“It may seem strange to compare smartphones and tablets, but they aren’t exactly apples and oranges,” Nicole Arce writes for Tech Times. “Phablets, or large-screen smartphones, have been in the market for quite some time, but Apple’s 5.5-inch iPhone 6 Plus clearly signaled the smartphone’s encroachment of tablet territory.”
“The iPhone 6 Plus, which runs on Apple’s latest A8 64-bit processor, is the winner in the performance department,” Arce writes. “The older A7 processor powering the iPad mini 3 is by no means slow, and most users will likely love how their iPad mini 3 will run as smooth as butter. However, the most nitpicky users will notice the fraction of a second’s difference between the two. In real-world and benchmark tests, the iPhone 6 Plus has proven to be much faster than the iPad mini 3 (and plenty of other smartphones in the 5.5-inch range and up).”
“Simply comparing Apple’s two hottest new devices, the iPhone 6 Plus emerges as the strong victor over the iPad mini 3,” Arce writes. “Still, any buyer’s options are not limited to choosing between the iPhone 6 Plus and the iPad mini 3, and they can ultimately decide to purchase both in the end. However, buyers without the budget for both devices might find better value in the iPhone 6 Plus, which offers features the iPad mini 3 can’t.”
Much more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Well-heeled iOS users who own Apple’s flagship iPhone 6 Plus will likely eschew the iPad mini 3 for the iPad Air 2 for their own use. Beyond minor portability concerns, there is very little reason for an affluent iPhone 6 Plus owner to choose an iPad mini 3 over Apple’s flagship iPad Air 2.
Related articles:
Know Your Mobile reviews Apple’s 64-bit iPad Air 2: ‘The best tablet. Period.’ – December 23, 2014
AnandTech reviews Apple’s 64-bit iPad Air 2: Delivers the best tablet experience – November 7, 2014
Fortune reviews Apple’s new iPad Air 2: Best for work, not play; shines as a PC replacement – November 5, 2014
Gruber: High performance iPad Air 2 marks a turning point – October 22, 2014
T-Mobile to offer $0 down on iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 3; pre-orders start October 22nd – October 21, 2014
Sales prospects for Apple’s iPad Air 2 look good – October 17, 2014
Apple’s new iPad Air 2 is 13% thinner than a pencil; Touch ID a boon for enterprise users – October 16, 2014
Apple unveils iPad Air 2 – the thinnest, most powerful iPad ever – and iPad mini 3, both with Touch ID – October 16, 2014
Bingo for MDN…….that’s it…..iPhone 6 and ipadair2 is all you need….personally I still have my old ipad mini but it sits on the desk as a mini news screen only. Frankly, I didn’t think the latest mini was necessary…..
That’s the combo I settled on, and will be getting the iPad Air2 128GB for X-mas to complement my iPhone 6. 🙂
I still use my iPad Mini 2 constantly even with my iPhone 6 Plus, but if I had to choose one or the other … the Plus would win out 9 times out of 10. That said, I’m suddenly feeling myself changing my tune on the full-size iPad, something I’ve long said I never needed because the Mini fit in my coat pockets and the full-size iPad wouldn’t. But now that I’m keeping my Mini on me less and less, and putting it in my work bag more and more …. Well, who knows? Maybe in a few years, I’ll be looking at the full-size (or potential Pro-size) iPad.
And if you have the iPad Air 2 there is very little reason to get the 6 Plus. My iPhone 6 has fallen out of my pockets so many times that I now waiting for a 4″ 6s or 7.
Slowly people are realizing for themselves that the phone at 4″ (maybe slightly bigger at 4.5″) and an iPad at 8″ (ish) is what really matters.
But to get where SJ was, we had to go through all that, “I want a mini, I want a phablet, I want a…god knows what”…..to get to where SJ always was.
A iPad mini with true cellular telephone capabilities (not vibered / magic jacked) is where it will be.
However, Apple missed that opportunity to capitalize on the Phablet movement. By the time, iPad mini goes A8 M8 – it will still sell but with out true phone capabilities – again it will be too late.
iPad mini has enough real-estate space (screen size) for content creation and yet small enough to carry around everywhere. Adding phone capability will be the game changer.
Waiting and hoping, Apple, one day soon, will cover its entire iDevice product line with the current processor offering? All devices should be available with the A8.
Once Apple does this, then every device is a equal option.
So, offer cellular big medium and small screens – and – offer wifi only devices large medium and small screens for the difference in device. Sure would be simpler to the consumers.
Have you seen the 6 plus? Holding that to ones head is about as big as you can comfortably get. Missed the opportunity to capitalize on the phablet movement? Apple worked on the inside first. 64bit, fingerprint reader, and a secure section of the CPU are more important in the long run than a big screen. Now Android has a lot of catching up to do. Their big screens can’t play graphic heavy games. NFC without security is useless. Oh yea that bump transfer is a joke compared to Air Drop. You can’t just squeeze a new processer in a old device, and no on puts out an entire new line every year. I think they are capitalizeing on the phablet market very well for their first two months.
I just got my iPhone 6 Plus and I love it!
I think of it as a small tablet I make phone calls on it.
Smaller iPhones goes well with iPad Mini. The iPhone 6 Plus goes well with a full-sized iPad.
If you can manage the size of the 6+ then go for it, but I still haven’t felt the need to put an iPad sized phone to my ear or try to stuff into my pockets… I have a 6 and think it’s too large!!!
I love my iPad Mini. It’s the perfect size for an iPhablet. If it had the reliable ability to make phone calls (which it sometimes does using Continuity) it would be totally perfect. An iPhone 6 Double Plus. Apple doesn’t need to copy Samsung. Why aren’t they lining up to buy full-featured, full-sized iPhablets? Because Apple isn’t making them. Why aren’t they lining up to buy up-to-date 3.5″ iPhones? Because Apple isn’t making them.