“Folks, welcome to my secret shame. For the past several weeks, I’ve been using the new iPod touch, and for a lot less time, of course, the new iPad mini,” Paul Thurrott writes for Paul Thurrott’s Supersite for Windows. “Both products are demonstrably better than the competition — heck, the iPod almost has no competition — despite my long-time complaints about the underlying iOS software on each. There’s no way to overstate this: The new iPod touch and iPad mini are just incredibly desirable tech devices. They’re almost without peer.”
“While Apple’s new iPods were almost an afterthought at Apple’s September launch event for the iPhone 5, the new iPod touch is arguably the sexiest product Apple has ever made. And yes, I’m including the iPhone 5 in that estimate… The touch’s 5 megapixel camera is surprisingly good and is in fact better than those in all but the newest smart phones. In fact, it’s certainly better than the camera in my Lumia 900,” Thurrott writes. As for the iPad mini, “This is the ideal iPad. In fact, it may be the ideal mini tablet. Take that, Amazon and Google.”
Thurrott writes, “The stories you’ve heard about the vaunted build quality are true: The iPad mini is a gorgeous, gorgeous device. It’s thin and light and can really be held in one hand. I’m not a huge fan of the “diamond chiseled” edges, which I find hard to the touch. And while I know the back is in fact aluminum, it seems like plastic to me … Until you try to flex the device, which you can’t since it’s so stiff and well-made. The iPad mini is the BMW of the tablet world. It’s nicer looking and better made than the competition. In this case, you really do get what you pay for.”
Full reviews – also chock full of pitifully defensive backhanded compliments, as usual – here.
MacDailyNews Take: It took awhile, but Thurrott seems to have undergone quite the evolution:
• Wow. So Apple has unveiled its iPad, an iPod touch like tablet computer that, so far at least, doesn’t seem impressive at all. – Paul Thurrott, January 28, 2010
• What Apple does right is marketing. It’s form over function, plain and simple. How else could the world be so excited over an unnecessary over-sized iPod touch? Because it’s from Apple, that’s how. And the press markets it for them, and makes people believe that this is somehow a big deal. It’s a self-replicating back-patting, buddy system, plain and simple. – Paul Thurrott, April 26, 2010
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Loran Wappes” for the heads up.]
Related articles:
Thurrott: Dvorak’s right, Microsoft’s wrong, Apple’s iPad is an unnecessary over-sized iPod touch – April 26, 2010
Big surprise: Paul Thurrott doesn’t get Apple’s iPad at all – January 28, 2010