Nice iPad mini Apple, but I'm keeping my Nexus 7
Summary: The new iPad Mini looks nice enough, but Google Nexus 7 nice? I don't think so.
I have to say I was impressed. The new iPad with its extremely fast A6X chip looks great, pity it just instantly obsoleted every iPad 3 out there, but... oh wait. That''s the new iPad 4. That's not what Apple is running up against the Nexus 7. Instead, they're putting out the iPad mini. Seriously? That's just sad.
True, Apple senior vice president for marketing Phil Schiller may say that the Nexus 7 is an example of how "Others have tried to make smaller tablets, but they've failed", but that's just showing that the Apple reality distortion field is still at work within Apple's halls. The truth, as everyone knows who've used the Nexus 7, is that it's a great tablet. Heck, without it and its relatives such as the Nook and Kindle, Apple never would have produced a 7" tablet.
Remember Steve Jobs? Back in 2010, he said "we [won't] make a 7-inch tablet isn’t because we don’t want to hit [a lower] price point. It’s because we think the screen is too small to express the software. As a software driven company, we think about the software strategies first.” The only way a 7-inch tablet could work would be "if they came with sandpaper to file down human fingers to a quarter of their size."
I wonder what changed Apple's mind. It couldn't be because of all those failed smaller tablets could it? As far as I can tell my fingers are the same size as they ever were.
Moving on, don't mistake me, the iPad mini a nice enough tablet, but come on guys stop yacking about how much better the display it is. It's not. It' 7.9-inch screen isn't that much bigger than the Nexus 7's 7-inch display. Besides, a closer look shows that the iPad mini 1,024x768 display with its 163 pixels per inch (PPI) is actually far poorer than the Nexus' 216 PPI.
Processor? The iPad mini comes with a dual-core A5 and the Nexus uses a Nvidia quad-core Tegra 3. We won't know for sure, which is faster until the iPad mini is in neutral testing hands. What we do know, though, is that on benchmarks of earlier model iPads and Android tablets, the A5 does better at graphics while the Tegra 3 is better at pretty much everything else.
At this time both of them use 802.11n for Wi-Fi and both of them promise that they'll support 3G/4G real soon now. Let's call it a tie then and move on.
When it comes to camera, the iPad does have a 5MegaPixel (MP) back-facing camera and a 1.2MP front-facing camera, while the Nexus 7 only has a single front-facing 1.2MP camera. To each their own, but if I'm going to take a photograph I'm going to use a real camera or my smartphone, not a tablet.
Apple claims that the new mini iPad's battery will last for 10-hours. I know my Nexus 7 will last for more than 10-hours because I abuse it that way far too often.
As for ports, the iPad mini comes with the proprietary and expensive Lightning connector. The Nexus 7? It uses a good, old inexpensive micro-USB. You know, a port you can use to plug pretty much any USB device into without needing an extra-cost cable?
Moving away from the hardware, on the operating system front, the iPad mini runs iOS 6. You know, iOS 6, it's the one that still has miserable Wi-Fi problems, for now, and <shudder!> Apple Maps.
The Nexus 7 runs the best version of Android to date: 4.1. It also comes with Google Maps and native support for YouTube. Need I say more?
Actually, I do. Here's the bottom line issue: the bottom line. The iPad mini price range goes like this: Wi-Fi: $329 (16GB), $429 (32GB) and $529 (64GB). Cellular: $459 (16GB), $559 (32GB), $659 (64GB). The Nexus 7 starts at $199 for the 8GB version and goes up to $249 for the 16GB version. The Nexus' prices are expected to go down $50 next week with the arrival of the 32GB Nexus 7 next week.. For now, though, the Nexus 7 that's most comparable to the iPad mini is the 16GB model and it's $80 cheaper. Let me spell that out for you: Eighty dollars cheaper. Soon, it will be $130 cheaper.
That makes this a simple decision. At first impression, the Nexus 7 still appears to be the better tablet and it's much cheaper. Unless you're tied to the hip to Apple products, this is a no-brainer. The Nexus 7 is the best small tablet for the money in the market today.
Related Stories:
- Apple gets official with iPad mini; upgrades iPad again
- Google and Amazon can breathe a sigh of relief as Apple skips competing on price with iPad mini
- An iPad mini and a new iPad. Nice try Apple. See you in two years or more.
- iPad mini: A bad apple in the enterprise space
- iPad Mini: The Apple falls to Earth
- Five great Android tablets
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Talkback
That connector alone...
camera and gps
camera and gps
Agreed....
However, it's almost the ONLY mistake on the Nexus 7. I would have made a point that the Nexus 7 includes a real GPS as you did. The iPad mini doesn't. There - now we have a you have one, we have one situation.
no back facing camera is only mistake
no GPS in the wifi only models
Perhaps their thinking is that if you don't have Internet connectivity, the GPS is useless. It also seems that some of the iOS offline mapping apps support external GPS as well.
Your sticking with your Nexus 7? Why doesn't that surprise the world?!
Or, put another way - and I'm sure you saw the the today's video streamed presentation, Steve - what should be the most important consideration for a first time tablet purchase?
Well, IMO, it is the hardware/software combination that will prove the most beneficial or enjoyable for a user. That is the primary consideration for any purchase .. wouldn't you agree?
And, if that is so, than shouldn't the quality and quantity of the software and third party ecosystem be of prime importance? I think so.
Now, you should have argued about the relative merits of the Android and iOS software app ecosystems rather than mere hardware specs.
In your opinion, who has the best and most functional apps optimized for a tablet available for users?
Android
I feel silly to admit that I was a little worried for Nexus 7. But then the Apple mini announcement came and went and my worry evaporated.
So much Attention
Why the surprise?
On the other hand, the Microsoft Surface is something completely unknown. Not only has it unknown hardware properties, but it's OS is something Microsoft tries for the very first time. Nobody knows if it will be any good and there are no apps for it, at all.
So, why be excited about the Surface and pessimistic about the iPad?
The surface may be cool
Microsoft is going to be more expensive like Apple, because they are trying to make money off the sales, not just to get spyware into your hands I think.
Google and android will compete at a different market, with people believing they are getting something "for free" or "at cost" while google is raking billions off of selling their info or their habits,etc. to advertisers, though anonymously.
I do not like the way Microsoft is deceiving the market pushing RT first to wean people off of real Windows, generating tons of confusion so they can claim you are not losing anything since Pro and x86 will still have Win7 welded on until they can get people off real Windows and into their mobile ecosystem, but if you are a Windows person, I can see the advantage once you "move over".
Apple's iPad mini
so?
Clearly Apple have cracked it
Would that your average pub had so much variety.
iPad still has the apps though!
Otherwise, totally agree but I'd get the Acer Iconia A110 instead. It's almost identical to the Nexus 7 8Gb except it has a MicroSD slot too (it does have a slightly poorer screen also).
In my opinion the Acer Iconia A110 is the 7" tablet to beat!
More? Yes, but not necessarily relevent. Better? Very subjective.
And as for specifically better- that's going to depend a lot of how you define better. A lot of the iPad apps I've seen are pretty minimal and not exceptionally different than their Android equivalents.
Why not a Chromebook instead?
I noticed that several apps in the Chrome app store require windows...
If you use web pages for most things, a Chromebook can be good value for money. My experience with the Chrome browser tells med that it is far less polished experience than using native tablet, laptop and desktop apps. Without the bloat of a full OS, I guess Chrome OS has a very nice on the performance. And unlike most Linux distributions, the hardware and software comes in one integrated package, giving Chrome OS better performance. Installing Linux on a windows computer can give a severe loss of performance due too bad driver support...
Agreed
There is