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.
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solipsism - Saturday, November 16, 2013 - link
Or you can save $100 by going with a smaller capacity device. Apple will make their margins regardless so what you're really saying is that they should 1) not make the iPad Mini only start at $299 and 2) they shouldn't even offer the lower capacity options because at $5 increments for doubling of capacity (laughable) it's only $15 between 16GB and 128GB.The fact is companies determine the entire line to figure how to maximize sales, margins and profits, not just an individual model, which is something you should understand even if you haven't taken a single economics course.
kyuu - Saturday, November 16, 2013 - link
Why the hell should the end consumer care about that? $100 for $5 worth of NAND is a rip-off. The end. Nobody cares about the ways in which Apple seeks to pad their already absurd profit margins.And yes, they could very well move their base model up to 32GB, like a lot of the rest of the market.
solipsism - Saturday, November 16, 2013 - link
The consumer (not sure why included the word "end" in there) should buy the product that best fits their needs. The consumer shouldn't say "Hey, cheap NAND is only $5 for 16GB so I shouldn't have to pay anymore for faster and/or reliable NAND that is included as part of a vendor's product."What you have done is foolishly expect that capacity should be sold to you at cost without any other consideration, the most egregious of which is thinking the price points should be defined by *you* and not the vendor.
People like you sicken me. You think it's up to you to dictate the terms of another company. You care nothing for the free market. You actually wrote, "Nobody cares about the ways in which Apple…" without once considering that Apple cares about their profits and that it's their product which gives the right to sell it as they see fit, yet instead of saying, "This isn't the product for me." you instead think they owe you something when they can't even keep them in stock.
It's their product and their price points. If you don't like it, don't buy it. It's really that simple.
Puberticus - Saturday, November 16, 2013 - link
Yep. You did it in a nutshell. The poor guy definitely needs a pinch.kwrzesien - Monday, November 18, 2013 - link
I think our perception of a premium product being obsolete because it fills up 16GB of NAND is important to Apple if they want to keep being a premium product. It not only frustrates users but it limits the sale of the content (apps/music/video) that consumes that space. Don't they want it to just work? Nevermind needing over 3GB free to update the OS.Daniel Egger - Saturday, November 16, 2013 - link
Why pay $3000 for a better engine in the car when the production costs are roughly the same?kyuu - Saturday, November 16, 2013 - link
I wouldn't. Generally, better engines do in fact cost more to produce, though, and generally there are more differences between two models of car than just their engine.RadarTheKat - Monday, November 18, 2013 - link
You are reading this wrong. Can you build a 128GB tablet in your garage with the quality of an iPad? Given that even global electronics vendors like Samsung, Asus, and others can't, I doubt you can either. So at $829, the top end iPad mini with retina display, 128GB of memory, and LTE connectivity.Start with that model, which is a computing miracle compared with anything the world could produce just three years ago, and then you'll see that Apple SAVES you $100 if you're willing to take that same miracle with half the memory. LOL!
Hey, but thanks for playing!
RadarTheKat - Monday, November 18, 2013 - link
* So at $829, the top end iPad mini with retina display, 128GB of memory, and LTE connectivity is a steal!Klug4Pres - Saturday, November 16, 2013 - link
1GB RAM for a 64-bit CPU of this calibre is also an insult, and will mean that this thing will choke on many workloads. It will also mean that come IOS 8 or 9, it will likely be unuseable. Oh well, just drop another $500 on a 2GB RAM, 32GB version next year.