PC Magazine reviews Apple’s Retina iPad mini: ‘Tightly elegant, an absolute pleasure to use’

13 years ago

“The new Apple iPad mini With Retina display ($399 to $829) is just a shrunken iPad Air. It’s so similar to Apple’s flagship tablet that your decision will pretty much be completely based on size and price,” Sascha Segan reports for PC Magazine. “Like the Air, this is one of the slimmest and best-built tablets you’ll find anywhere. It’s an absolute pleasure to use. But unlike the large-screen Air, the iPad mini has many viable small-tablet competitors that are much less expensive, making it less of a must-buy and more of a luxury purchase.”

“The difference between the mini and the Air is really now about size and price, not weight. I just held both tablets in my hands, and now that the Air is only four ounces more, the weight difference between the two tablets doesn’t feel meaningful,” Segan reports. “The 7.9-inch, 2,048-by-1,536-pixel IPS LCD touch screen is bright and sharp. It’s the exact same resolution as the iPad Air, but in a higher pixel density — 324ppi to the Air’s 253, almost the same density as the iPhone 5s.”

“Its metal-and-glass construction is still tightly elegant, with a shiny chamfered edge around the corner. The narrow side bezel echoes the iPad Air’s, and like the Air, it comes in silver and space gray,” Segan reports. ” I prefer the iPad Air to the mini because I think that once something isn’t truly handheld or pocket-sized… a roomier view on the world and larger touch targets trump slightly better portability.”

Read more in the full article here.