Apple iPad Mini review

The iPad created the modern tablet market, so had a huge head start. Early Android-powered tablets just couldn’t compete with the already-established iOS App store or Apple’s extensive iTunes content library. However, Google has now caught up, with a whole host of 7in devices running newer versions of Android providing fantastic value for money and eating into iPad sales. Apple hasn’t taken this lying down, so has fought back with the iPad Mini. With its 7.9in screen it breaks from the 7in tablet norm and is Apple’s cheapest iPad yet, but it will need to impress to outperform the Nexus 7 and Amazon’s Kindle Fire HD.

DESIGN

The Mini is made from the same high-quality materials as its bigger brother and is available in the same colours, storage capacities and with the option of Wi-Fi or 4G, and is every bit the premium product you would expect from Apple. It’s 7mm thick and weighs just 308g – around 30g lighter than the Nexus 7, or half the weight of a regular iPad. This is mainly thanks to the lightweight aluminium rear panel and glass front, which looks gorgeous in both black and white.

Despite the iPad’s slim profile, Apple has still made room for the usual selection of buttons and ports. The mute switch and volume buttons are found on the upper right side, just as they are on the full-size iPad, except Apple has opted for separate buttons for increasing and decreasing volume rather than use the old rocker switch design. The power button is at the top of the tablet, along with a small slit for the microphone and a 3.5mm headphone port. Stereo speaker grilles and Apple’s new Lightning port are situated at the bottom and the left side is kept bare, reserved to attach one of Apple’s magnetised Smart Covers. The lens for the 5-megapixel camera is the only item of note on the rear and there’s the standard single button on the front, as on every iOS device.

DISPLAY

It’s not just the tablet itself that’s thin – the screen bezel is less than 7mm wide. It’s almost impossible to hold the tablet without one of your fingers touching the screen, so Apple has developed “resting thumb recognition” to avoid any accidents. The system worked well when we were reading eBooks on the move, letting us turn the page with one thumb while the tablet ignored the other.

The screen itself is a major departure for the tablet market. To avoid any problems with existing apps, the iPad Mini has a 4:3, 7.9in display with the same 1,024×768 resolution as the iPad 2. It has roughly 35% more screen surface area than a 7in Android tablet, but there are significantly fewer pixels filling that space. The 1,280×800 Google Nexus 7 has a pixel density of 216ppi – a lot higher than the 163ppi of the iPad Mini’s screen.

In side-by-side comparisons with higher-resolution tablets like the Nexus, the iPad Mini loses out on sharpness, but in practice we preferred the extra screen space on the iPad for web browsing. The browser tabs take up a lot more room in landscape view on the Nexus, meaning you get almost 60% more viewable space on the iPad. You can’t spot any signs of pixilation unless you look very closely and most websites were designed with 768 horizontal pixels in mind, so you rarely have to scroll left or right.

However, the 16:9 Nexus 7 is far better suited to video playback than the iPad, as the Mini’s 4:3 ratio gives films huge black bars on either side. On the plus side, the iPad Mini’s IPS panel reproduces colours accurately and has fantastic viewing angles, even if the glossy display is incredibly reflective.

As the iPad Mini’s speakers are both on the bottom of the tablet, you don’t get proper stereo sound like on the Kindle Fire HD with its side-mounted speakers. The Mini’s sound quality overall is impressive, though, and perfect for listening to internet radio with the Mini on its side.

PERFORMANCE

The Mini is powered by the same 1GHz dual-Core A5 processor as the iPad 2, and it’s no slouch. Apps admittedly load slightly more slowly than on the 3rd or 4th generation iPad, or even an iPhone 5, but they rarely take more than a second or two and in general use it felt just as snappy and responsive as any other iOS device. The Mini completed the SunSpider benchmark in 1514ms, which is a step behind the iPad 3 and far slower than the iPad 4, but this is still significantly faster than the Tegra 3-powered Google Nexus 7. The Mini also finished the cross-platform GLBench with an average 24fps. Even though the Mini has two graphics cores rather than the four of the iPad 3, it has fewer pixels to shift around so managed a similar score.

As with the full-size iPad, Apple promises ten hours of battery on the iPad Mini. In our standard handheld test, which plays a looping video at half brightness with Wi-Fi disabled, it managed over eleven and a half hours – an incredible result for such a small tablet.

CAMERA

Although you still look a bit of an idiot using it, the smaller size makes it less embarrassing to use the iPad Mini to take photos than on the full-size iPad. The 5-megapixel sensor appears to be the same one used in the iPhone 4, iPad 3 and iPad 4, and takes well-exposed images that have a reasonable amount of detail. It’s no comparison to a modern smartphone, and it lacks an integrated flash, HDR or panorama modes.

here’s a typical landscape shot taken with the iPad Mini…

…and here’s the same shot at 100%

We also took test shots using our still-life scene. We test the camera using three lighting settings – well-lit, dimly lit and low-light – to see how the iPad Mini dealt with different situations. All of the photos below include 100 per cent crops of the frame, so you can see the actual detail.

