iPad mini In 8 years, I have never written a negative review…until now.

[Tikatika]

I am no doubt in the minority but for $500, I am singularly unimpressed!

Things I love: The gorgeous purple color.

Things I dislike:

Awkwardness of the Touch ID button in landscape mode. Have to move the iPad to get full fingertip recognition.
The smoke and mirrors of more screen room in landscape mode. They merely took from the vertical and added it to the horizontal.
Dull screen compared to my 5 Mini‘s brightness.
Squishing of icons rather than full screen.

Admittedly I could adjust and get used to all those dislikes. But my 5 Mini is chugging along fine and I am saving $500.

Now, the iPhone 13 ProMax in Sierra Blue is a wonder to behold. Seriously!

Be kind…this is just my humble opinion.

 

[turbineseaplane]

This doesn’t surprise me.

So many people have gotten distracted by the form factor change which is obscuring the fact that very little actually did change here beyond the form factor and the, of course, internal spec bump from simply being ”newer”

To your point even the larger screen is really just a change in the screen aspect ratio much more than a “larger screen” (Quality wise it isn’t one iota better than the last gen)

 

[poematik13]

The touchID is a little awkawrd in landscape, yeah. I use my left pointer finger for it, and saved like 5 different scans so it can register at any weird angle

 

[Yr Blues]

I'm not a fan of touch ID, so I just go with the on screen numerical password.

Aren't there more pixels? I need to math. The 6 has 226,080 more pixels. So it is bigger.

3,371,808 versus 3,145,728 pixels.

 

[turbineseaplane]

I'm not a fan of touch ID, so I just go with the on screen numerical password.

Aren't there more pixels? I need to math.

Yeah but just making it a little bit wider really is not accomplishing much…At the minimum it’s not accomplishing as much as one would think based on the measured screen size change

when the screen size measurement changes but the aspect ratio also changes it is a little bit of smoke and mirrors about what is actually happening

 

[xraydoc]

I am no doubt in the minority but for $500, I am singularly unimpressed!

Things I love: The gorgeous purple color.

Things I dislike:

Awkwardness of the Touch ID button in landscape mode. Have to move the iPad to get full fingertip recognition.
The smoke and mirrors of more screen room in landscape mode. They merely took from the vertical and added it to the horizontal.
Dull screen compared to my 5 Mini‘s brightness.
Squishing of icons rather than full screen.

Admittedly I could adjust and get used to all those dislikes. But my 5 Mini is chugging along fine and I am saving $500.

Now, the iPhone 13 ProMax in Sierra Blue is a wonder to behold. Seriously!

Be kind…this is just my humble opinion.

The TouchID is working pretty well for me in both portrait and landscape. It’s not as seamless as FaceID, but works well-enough.

I like the form factor and have no issues with the aspect ratio. It’s pretty much the same as my 11” iPad Pro, so I’m used to it.

I also like the magnetic Pencil 2 support.

Fortunately (especially since I spent $800 on 256GB and cellular), I’m very satisfied.

 

[Macalway]

To each their own But if you like the 5, save some money. 5 is great.

 

[estabya]

The TouchID is working pretty well for me in both portrait and landscape. It’s not as seamless as FaceID, but works well-enough.

I like the form factor and have no issues with the aspect ratio. It’s pretty much the same as my 11” iPad Pro, so I’m used to it.

I also like the magnetic Pencil 2 support.

Fortunately (especially since I spent $800 on 256GB and cellular), I’m very satisfied.

I feel similarly. I had been waiting for the mini with the updated design since I got my 2018 iPad Pro 11 at release. I'm very satisfied with this device so far; it will be a great complement to my 11" with the Magic Keyboard.

However, I can see how someone coming from a mini 5 could feel underwhelmed. The last gen mini is still a very capable device.

 

[gigatoaster]

I think what you need is an iPad Pro mini. It will come, it’s just that Apple never made big changes, just tiny evolutions. We’ll have to be patient.
How’s the battery BTW?

 

[estabya]

I think what you need is an iPad Pro mini. It will come, it’s just that Apple never made big changes, just tiny evolutions. We’ll have to be patient.
How’s the battery BTW?

Yesterday mine arrived at 92% charge. I set it up and used it with 4h38m screen on time, mostly Safari and watching videos inside at medium brightness, which dropped it to 32%. I charged it overnight, and after 1h10m screen on time today it's at 90%.

Seems solid so far, but it's too early to be certain of course.