New iPad Mini review: middle child

Key Takeaways

[Music] this is the ipad mini it's the 2021 edition that brings it up to date with the ipad pro and ipad air's design language also it comes in purple which is very nice if you think of this as just a big ipad but shrunk down it's that but it's not that if you think it's just a big iphone blowing up just a little bit bigger it's also that but really it's not that either it's the middle child of the ios lineup between the iphones and the big ipads i am also a middle child and so this review metaphor could get really weird but we're not going to let that happen let me just tell you why this middle child is good even though it has a bit of an identity crisis the ipad mini i mean not me no i'm fine don't cut the title this isn't about me okay so let's get started talking about the ipad mini by saying that it has a larger 8.3 inch display inside this aluminum shell that's really very nice it's got flat sides and excellent build quality the bezels around this display they seem big but they're really not that egregious and it is a place to rest your thumbs when you're holding it i guess anyway i think making the bezel smaller would probably involve using technology that would rapidly increase the cost and the cost well it doesn't really need any increases this thing starts at 499 for a 64 gigabyte model which is not a very generous amount of storage your only other option is 256 gigs which costs 650 you can also get a 5g version of this little tablet but fyi it doesn't support millimeter wave which is not really a big loss in my opinion it's hard for me to say if those prices are worth it an ipad air is only 100 bucks more and it has a much bigger screen and you know of course most iphones cost a lot more and what you're getting here is the same as the top of the line processor on the newest iphone 13 pro so the pricing thing is a little complicated to me the answer to the price question is do you know exactly what you want out of a smaller ipad there are some easy answers for some people for me i like having it as a chill content consumption device i love this thing for reading and games it's actually it's great for games and man boy oh boy do i wish i could install some game streaming apps on this instead of depending on the web to stream games or you know play fortnite but i do think it's not fair to think of this just as a content consumption device it limits which you can pull off with this ipad for example if you can find a decent bluetooth keyboard and stand and you know really that's weirdly hard to do right now i've been looking and i don't really like any of them there is this one from logitech which is pretty okay but anyway if you can find one then this can do anything that a big ipad can do there is no smart connector here for keyboards of course but as a tiny little work machine it actually kind of works but works is relative the smaller screen means that the on-screen keyboard here especially when you're in landscape mode it covers well like the whole screen practically the dock also gets weird when you're in portrait mode sometimes you feel like you have to sand your fingers down to hit some of the smaller icons if you have a lot of icons in your dock and as another example marquez pointed out that the widgets on the home screen on the ipad are actually smaller than they are on an iphone so basically you might multi-task less because things feel cramped or you might put fewer icons in your dock or pick different widgets for your home screen than you otherwise would this is what i mean when i say that this is not really just a big ipad shrunken down the smaller screen changes how you use it even if you're not directly conscious of that change another use case that i think could make a lot of sense for the ipad mini is giving it to a kid as a kids tablet because you know it's kind of kid sized i do think this tablet is a little bit expensive for that though especially compared to amazon fire tablets or even the bigger basic 329 ipad i'd like to say that this makes sense as a shared family tablet but that would require apple to support multiple users and apple still refuses to add multiple user support to the ipad and i'm not going to stop harping about it because it's dumb and they should okay there's one more use case that probably isn't realistic for many people but i do know at least one person who does this and that is have a tiny little iphone just for phone calls and then use this as your primary computing device that you carry around with your everywhere in like a little bag or whatever having a big screen that's nevertheless more portable than a full ipad is great i love using this for the same reason that i love using gigantic iphones big screens are really nice plus on an ipad mini you can do split screen i do wish i could do split screen in like top to bottom in portrait mode like you can do on android phones but this works and it really makes me wonder if apple is ever gonna put split screen on the iphone pro max i mean they're the the same operating system apple just do it as for battery life this ipad mini definitely lasts a full day of a lot of use but not much more casual use will get you further but the bottom line is the battery life is not as good as on a bigger ipad and i can't not mention that there is no headphone jack on this design womp womp now the ipad mini and all of the iphone 13s landed on my desk on the same day i was very excited to test all of the iphones but i was excited to use the ipad mini it just fits into my evening life so much better than a full-size ipad it's big enough to feel immersive but not so big that i'm tempted to do a ton of work on it it's also big enough to like lean back just enough that i'm not hunched over like you are with a phone it's a literal distance that i don't know just as a human body in the world makes me feel like i'm more open to engaging with other people that are around me than i am with the phone and that i'm also more open available to them to talk to me it's really nice all right i know that's a little heady or whatever let's get back to the basics let's talk about the screen now it is all right it's high enough resolution and even though it doesn't have a high refresh rate or really get bright enough to use in direct sunlight i can't complain too much again because if the screen were nicer this thing would cost more i have noticed just a little bit of jelly scroll in portrait mode that's where one side of the screen moves just a tiny bit faster than the other side when you're scrolling if you're the kind of person who can see this thing i think you're gonna eventually get over it because i did if you're not the kind of person who ever sees this kind of thing with the screen do not sweat it the new ipad mini also supports apple's second generation apple pencil which sort of clicks right here on the side to charge and i like that on ios 15 apple finally added this quick note feature where you can just swipe up and then start writing to take a note this is something samsung has done with its stylus devices for years other stuff you log in with touch id on the power button here and that works quite well the camera on the front supports apple's center stage thing where it tracks you as you move around for video calls and it charges via usbc which means that the only ipad left that's using lightning is the basic ipad ipad which by the way also got an update with center stage and a new processor it is right here it's 329 dollars which is still a great deal today i don't know what else is there really to say say the line bart it's an ipad [Applause] so those are my thoughts on the ipad mini i like it a lot and it fits for me but don't assume it's gonna fit for you a big screen ipad is a lot more convenient in a lot of ways and it does a better job of acting as a computer if you need that sort of thing for work a big iphone is more pocketable and also it you know makes phone calls just remember that the ipad mini might look like an iphone or an ipad and it even runs the same software but you're going to end up using it differently the ipad mini is the middle child of apple's ios devices and us middle kids we do have our own identity that's actually different from our siblings so quit teasing us hey everybody thanks so much for watching let me know is this the size of ipad that you want have you been waiting for this are you a pilot or whatever talk about that also of course we've got the iphone 13 and 13 pro reviews you should definitely watch those