Apple iPad mini with Retina Display: Reviewed
by Anand Lal Shimpi on November 16, 2013 8:00 AM ESTBattery Life
Thanks to the mini’s integrated 23.8Wh battery (and the low idle power of the 28nm A7), the Retina Display’s power consumption is more than offset. Battery life in all of our tests is at worst unchanged from the mini, but at best we’re talking about a 21% increase.
Our web browsing test shows a 10% improvement compared to the original iPad mini. The new mini with Retina Display can even last longer than a 4th generation iPad, and it’s hot on the heels of the iPad Air (I'll be updating this section with LTE and LTE hotspot results).
Video playback is where we see the biggest improvement compared to the original mini. Here the new iPad mini lasts 21% longer on a single charge, once again outlasting even the iPad 4. The iPad Air doesn’t offer any appreciable gain in battery life over the Retina mini.
Our 3D battery life test is the only one where the old mini manages to beat the new Retina model. With a 1.31% margin of victory though, it’s pretty safe to say that for current 3D gaming workloads you’ll see similar battery life out of the Retina mini as the old model. This is also the only test where the iPad Air delivers better battery life on a single charge (~11%).
Apple ships the Retina mini with a 10W USB charger and lightning cable. This appears to be the same charger as what shipped with the 3rd generation iPad (but obviously with a different cable). Using the newer 12W charger from the iPad 4/Air has no impact on charge time as the mini still only draws a maximum of 11.7W at the wall (compared to 13.8W for the iPad Air).
The iPad mini with Retina Display completes a charge from 0 to 100% in a sliver under 4 hours. That’s a little quicker than the iPad Air, and similar to the original mini with its 5W charger.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
345 Comments
View All Comments
identity - Saturday, November 16, 2013 - link
What do you, know another troll bitching.Morawka - Saturday, November 16, 2013 - link
not trolling, i just find it convenient to point out anand doing all apple reviews despite having a dedicated mobile reviewer who has never done a full blown apple tablet or phone review (only previews)Friendly0Fire - Saturday, November 16, 2013 - link
I'll also say that I like Anand's work a lot but I have absolutely zero interest in Apple stuff, which makes me sad because it means I rarely get to read something from Anand.Apple product reviews are rarely a surprise anyway, so they're not even particularly informative. Iterative improvements, if anything special arose it'll have been talked about for at least six months everywhere you look at.
kyuu - Saturday, November 16, 2013 - link
Exactly. Anand does great reviews, but his time is wasted doing these Apple reviews. The only part of the review that contains any information we didn't already know from the glut of Apple coverage everywhere is the display metrics.But, it's pretty plain Anand has a love affair with Apple at this point.
ws3 - Saturday, November 16, 2013 - link
I know it must be maddening for Apple-haters when every review of an Apple product is at least generally positive, but you know what Apple says: "We don't ship junk."Puberticus - Saturday, November 16, 2013 - link
More junk! Ananda must review more junk! Only then will the masses be happy!!!Eyes rolling…
volebamus - Saturday, November 16, 2013 - link
So just curious, how many reviews in Anandtech did you actually read? I rarely actually look at the writer of these articles, but I notice that Anand in general does all of the flagship product reviews.How can you say you rarely get to read about Anand reviewing non-Apple products when he's involved with all the other manufacturers not just in Android, but Windows?
volebamus - Saturday, November 16, 2013 - link
No, I can tell you're trolling, and I created my account on Anandtech just to point it out. If you were anywhere close to objective, you'd look into the several categories of smartphones and tablets to see exactly how many reviews Anand does in mobile devices. Like I just did. Spoilers: he does MOST of the mobile reviews. Samsung, HTC, LG, Nexus, and even SURFACE out of all things. His name as reviewer is tied to all of them.But you notice a "trend" in him not letting the other reviewer do Apple tablet/phone reviews. Of course, this is completely ignoring the reviews that Anand does on ALL the other tablet/phone reviews as well.
Your bias is showing.
Morawka - Saturday, November 16, 2013 - link
The tough pill for me to swallow is the expensive storage upgrades. apple charging $100 going from 16GB to 32GB is absurd. The nand probably cost them $5 extra on the Bill of Materials, and all the other companies are only charging $50 for nand upgrades.Additionally, $130 for LTE connectivity is a bit high, but no where near the magnitude of the NAND pricing. It's sad that apple fans have to pay $630 for 32GB LTE mini. If you maxed your ipad mini with retina's specs, it would cost $830!!!!! Almost a grand for a 7 inch tablet that will be obsolete within a year. And those who buy all the bells and whistles will lose their ass when they go to sell it next year and upgrade to the new device.
Daniel Egger - Saturday, November 16, 2013 - link
Every premium vendor does that with their premium products. No matter whether we're talking BMW, Apple or HTC. The HTC One Max costs 150€ more to go from 16GB to 32GB internal storage while the HTC One is a whopping 220€ more expensive when doubling from 32GB to 64GB; and those are definitely not cheap to begin with! With that in mind $100 can be viewed as a real bargain, especially for the jump from 64GB to 128GB.