iPad mini iPad Mini first Gen

[hallidc]

Curious to hear about the performance of an iPad mini first generation in today’s society. How well does the iPad perform today?

I was offered a couple mini’s For around $30 each which I wanted to relay onto others. However I don’t want to touch them if theyre paperweights. What are your thoughts?

 

[Juicy Box]

It would probably depend on the version of iOS it has.

I have the iPad Mini 2, and it rocked with iOS 8. iOS 9 made it unusable, then iOS 10 made it functional, but not as smooth or fast as iOS 8. I have been scare to try and update it again, so I have no idea how it would run under iOS 12.

Although, I doubt the older first gen iPad Mini would be able upgrade to any recent iOS version.

Hopefully it stops at iOS 8, but the issue with this is that some apps won't be able to be used as they might require a more recent version of iOS.

 

[Greenmeenie]

Even with iOS 12’s speed improvements, don’t expect killer performance. I still have an iPad mini 2 which is annoyingly slow at times. So I am sure the first gen iPad mini will be even worse. But hey, for $30...why not. Go for it. They’ll be passable e-readers and web surfers. Just don’t expect them to be major work horses. If you are worried about that, I would just pass.

 

[hallidc]

That’s my fear. Essentially it’s a school liquidating their iPads. As much as I’d like them, I also don’t want to purchase something that’s flat out not usable. Unfortunately I only gave the gen 4 here to test..which will clearly out perform the first gen

 

[Greenmeenie]

That’s my fear. Essentially it’s a school liquidating their iPads. As much as I’d like them, I also don’t want to purchase something that’s flat out not usable. Unfortunately I only gave the gen 4 here to test..which will clearly out perform the first gen

Is there a way you can test them out before you buy? Another thing to consider is if they are from a school, I am sure they’ve been beaten up pretty bad. Something to think about on top of the age factor. Yeah, especially if you’re gonna be giving them to others. It will depend on what they will use them for. Cause maybe some of the latest apps won’t run so good on em. Still, if I received a free iPad, no matter how old, i’d probably be happy.

 

[hallidc]

They offered to send one unit to test. But overall said condition is good and can still browse the web. Guess I’ll take the risk.

Thanks for the input everyone

 

[Juicy Box]

It looks like the highest official supported iOS version is iOS 9, which was a turd of an OS. Hopefully iOS 8 is on it.

 

[HarryWild]

I been using the Mini 2 on 12.2 and it is slow but functional. I have recently switch over to the Mini 4 and it is fast! Purchase two brand new Mini 4 and have been very happy with them. The Mini 4 is lighter, a little thinner and has 2GB RAM instead of the Mini 2’s 1GB.

 

[tortoise944]

My kids each still have the ipad mini 1 and, while they love the form factor, a lot of apps are no longer updating and most new apps are not compatible. Even Osmo, which they use a lot, is now crashing intermittently on the older device. They are hoping for a new mini to come out soon (not paying that much for a mini 4 now lol).

 

[Atomic1977]

The mini 1 has been long forgotten by now. My first and only iPad to date is the mini 2. Mine works good on iOS 12.1.1 but I could imagine the mini 1 would not be able to do much.

 

[Johnny365]

Mini 2 on iOS 12 is functional. It plays Youtube/TV and other streaming apps perfectly fine. The speakers have never been good on the Mini line, so I usually always used a bluetooth set.

The one I have now is 16GB which is paltry, so I'd go for at least 32. $30 is not a bad price though. Mini value is not that great

 

[dnewkirk]

I have a mini 1 I used today actually. I only use it for the kindle app anymore, and even that is somewhat slow. It's not really usable for much else anymore, and is probably not worth $30 even. In it's prime, I used it heavily and it was great, but it is simply too old to be of much good any longer.

 

[Jessica Lares]

I have my 1st gen Mini on iOS 9. Even though there are few apps still out there for it, the App Store itself is a pain to use because it's so laggy and so makes it hard to even get to your app purchases to download. Even if you were to downgrade it, consider the fact that the new web technologies that are going to be put into production in the next year or two don't work with these versions of WebKit that ship with them.

Safari itself wants to reload websites a lot of the time. Everything else varies, the better apps being ones that don't revolve around a web service API.

And I'll say this being that I've seen some refurbished models pop up lately for much much much more than $30... When you restore it to a fresh copy of iOS, it works a little better, but then quickly deteriorates to have the above problems.

 

[madrich]

Curious to hear about the performance of an iPad mini first generation in today’s society. How well does the iPad perform today?

I was offered a couple mini’s For around $30 each which I wanted to relay onto others. However I don’t want to touch them if theyre paperweights. What are your thoughts?

I currently have iPad mini first generation. I decided with the holiday sales to trade it in for iPad 6th generation. My reasons: It's 4 years old, the battery performance has declined and a battery replacement costs $99, the iOS is stuck on 9 (no update), and Safari is slow and restarts constantly. Also, some apps are not updated anymore.