Gadgetory

Okay, it's a new iPad mini. It looks exactly like the old iPad mini, and the one before that, and the one before that, and the one before that. Seriously, here's a first channel iPad mini from 2012, and here's the new one. They look almost identical from the outside. Same form factor, same aluminum body, same giant bezels, same headphone jack, same camera placements, even the same Smart Covers. If you had any previous iPad mini and have secretly replaced it with this new one, there's a chance you might not even notice the difference. All of the changes to the new mini are on the inside, and they're pretty significant, which they should be, seeing as it's been almost four years since the iPad mini 4 was released. Now, these internals are really similar to the new iPad Air, which Apple also announced this week. I've actually got one here, but Dieter is really excited about reviewing it, so he's going to do that next week. I'm going to focus on the mini, which, honestly, I've grown really fond of over these past few days. It's been a really fun review. (light hip music) I asked people what they wanted to know about the iPad mini on Twitter, and the most popular questions, by far, were either “Why does this exist?” or “Why should I buy one?” Which are pretty fair questions, but I think they have a really simple answer: because you want a killer small tablet. That's it! That's the whole reason this new iPad mini exists. There simply isn't another tablet at this size that can compete. Small Android tablets usually have much slower processors and are really designed for watching video. There isn't a great app ecosystem. And there just aren't any small Windows tablets, apart from the Surface Go, which is still really big compared to the mini. With the new mini, you get basically the entire feature set of the new iPad Air in a small, premium package with more tablet app support than basically anything else in the market. If you are the sort of person who wants a powerful, small tablet, the new iPad mini is the best choice, full stop. I mean, it's basically the only choice. Now, that's not to say this new iPad mini is perfect or even that it's state-of-the-art. It kind of feels like Apple put together a bunch of stuff from the iPad parts bin, and called it a day. But the good news is that the iPad parts bin is full of pretty good parts. So it worked out. Here's what's new. You've got an A12 processor with Apple's Neural Engine, an updated 7.9-inch display with Apple Pencil support, new cellular radios with gigabit LTE and dual-SIM support in the cell model, a new 7-megapixel front-facing camera with an f/2.2 lens. Then, there's the old stuff. You've still got a physical Touch ID button on the front. There's no Face ID or fancy haptic button here. Two stereo speakers on the bottom. On the back, it's the same old 8-megapixel f/2.4 camera, which takes extremely medium photos, and there's a Lightning connector on the bottom, not USB-C like the new iPad Pros. Apple told me that they think of USB-C as an iPad Pro feature and that it was also really important to maintain compatibility with the existing ecosystem of iPad mini accessories and use cases. So, they stuck with Lightning. I get that. You can't really swap out an old mini for a new one with no disruption if you change the port. But at this point, Apple's connector situation is just super confusing. Is the future USB-C or not? Someone, anyone, let me know. Apple Pencil support is equally confusing. The new iPad Pro came out late last year with the second-gen Pencil that magnetically clips onto the side of the iPad and charges wirelessly. But the new mini doesn't have any of that. Instead, you've got Apple's first-gen Pencil, which, yeah. (light music) Using the old Pencil is why I say it feels like Apple raided the iPad parts bin. The new Pencil is so much better than this one. It's easier to hold, it's easier to charge, it's easier to keep track of, it doesn't have a silly cap for you to lose. If there was killer competition for small tablets, I bet Apple would've gone with the second-gen Pencil on the new mini. But there isn't, so you get the first-gen Pencil. Do your best to hold on to the cap. The Pencil itself feels just like the first-gen Pencil on any other iPad. It's fast and responsive. It works great across apps that supported it, and it generally makes the iPad feel like much more than just a consumption device. But it's not bundled in a box. It's another $99, which raises the total cost of the new mini to $500 to start. That feels like a miss. If Apple is serious about the Pencil on the iPad, it should start putting it in the box. (upbeat music) Aside from Pencil support, the display is very nice in the way that premium Apple LCDs are always very nice. It's laminated, unlike the cheapest iPad, so it feels like you're touching the pixels, and it's got wide color support and a respectable 500 nits of brightness. What it doesn't have is ProMotion, which is Apple's fancy variable refresh rate tech that makes scrolling super smooth. I love ProMotion. I think it's the best. But I honestly didn't find myself missing it too much on the mini's small screen. The A12 processor on the iPad mini is the same chip in the iPhone XS and XR, so it's plenty fast. I didn't encounter any slowdowns or lags as I edited photos in Lightroom, played a few games, and tried a couple AR demos. The mini runs the same iOS 12 as other iPads, which means you can multitask on a mini, which is hilarious on a screen this small. Here's two open apps, a popover window, and a video window going all at once, and everything is working just fine. Now, I'm on record saying iOS 12 is too limited to support replacing a laptop with the iPad Pro, but the mini doesn't have to carry any of those expectations. So, to me, the trade-offs feel way more acceptable. So those are the highlights apart from battery life, which, honestly, I haven't had enough time to test. Apple quotes about 10 hours of video playback time, and the mini has been running for more than a day so far. No iPad has ever really had battery life issues, so I'm not that worried about it. Speaking of the other iPads, it's worth noting that Apple's got a pretty intense lineup of tablets now. There's the cheap $329 9.7-inch iPad with the slower processor and a just-okay display, the new $399 iPad mini and $499 iPad Air, which basically share a spec sheet, aside from screen size and a Smart Keyboard connector on the Air, and the two sizes of iPad Pro, which are marketed as full-on laptop replacements and start at $800. Like I said, Dieter's going to review that new Air soon, but there's basically an iPad in every price point between $300 and $1,500 now. That's a lot. After using the new iPad mini for a while, I grew pretty fond of it. Phones and tablets have just been getting bigger and bigger for years now, and it's refreshing to use a tablet that stubbornly remains small. I liked reading on it better than my big iPads. I felt less rude using it in meetings than my phone or my laptop, and I was less bothered by the many limitations on iOS 12 because the mini is so obviously a secondary computer. And iOS devices have been getting increasingly complicated and expensive lately, and reviewing them often feels like I have to figure out if they're worth the huge cost premium. Reviewing the mini, on the other hand, has been really fun because it's obviously worth $399 if you want a small tablet, especially considering the last mini went for four years without any changes. This thing is built to last. The question is really just if you want a killer small tablet and how you use it. That is really up to you. Hey, everybody. Apple put out the iPad Air this week as well. It's basically got the same specs as the mini and a larger screen. Dieter's going to review that next week, so keep it locked, YouTube.com/TheVerge.