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.

During the weeks and months leading up to last week’s confirmation that the iPad mini was finally going to be a thing and not just a rumour, I’d been considering moving from iPad 3 to the 7″ variant. However, I hadn’t bargained on the iPad mini being anything other than retina display. When I heard that it wasn’t indeed going to be retina I decided I couldn’t purchase until I’d seen the screen in the flesh or hear the thoughts of my friends who had preordered last week.

This morning, several people in my Twitter timeline were opening their iPad mini and giving their thoughts on the screen. One of them by my friend Don McAllister of ScreenCastsOnline was pretty much the deal maker for me given I value his opinion greatly when it comes to tech…

Mission accomplished. Worried about the lack of retina? Don’t be

I know Don is not a man to mince his words and will give a very honest opinion on all of the tech that goes through his hands.

Because of that and the other glowing references the iPad mini screen and form factor was getting, I decided to call my local Apple Store to enquire on stock levels. They’d sold out of every iPad mini except for the last few 64GB’s and they weren’t expecting further stock until next week. I was hoping for either a 16GB or 32GB. I checked the stock at my local PC World and they had the 16GB White Wi-Fi in stock. I reserved online and then went to pick it up an hour later.

I don’t like to give a full review after less than 2 hours with a new device, but I will give my initial thoughts. If I’d been worried about lack of retina screen then I shouldn’t have been. On a screen this size I wouldn’t say it is hugely noticeable, given I’m coming from a retina display on iPad 3 and of course have the retina display of my iPhone 5. The text is nowhere near as fuzzy as I had expected, though the reviews I’d been reading all over the Apple news sites this week should have put my mind at rest in that respect.

The size feels perfect. And the weight, oh my gosh the (lack of) weight. I can comfortably hold this in one hand. If you look really hard you will, of course, notice that text is not as crisp as it is on retina. I don’t read books on my iPad or indeed read anything for great periods, so I’m sure this will be a non-issue for me and to be honest it was the price I was willing to pay for the form factor.

I usually choose 32GB for my iOS devices, but after looking at my 32GB iPad 3 and the folders of apps I hadn’t touched in months I decided to get rid of the ones I don’t use and see how much space I could afford to comfortably play with. I got it down to having around 5GB of apps installed so I figured 16GB would be ample. Just as well, as that’s all PC World had left of both the black and the white.

So, in summary: I’m more than satisfied with the lack of retina screen. Text in no way appears as fuzzy as it does on iPad 2. The size and weight, both perfect. If you are in two minds about it then I will say go along to your local Apple Store and have a play with one. I think it’s down to personal choice whether you can live with a non-retina after coming from iPad 3. But what I’m seeing and hearing all seems to be that it’s not the deal breaker many of us were anticipating.