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Never thought that the day would come, but I'm actually looking into Windows tablets. I'll probably pass on the iPads and iOS.
 
As a Nexus 4 and Nexus 7 owner, All I was waiting for was the Retina Mini before I sold my Nexus 7.

It's been a love/hate thing with the 32GB cellular Nexus 7. The lag kills me. I open the case and sometimes it's 5 seconds before the screen comes on. The battery life is my top complaint. I use it for less than an hour while at work with brightness almost as low as it can go and the battery life goes down to 70%. Over night, it will drop to 20-30% so that's about 15 or so hours with one hour actual usage if that between charges.

My Mini can go between 12-15 hrs over two days depending on what I do with it. It's been a pleasure to use.

Then there are the apps on Android. Many of the apps that have tablet versions on iOS have only phone versions on Android so the apps scale up to fill the screen on my Nexus 7. Since owning the Nexus 7 that I bought in February, only 1 of my apps got an actual tablet version and that was the speedtest.net app.

I'll be buying the new Retina Mini and will not think twice. I bought the Nexus 7 thinking it could be a iPad replacement and it just isn't.

I'll be buying the new Nexus 4 phone after the 1st of the year so I'll keep my phone on the Android side and iPad as my tablet. I did give up using my Nexus 4 and started using my 4S until I get the new Nexus phone.

To me, nothing compares to the iPad experience.
 
I'm still quite content with my present iPad (3rd gen model).

Though I'm somewhat tempted by the portability of the Mini.
 
As a Nexus 4 and Nexus 7 owner, All I was waiting for was the Retina Mini before I sold my Nexus 7.

It's been a love/hate thing with the 32GB cellular Nexus 7. The lag kills me. I open the case and sometimes it's 5 seconds before the screen comes on. The battery life is my top complaint. I use it for less than an hour while at work with brightness almost as low as it can go and the battery life goes down to 70%. Over night, it will drop to 20-30% so that's about 15 or so hours with one hour actual usage if that between charges.

My Mini can go between 12-15 hrs over two days depending on what I do with it. It's been a pleasure to use.

Then there are the apps on Android. Many of the apps that have tablet versions on iOS have only phone versions on Android so the apps scale up to fill the screen on my Nexus 7. Since owning the Nexus 7 that I bought in February, only 1 of my apps got an actual tablet version and that was the speedtest.net app.

I'll be buying the new Retina Mini and will not think twice. I bought the Nexus 7 thinking it could be a iPad replacement and it just isn't.

I'll be buying the new Nexus 4 phone after the 1st of the year so I'll keep my phone on the Android side and iPad as my tablet. I did give up using my Nexus 4 and started using my 4S until I get the new Nexus phone.

To me, nothing compares to the iPad experience.

FYI, the new N7 is a lot better than previous. Screen, battery life, internals, etc.
 
The announcements today actually did the opposite for me. $399 for the retina mini is insane when I can get the excellent nexus 7 for $229.

I was holding out for the full sized iPad redesign but I just don't feel like spending $499 on a tablet like I thought I did. For $79 more I can get a spanking new nexus 5 AND a new nexus 7. I know cheaper is not even close to always being better but in this case it's a no brainer and I still think I'll get a fantastic experience.


When you put it that way, it really puts it into perspective.
 
No as the note line tablets do more than the ipad do. Note has multitasking, sd card, features like air command, scrap booker and 2 GB more of ram. New Note has a better screen too.

I pads are great but don't enough for me. Its not all about apps on a tablet for me.
 
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I think people are being ridiculous about the pricing. Lest you all forget, Apple makes their money almost exclusively from hardware sales. Most of their software is now free (iLife, iWork, Mavericks, iCloud, Photo Stream), and that's a big difference from Microsoft, for example. Google makes all their money from advertising, so they can afford to sell their products with zero profit margins. Apple can't.

And the Mini seems like far more expensive product to make. Bigger, higher resolution display, faster chip, twice the battery capacity of the Nexus 7, all tightly packed in a unibody aluminum chassis that's thinner than the Nexus 7. Quite the feat considering the battery size.
 
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Yep i'll eventually get it. iOS is best experienced on a tablet not a phone. For me the iPad mini is the perfect form factor for a tablet.
 
I am probably going to ditch my Nexus 7 2nd gen for the new iPad Mini. I picked up the Nexus 7 because I wanted to try out Android and while it is very cool...I have a lot of small usability issues with it that irritate me and I end up getting frustrated and picking up my iPad 2 instead. I do prefer the smaller form factor though so the new iPad mini seems logical to me.
 
Apple has never competed on price. I don't know why people are expecting them to now.

Exactly. Android people will throw a colossal fit over the pricing, and Apple will proceed to sell millions upon millions of these things. If they were truly overpriced (and the Nexus 7 or Galaxy Tab were truly leaps-and-bounds better than the iPad), the opposite would be true. And yet, it isn't.

