On Friday I wrote my initial thoughts on iPad mini. I have now spent three days with it and I want to share my thoughts on where this fits into my life. If I was to write briefly, which I won’t, then I would say it fits right between my iPhone 5 and 11in MacBook Air. But I’m going to elaborate much further than that.
I adore this thing. Truly, madly, deeply adore it. And the thing is, before Friday I didn’t expect to, which is why I didn’t rush to preorder.
When I took it out of it’s box I loved the feel, the size, the weight. The real test was yet to come, once I’d restored from iCloud and was able to take a proper look at the text and my apps. As my home screen came to life I was looking at it from the corner of one eye, afraid to explore incase the pixels looked just too hideous. I opened the other eye and breathed a sigh of relief when I saw how vibrant and gorgeous the screen looked.

I can hand-on-heart say the lack of retina isn’t a problem for me in any way. I don’t come from the iPad mini to my retina iPhone 5 and notice any massive difference. Yes of course there is one, but it’s not even registering with me now because it’s such a non-issue and I think that’s largely due to the size.
I’d say I use my iPad for the following things the most: email, web browsing, photo editing (pics taken with my iPhone 5), iMessage, twitter and other social media, catching up on RSS feeds, watching videos through Vimeo and YouTube and playing lots of games. And it’s the playing lots of games on it that brings this iPad mini into its own.
I have said for some time now that games that involve driving, therefore lots of steering, are particularly cumbersome on the full size iPad. The weight not only makes it more difficult to control but your arms feel tired before long. The lightness of the iPad mini means I don’t get aching arms and I’m able to control the tilting action way better. Even things like Temple Run which involves tilting feels way way easier on the mini compared to full size. And don’t get me started on Punch Quest. In landscape my thumbs are placed on either side of the screen at such a much more comfortable width.
The plan I’d set myself before I picked up my iPad mini on Friday was to keep iPad 3 for a few weeks until I was certain I could do everything on the iPad mini comfortably. I have since changed that plan to sell iPad 3, the mini does everything I need it to do. My Dad currently has my hand-me-down iPad 2 and after seeing my iPad mini he now wants to make the switch. I have been trying to locate a black 16GB iPad mini for him as a gift today, but it’s proving rather more difficult than it was on Friday and all the nearest Apple Stores, department and computing stores have sold out completely of every colour and capacity. It’s hardly surprising considering Apple have sold 3 million of the things in 3 days.
For me the 7.9in iPad mini is the absolute sweet spot. It sits right in the middle of my device usage: iPhone 5 and 11in MacBook Air.
My friend Nicky wrote his thoughts on iPad mini now being the perfect consumption device and I agree with every word of it. Go check it out.