iPad 4 and iPad mini user reviews (non-pro reviewers)

[GWestphal]

I'm sure some ATers must have purchased them. How are you liking them? Any thing that's really great? Anything that bothers you?

I'm trying to decide on getting an iPad 4.

iPad 5 will probably bring A7X, stereo speakers, and that's all I can really think of. So, it seems the iPad 4 should be a good buy for a few years.

 

[JackBurton]

I have a 64GB LTE iPad 4 coming on November 23rd. I'll let you know when I get it. Looking to also get my wife an iPad mini here shortly.

I really don't know what else they can do to improve the 4th gen iPad, but I'd love to see Apple out do themselves.

 

[TheStu]

I have an 64GB LTE iPad 4 coming on November 23rd. I let you know when I get it. Looking to also get my wife an iPad mini here shortly.

I really don't know what else they can do to improve the 4th gen iPad, but I'd love to see Apple out do themselves.

For the move to the 5th gen, maybe adopt the Mini's styling? Stereo speakers, A7X, maybe work on the backlight tech to get the battery size down, make the whole thing a little thinner, a little lighter. Bump up the jam, er rather the storage, maybe finally get a 128GB option in there.

All that said, I agree, since that is all more or less predictable.

 

[Aikouka]

I have a 64GB LTE iPad 4 coming on November 23rd. I'll let you know when I get it. Looking to also get my wife an iPad mini here shortly.

Ugh, are they seriously releasing the iPad 4 LTE on Black Friday? My disdain for Apple has risen a slight bit for making me go out on that hellish day, 'cause I'll be damned if I'm not going to either go to Target and get 5% off or go to Best Buy and get 5% cash back!

Note: Target has a Black Friday deal on all 10" iPads. You get a... $50 (I think that's right) gift card with it and you can still get 5% off.

 

[Necrolezbeast]

I purchased an iPad 4 for the wife, but it's coming via mail from my mother and won't be here for a few weeks... I hope it's as good as I hear

 

[Printer Bandit]

i can't wait for multi-user accounts, but that is more iOS specific.

 

[JavaMomma]

I think I'm going to snag an iPad 4. It will be a huge jump from my current iPad 1.

iPad 5 - I'm thinking lower power usage parts, smaller battery (same run time), much thinner, lighter. The big changes will come from iOS enhancements though, like Printer Bandit said, multi-user accounts

 

[Aikouka]

I think I'm going to snag an iPad 4. It will be a huge jump from my current iPad 1.

iPad 5 - I'm thinking lower power usage parts, smaller battery (same run time), much thinner, lighter. The big changes will come from iOS enhancements though, like Printer Bandit said, multi-user accounts

The biggest change will probably come from an upgraded screen. I've seen random acronyms thrown around the Internet (such as IGZO) that should help reduce the weight by reducing the ridiculous backlight needed for such a dense screen, which also shrinks the battery needed to power everything.

As for multi-user stuff, I would imagine that Apple has considered it, but there are quite a few questions that go along with implementing it. The biggest one is probably how do you handle other users? Google treated it like a computer and lets things run in the background. That isn't as much of a problem on iOS given the limited multi-tasking, but there's still background tasks remaining in memory. I would imagine that they would simply give preference to the current user's tasks over any other user's tasks or simply require logging in as another user to log any other users out. Most apps save their state to NAND anyway.

EDIT:

Some articles even seem to suggest IGZO as a done-deal for Apple, but when will we see another iPad refresh? Will Apple refresh it again in March or wait until October again?

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/...10_1_igzo-screens-igzo-displays-display-plant

The Kameyama plant makes IGZO displays, which consume 10 percent to 20 percent of the power required by conventional panels, for Apple Inc's iPad tablet.

 

[JavaMomma]

The biggest change will probably come from an upgraded screen. I've seen random acronyms thrown around the Internet (such as IGZO) that should help reduce the weight by reducing the ridiculous backlight needed for such a dense screen, which also shrinks the battery needed to power everything.

As for multi-user stuff, I would imagine that Apple has considered it, but there are quite a few questions that go along with implementing it. The biggest one is probably how do you handle other users? Google treated it like a computer and lets things run in the background. That isn't as much of a problem on iOS given the limited multi-tasking, but there's still background tasks remaining in memory. I would imagine that they would simply give preference to the current user's tasks over any other user's tasks or simply require logging in as another user to log any other users out. Most apps save their state to NAND anyway.

EDIT:

Some articles even seem to suggest IGZO as a done-deal for Apple, but when will we see another iPad refresh? Will Apple refresh it again in March or wait until October again?

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/...10_1_igzo-screens-igzo-displays-display-plant

IGZO looks pretty sweet.
March update vs. next October... who knows? I'd love to wait for the 5 but I guess you can always play that game plus my iPad 1 is so old and slow.

 

[Aikouka]

IGZO looks pretty sweet.
March update vs. next October... who knows? I'd love to wait for the 5 but I guess you can always play that game plus my iPad 1 is so old and slow.

I can definitely see Apple going with IGZO or something similar to it. I don't see them worrying too much about ramping up the battery life to obscene levels (10-11 hours now is pretty decent and acceptable), which means they can reduce the battery size to make the device lighter and thinner. The biggest complaint that I hear about the iPad now is the weight (1.5 pounds). It'd be great if they could get it close to a pound, but that would definitely be a difficult task.

Well, one thing to consider is that Apple products tend to keep their value. Even if you absolutely need to have a feature in the latest product, and you have the current generation one, then you can usually recoup a modest amount of the costs. I traded in my $700 iPad 2 for $420, which isn't too shabby for the rather low amount of effort that it took.

Being iPad-less is why I'm rather disgruntled over the late LTE-equipped iPad release.

