So, I Ended Up Getting an iPad Mini (Premium)

This is vaguely embarrassing, and though I was unhappy with my previous iPad, I wasn’t expecting to make a change this soon. But I got a payment notification from Leanpub, which shouldn’t have been a surprise, but was. And it put my PayPal balance over the top, so what the heck.

A few thoughts. Mostly positive, I guess.

? It’s … pretty small

I’ve owned several iPad Minis over the years, dating back to the original version Apple released in 2012. But I’ve owned far more full-sized iPads, and my most recent model, a 2024 iPad Air, is even bigger, at 13 inches, and it’s heavy too. When I first opened the box, I thought, uh-oh, this might be too small. But it’s right-sized for reading, and is notably bigger than a Kindle e-reader. Which wasn’t clear until I put them side-by-side.

? This is about reading

I’ve collected a few pithy phrases over the years. One is the right tool for the job. Another is to optimize for the everyday. The iPad Mini hits on both. I read every day on an iPad, and I sometimes–rarely–use it to watch videos. This can handle both tasks well, and it’s a better size than the iPad Air 13-inch for reading. Also, the App Store has more and better reading apps, though this is a subtle distinction.

?Why not a full-sized iPad?

It occurred to me that the base iPad, with its 10.9-inch display, or the similarly-sized11-inch iPad Air might be a sort of “Goldilocks” tablet from a size perspective, bigger than the iPad Mini but smaller than the 13-inch Air. But math gets in the way. The iPad Air is stupid expensive, plus I already have a new one. And the base iPad only comes with 64 GB of storage; I’ve come to like having 128 GB, and use the extra space. Thanks to Apple’s extortionist upgrade prices, a base iPad with 128 GB storage is $499, the same price as the iPad Mini (which also has 128 GB). And the iPad Mini is more future-proof, with a newer A17 Pro chip, compared to the A14 in the base iPad.

?Display matters

I love the idea of e-ink. I especially love the idea of color e-ink, and I have no issues with the pale and somewhat washed out color e-ink displays I’ve seen. But they’re limited to e-readers and some admittedly interesting Android-based devices (basically phone-sized and mini-tablets). We’re never going to see e-ink on an iPad.

? Why not Android?

I like Pixel Android and I often do use a Pixel phone. If Google hadn’t screwed up the aspect ratio of the Pixel Tablet display, I might be using that now. But I have zero interest in a general purpose Android tablet, or an Amazon Fire HD tablet (having just checked out the latest version). There is an alternative timeline in which I get an Android mini-tablet with a color e-ink screen, however. I could put up with it on a device that was right-sized and just for reading. It could happen.

? Isn’t it ironic, don’t you think?

One of the key criticisms of Android tablets is that some apps aren’t optimized for the larger display and instead of using a nice layout, they just use a single column layout like you’d see on a phone. Well, there’s a flip side to that one. There are a couple of apps with complex layouts on the iPad Mini that make them harder to read, and I’d prefer a phone-like single column view. This isn’t a big problem, but it’s a thing. For example, in the New York Times app, the “front page” and section pages use layouts with tiny, almost unreadable fonts. But the articles, at least, are single column and respect my system-level font size configuration.

? I wish I had just waited

I’ve regretted the 13-inch iPad Air ever since I got it, and spending a lot of money to address an issue that itself cost a lot of money isn’t sound thinking. I wish I had just waited for the iPad Mini refresh. But the silver lining here is that the iPad Air will retain good trade-in value. This is a rationalization, not a reason, I know.

? The more things change

This one is almost nostalgic. Before writing this, I was looking through my archives to try to figure out which iPad Mini models I owned in the past. (This led to me posting my original iPad Mini review last week.) In doing so, I came across a photo I took in 2012 of what Apple included in the box. It looks nearly identical to a photo I just took of what Apple includes in the box now with the latest version of the device. Fun.