Are the new iPads expensive? Absolutely. Are there cheaper alternatives? You bet. Does anyone at Apple (or any potential customers) care? I doubt it.

For me - I think my decision is going to come down to the Retina Mini or the Nokia 2520. The latter has me intrigued; all of the power of the Surface Pro 2 with style and functionality that only Nokia knows how to provide. I'm surprised there aren't more people talking about this one. The Nexus 7 is obviously attractive due to the price, but I keep reading review after review that complains of GPS problems, random reboots, etc. I'm willing to pay a premium to make sure the device isn't junk.
 
Going to get the new iPad Air. I was originally going to decide between this, the new Nexus 10 and the Galaxy Note 10, but my girlfriend recently purchasing a bunch of medical apps and manuals for iOS torpedoed that.
 
starting at $399 for the 16GB...a whopping $829 for 128GB and LTE. No thank you.
 
I think it's absolutely beautiful and I'm definitely tempted, but in the end it's just too much cash for that tablet size. Seriously considering getting the Air though.
 
I've already decided on getting the new iPad Air, now it's just a matter of how I'm going to butter up my wife and justify yet another outlandish purchase.

Yep I've decided to go for a Space Grey Air at 64gb

Just paid the money I got for my Nexus 7 down on it as a deposit / pre-order.

Should have it for launch day November 1'st. Friday week can't come soon enough. Start the month with a new iPad, end the month with a PS4 :D

As for buttering up the wife ? Is that some kind of 'last tango in paris' buttering up ? ;)

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I bet the price comes down next year.

It hasn't in the last number of years, why would they start next year ? If anything the fact they have a 'starter' mini at $299 now means in all likelihood we will be seeing older models at the price and anything newer going forward at $399
 
i preordered one just because i am intrigued if i would even use a tablet in my everyday life.

if there was anything like the ipad mini with android i would prefer that though.

(meaning size 4:3 is so much better for browsing and build quality).

if anyone knows of such a tablet with android, please dont hesitate to tell me :D
 
Exactly. Android people will throw a colossal fit over the pricing, and Apple will proceed to sell millions upon millions of these things. If they were truly overpriced (and the Nexus 7 or Galaxy Tab were truly leaps-and-bounds better than the iPad), the opposite would be true. And yet, it isn't.

Are the new iPads expensive? Absolutely. Are there cheaper alternatives? You bet. Does anyone at Apple (or any potential customers) care? I doubt it.

For me - I think my decision is going to come down to the Retina Mini or the Nokia 2520. The latter has me intrigued; all of the power of the Surface Pro 2 with style and functionality that only Nokia knows how to provide. I'm surprised there aren't more people talking about this one. The Nexus 7 is obviously attractive due to the price, but I keep reading review after review that complains of GPS problems, random reboots, etc. I'm willing to pay a premium to make sure the device isn't junk.

My N7 isn't junk at all. Have fun paying near double the price. Just look at the raves for the nexus 7, so many people have one of course due to its attractive pricing but because so many have one, you're going to hear of more issues. Again mine doesn't have a single issue, the first one wouldn't wirelessly charge so I returned it and it's now flawless and I'm not looking back. I think you're overreacting about the reboot issues, GPS issues, those problems aren't widespread at all. Those issues weren't on my first one or current one.

I don't see a point in spending so much money on tech, especially when in a years time something bigger and better will emerge. I paid $229 for a perfectly fine tablet that scored benchmarks just below the iPad 4. And updates come instantly and it's insanely compact and portable and let's talk about the beautiful screen. It's a no brainer, $400 for a retina mini vs $230 for n7. The n7 (specs wise) blows it out of the water. I know you'll probably say "specs dont matter" but to some they do. I love my iPhone but I'm sick of people acting like every product Apple sells is superior. Could I afford a mini? Absolutely. But I really think Android is superior on a tablet. And I agree with you, people will buy anything Apple sells because they are sheep.
 
I bet the price comes down next year.

I seriously doubt it--only if they release a new model and kick this one back to second string as they did with the original Mini.

Excluding the original iPhone price that was reduced two months later, Apple hasn't lowered the price of any of their new release iPhones or iPads and I wouldn't expect that to change in the foreseeable future.
 
It hasn't in the last number of years, why would they start next year ? If anything the fact they have a 'starter' mini at $299 now means in all likelihood we will be seeing older models at the price and anything newer going forward at $399

I seriously doubt it--only if they release a new model and kick this one back to second string as they did with the original Mini.

Excluding the original iPhone price that was reduced two months later, Apple hasn't lowered the price of any of their new release iPhones or iPads and I wouldn't expect that to change in the foreseeable future.

True that. You guys make good points. I guess I'm reading too much into their Retina MBP line and those price drops (the price dropped a little after the first year they were introduced, too. It wasn't just this year). Then again, the computer sales are declining so maybe that's why.
 
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