Using our well-lit scene, pictures were generally well exposed, with good colour balance. The relatively low-resolution sensor struggles to capture highlights, though – the reflective foil covering the card game and the metallic case fans show signs of peaking.

Brightly-lit scenes work best with the iPad Mini camera, although there is some light peaking

Noise visibly increases when moving to the dimly-lit scene, although the image is still perfectly usable for screen or smaller prints. Colours are generally accurate, although darker image elements lose detail – the plastic mesh at the front of the scene loses practically all detail at its centre. Choosing a different auto-exposure point will rectify the disparity between bright and low-light images, but only by a small amount.

Colours remain accurate, but detail begins to disappear in dimly-lit scenes

Finally, our low-light scene results in lots of flare from the lights in the fans, along with some visible reflection from the lens cover seen over the toy duck. The image is also incredibly noisy and there’s much less detail. Although you can still make out the general scene, the lack of detail is still disappointing.

It’s tough to make out any details in low-light scenes

VIDEO RECORDING

The iPad Mini is at least capable of recording 1080p video, and the smaller size makes it more practical than a full-size iPad. You can view our still life test below, where we adjust the lighting to fully test the camera. Our shots include a well-lit scene, a dimly-lit scene and a very tough dark scene.

Taking stills from the video we can see that (unsurprisingly) the well-lit scene produced the best results. The shot is well exposed and there’s a reasonably level of detail, although the darker areas are left somewhat lacking – it’s tough to make out any fur around the toy monkey’s neck area.

There’s a lack of detail in darker areas, but well-lit shots are exposed correctly with accurate colours

When the scene was lit just by the lights from the fans, the iPad Mini struggled. There’s very little detail in the dark parts of the picture, it’s very noisy and there was a lot of light flares. We also saw the return of the reflection glitch we’d experienced when taking stills – it’s one that’s also present on the iPad 4 and iPhone 5, so is most likely caused by the plastic covering the lens.

Odd light reflections and a lack of detail prove the iPad Mini isn’t suited to low-light video

There’s also a FaceTime HD Camera built into the front bezel for video calling, which shoots 720p video. However, as with most tablets, you shouldn’t plan on leaving your digital camera at home if you want high-quality images or video.

SOFTWARE

The iPad Mini has just been updated to iOS 6.1, the latest version of Apple’s mobile operating system. It doesn’t add much in the way of features over the 6.0 version that the tablet originally shipped with, but it does add better support for 4G network providers.

Because Apple insists on approving each new LTE network before enabling 4G support on its devices, these updates are crucial if UK customers want to use their iPad on one of the 4G networks launching later this year. This first release is hopefully an indication that Apple will be quick off the mark with future updates and that EE won’t always be one choice for 4G connectivity in the UK.

iOS 6.1 includes all the all the tablet-specific features you’ll find in the full-size iPad, with multi-touch gestures which let you pinch to return to the home screen, four-finger swipe upwards to reveal the task switcher and swipe left or right to switch between open apps.

Apple’s Siri voice assistant makes an appearance, letting you set reminders, post directly to Facebook or Twitter, search the web or play songs without opening the music app. Without a dedicated weather app, it’s the only way to check whether to pack an umbrella without opening Safari or installing a dedicated forecast app.

Passbook is the other major new addition to iOS 6, but unfortunately it isn’t available on the iPad Mini. We can understand the reasoning why, as it’s not as practical to pull out your tablet when asked for your airline boarding pass, although with a 4G model available there are surely some people who would appreciate its inclusion. Slightly more baffling is the absence of a calculator, which is present on every other iOS device.

Apple’s work-in-progress Maps tool launched with iOS 6, replacing the old Google-powered version, but unfortunately it’s nowhere near as accurate. There are far too many omissions, it often struggles to locate what you search for and will sometimes jump to different countries when you’re looking up a UK address. It does at least add useful turn-by-turn directions, with clear traffic warnings and choice of routes, but this is only truly useful if you opt for the cellular iPad Mini – without an internet connection it’s essentially no better than a paper map. The 3D cities view is another welcome addition, giving you a top-down model of the place you’re looking at to, although only certain parts of London were rendered when we checked. If you use maps regularly, we would recommend installing the official Google Maps app – it’s free on the App store, uses Google’s extensive mapping data and is incredibly accurate.

If you’ve ever used an iOS device before, you’ll know what to expect – the iPad Mini is more of the same, only in a different screen size. You should also be familiar with Apple’s extensive App Store selection, which is still the best out there – Android may be catching up, but the iOS store has a wider range of high quality apps. Unfortunately, you’ll also have to use the awful iTunes PC software to manage your content, which you should keep in mind when deciding if an iPad Mini is right for you.

There’s little doubt that the iPad Mini is a gorgeous tablet which is well built, simply stunning to look at and fast. However, it’s also around £100 more than a Nexus 7 or Kindle Fire HD, two Android tablets with higher-resolution displays that are both excellent value and better for watching videos. However, thanks to the ease of web browsing, reading and the sheer number of apps available, the iPad Mini is a superb compact companion to the iPad.