By Troy Wolverton, San Jose Mercury News
The iPad Mini is a device I’d like to love. At first glance, the gadget would appear to be everything I’d want in a tablet. It comes with Apple Inc.’s iOS software and can run the hundreds of thousands of iPad apps. But it’s more portable and less expensive than the full-size iPad.
iPad Mini. Photo from Apple.
And the new version, which Apple started shipping in limited quantities last month, fixes the two biggest technical problems of the original iPad Mini, which Apple released last year. The new model has a high-resolution display and Apple’s latest — and fastest — mobile processor.
So what’s not to like?
Well, the biggest thing is its price. Apple took a device that already cost much more than its competitors and upped it significantly. Considering that both Google Inc.’s Nexus 7 and Amazon.com Inc.’s Kindle Fire HDX also are much improved from last year, it’s hard for me to recommend that you spend $170 more for an iPad Mini.
The new Mini looks and feels a lot like last year’s version. It has the same shape, height and width and the same-size screen. It’s slightly thicker and heavier than last year’s model, but not so much that you’d likely notice. The aluminum back of the black model is a bit lighter in color than last year’s, but again, the change is subtle.
The big change that you’ll notice is the new Mini’s display. Last year’s relatively low-resolution screen has been replaced with Apple’s so-called Retina high-resolution display.
In terms of pixels per inch — the common measurement for screen resolution — the new Mini’s display is equal to that in the iPhone 5S and is superior to that in Apple’s full-size iPad. It’s super-sharp and makes reading books or Web pages or watching high-definition movies a joy.
Read the full article by Troy Wolverton from San Jose Mercury News.