 

[Pandamonium]

Bought both; I have a wifi-only mini, and my wife owns the wifi-only iPad 4. Don't have the inclination to write a full/grammatically correct review.

Cliffs on iPad mini:
Pros: Very thin yet solid, feels good in hand, excellent battery life
Cons: Smart cover has "wiggle" to the "hinge", screen could use increased pixel density (noticeable graininess at arms length; FWIW my eyes have become accustomed to iPhone 4S PPI)
Commentary: Stereo speakers adequate. Facetime cameras adequate. While I do not have any scratches on my iPad, reports of iPhone5 scratches have me concerned. I am babying mine until a smart case is available. Perhaps a smart case will solve my "wiggly hinge" issue.
Things not attempted: rear camera photos (I use my iPhone for off-the-cuff shots or my Canon S100 when I care about image quality)

Edit: Will field any specific questions you have. But I should have been in bed hours ago so a reply won't be timely.

 

[JackBurton]

Ugh, are they seriously releasing the iPad 4 LTE on Black Friday? My disdain for Apple has risen a slight bit for making me go out on that hellish day, 'cause I'll be damned if I'm not going to either go to Target and get 5% off or go to Best Buy and get 5% cash back!

Note: Target has a Black Friday deal on all 10" iPads. You get a... $50 (I think that's right) gift card with it and you can still get 5% off.

That's when I'm scheduled to receive it. They're shipping it out I believe 5 days prior.

 

[slwiser]

I have had the Amazon Fire HD, 16 gb, since it came out and just this weekend got my hands on my new iPad 4th gen, 64 gb black.

So far I am enjoying both for different reasons. The iPad can be a substitute laptop while the Fire HD is more of a document reader that I can pocket. Pocketing the HD in my pants is very important to me and makes it so handy even at work using it for PDF documents. The Fire HD screen is very nice and readable.

I can't say much so far about the iPad since it is so new to me. The screen is great and the responsiveness is even better. I got a Zagg Flex keyboard for both and this works very well.

For the Fire HD I got the standard Amazon offered case and this keeps it very light. It got the Pong case for my iPad. The Pong case is very nice as well and keeps the weight down for the iPad with some protection. Looking forward to getting into the iPad and seeing what it can do for me. This weekend has been mostly setting it up with the apps that I want to use with it.

 

[Tweak155]

My sister showed me her iPad 4 yesterday. Didn't notice any difference over iPad 3.

 

[JackBurton]

My sister showed me her iPad 4 yesterday. Didn't notice any difference over iPad 3.

The biggest difference is the dock connector and the processor (A6X) which is a pretty big improvement over the iPad 3 (not that the iPad 3's processor was bad or anything).

 

[runawayprisoner]

The biggest difference is the dock connector and the processor (A6X) which is a pretty big improvement over the iPad 3 (not that the iPad 3's processor was bad or anything).

I'm actually inclined to believe with the guy you quoted.

Got a WIFI-only iPad 4 for my mom. Compared to her old iPad 3, I can't detect any noticeable performance difference.

My iPhone 5 is still faster than the iPad 4 by a good amount. It looks like having more pixels to push has offset the performance advantage of the A6X.

At least it charges up faster than my mom's old iPad 3.

Also got a Mini in today. Ordered on launch day in the morning, even... I'll see if mom likes Mini better or iPad 4 better, and then I'll return one of them.

 

[JackBurton]

I'm actually inclined to believe with the guy you quoted.

Got a WIFI-only iPad 4 for my mom. Compared to her old iPad 3, I can't detect any noticeable performance difference.

My iPhone 5 is still faster than the iPad 4 by a good amount. It looks like having more pixels to push has offset the performance advantage of the A6X.

At least it charges up faster than my mom's old iPad 3.

Also got a Mini in today. Ordered on launch day in the morning, even... I'll see if mom likes Mini better or iPad 4 better, and then I'll return one of them.

Hmmm, what apps are you comparing? My wife has an iPhone 5, so I'll do some speed comparisons when I get mine in.

 

[runawayprisoner]

Hmmm, what apps are you comparing? My wife has an iPhone 5, so I'll do some speed comparisons when I get mine in.

The iPhone 5 is just faster in general.

If you have to compare apps, try Apple's iWork suite (Pages, Numbers, Keynote). Pages on the iPhone loads a document faster, edits smoother, scrolls smoother, and re-renders contents faster.

Also try iBooks. Vector PDFs on the iPhone 5 open immediately and render blazingly fast. It's slower by a hair on the iPad 4, but it's still noticeable.

 

[Ashenor]

Umm call me dense but there is a new full size iPad? I have had each of the first 3, had no interest in the mini, but was unaware of a new fullsize one? Just the new plug or anything else?

 

[TheStu]

Umm call me dense but there is a new full size iPad? I have had each of the first 3, had no interest in the mini, but was unaware of a new fullsize one? Just the new plug or anything else?

New Thunderbolt connector and new a6x cpu.

 

[Ashenor]

New Thunderbolt connector and new a6x cpu.

Ah wow i did not even know they had a update, i had no interest in the mini.

I normally upgrade, but not twice in one year i will pass hah.

 

[dagamer34]

Here's my iPad mini review: http://www.jeffkibuule.com/2012/11/03/my-ipad-mini-review/

 

[Aikouka]

There are musings that the iPad 4th generation with LTE will be out this Friday as that's the earliest receipt date that people have! Yay!

 

[mshan]

If I use a non-Retina Display as baseline (specifically an iPad 1), will I consider the screen on iPac Mini mediocre or less than expected, like reviews seem to indicate?

 

[runawayprisoner]

I think you will consider the iPad Mini less... spacious than expected.