rather a younger model. If after a year Apple will release iPad mini c retina display (and they are unlikely to do this before), while maintaining the current price it is a fantastic product.
Comparing the iPad mini price competitors do not forget about the first-class quality materials and workmanship in conjunction with excellent performance: the battery life, performance, amount of memory and output models Module Communication 4G. The iPad mini is not anything that would indicate its budgetary.
The same applies to the screen.
Retina display is much more expensive than displays with lower dpi. Of course, the installation of the retina would affect the cost of the finished product. Price setting retina-display iPad 3 felt all users. Such displays are much more voracious in terms of power consumption. That is why the iPad 3 came thicker and heavier - he needs a capacious battery. hardly differs iPad 4 by weight and dimensions of iPad 3, which means that at this stage of technology does not allow to reduce the weight and size of the battery without compromising basic characteristics.
It is understood that the drawing pictures on the screen with enlarged 4 times the number of pixels, and requires a 4-fold increase in the power of the GPU. This is especially important for resource-intensive (gaming) applications. That is why the A5X processor in the iPad 3 has become like this. It was great, it consumes a lot of energy and strongly warmed even while surfing in the browser. Although the iPad 4 and received A6X processor, but in general the problems persisted.
It is not difficult to imagine what would have turned out iPad mini at the current level of technology, shove it retina-display.
It is clear that Apple has not supplied the retina iPad mini is not for financial reasons. It is unlikely that this has been done and to focus attention on the "olderĀ» iPad 4. We can assume that the idea is to release after some iPad mini with retina, forcing current users mini do an upgrade, but it's just as unlikely. The key point here is precisely the product performance.
Imagine Release Retina iPad mini with a battery life 3:00 or thick and heavy mini. Add to that the damage to the performance and cost of the retina (the finished mini for $ 399 instead of $ 329). Would you buy a iPad mini?
That is why we do not have a retina iPad mini. It's not about the price, just such a product would be terrible in terms of usability. While not solved the problem with the power retina displays and processors together with the capacity of the battery, we will have here is a controversial iPad mini.
[via marco]