Apple has just announced the iPad Mini at a special event in San Jose. Apple has dominated the larger tablet market with its iPad and now Apple is entering the smaller screen tablet market with its iPad Mini. The iPad Mini comes with stepped-down processor and screen resolution, compared to the full sized iPad.
The iPad mini comes with a dual-core Apple A5 processor, a 5-megapixel iSight camera, 802.11n Wi-Fi, the new Lightning connector, and a claimed 10-hour battery life. Apple also offers LTE models (also known as cellular models) that cost a premium of around $100 more than the WiFi model.
Now that Apple has officially announced this device, we can compare iPad Mini with the Asus-made Google Nexus 7 that comes with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and the Amazon’s Kindle Fire HD.
| Device | Apple iPad Mini | Google Nexus 7 | Amazon Kindle Fire HD (7-inch) |
| Operating system | iOS 6 | Android 4.1 Jelly Bean | Custom Android OS |
| Display | 7.9-inch IPS, 1,024×768 pixels (162 ppi) | 7-inch IPS, 1280×800 pixels (216 ppi) | 7-inch IPS, 1280×800 pixels (169 ppi) |
| Processor | Apple A5 | Quad-core Nvidia Tegra 3 | TI OMAP Dual-Core 4470 |
| Storage | 16GB, 32GB or 64GB | 8GB or 16GB | 16GB or 32GB |
| RAM | — | 1GB | 1GB |
| Camera | 5-megapixel rear camera, HD “FaceTime” front camera | 1.2MP front-facing camera, no rear camera | HD front-facing camera, no rear camera |
| WiFi | Dual-band 802.11n Wi-Fi | Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n | Wi-Fi 2.4GHz/5GHz |
| Battery | 10 hours battery life | 10 hours battery life | 11 hours battery life |
| NFC | No | Yes | No |
| Ports | Lightning connector | Micro-USB | Micro-HDMI, Micro-USB |
| Color | Black, white | Black | Black |
| GPS | — | Yes | No |
| Microphone | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Bluetooth | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Weight | 308 grams | 394 grams | 340 grams | Size | 7.9 x 5.3 x 0.28 inches | 7.8 x 4.7 x 0.41 inches | 7.4 x 4.7 x 0.45 inches |
| App store | Apple App Store | Google Play | Amazon |
| Price | WiFi model: $329 (16GB) | $199.00 (8GB) | $199.00 (16GB) |
Pricing
Various Wi-Fi models of iPad Mini cost: $329 (16GB), $429 (32GB) and $529 (64GB) and the cellular models cost: $459 (16GB), $559 (32GB), $659 (64GB). It can be said that Apple has missed the price point that would attract consumers by its price tag.
On the other hand, Google has priced their Nexus 7 attractively at $199 for 8GB and $249 for 16GB. Talking about Amazon’s Kindle Fire HD, then the 7-inch 16GB model costs $199 and 32GB model costs $249.
Summing up
Which one should you buy? Well, it depends on lots of factors other than just the pure technical specifications. Surely you would like to buy a powerful tablet but specs should not always be the deciding point. For example, if you are leaned towards Android and want to get the latest Android experience with 4.1 Jelly Bean, then the Nexus 7 should be your choice. It’s powerful, comes with Quad-core Tegra 3 processor and it’s great for Android fans. On the other hand, the Kindle Fire is perfect choice for Amazon Prime members, who want to consume Amazon’s content while getting more storage space and affordable price tag.
Lastly, if you are an Apple fan, want to try out iOS without shelling out more compared to full sized iPad, then the iPad Mini is a good choice. It is lighter and thinner than the competition but the screen doesn’t stands up to the mark as we would have expected from Apple. The battery life is also on par with the competition. Talking about the processing power, then we can only find out how much powerful it is, once we get to know the benchmarks and how it stacks up to the rivals.
Finally we can say that iPad Mini is the latest addition in the war to conquer the 7-inch tablet market space.
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