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all right no time for the gossip
it's like an ipad air but
smaller hey what's up mkbhd here and the
ipad mini has always been so fascinating
to me just because i always wonder who
buys them and who uses them
and what they use them for and why they
chose it over other options like i know
my dad uses one but
my sister and i got it for him as a gift
so he didn't really choose it it kind of
chose him but then i see the pilot with
an ipad mini example constantly like i
feel like that's in every ipad mini
keynote but it turns out that's fairly
common for hobby pilots which is awesome
i've already realized that as a huge fan
of the ipad pro
this isn't for me but this refresh for
2021 makes it a real option again for a
lot of people so this is my mini review
of the new 2021 ipad mini so most of
what's new here is the design refresh
which is pretty simple the unibody
aluminum there's four new colors and it
gets all the beauty of those squared off
sides which i also think make it easier
to hold and like the ipad air you drop
the home button you keep the touch id in
the form of a power button fingerprint
reader combo up top it adds usb type c
at the bottom thank you very much and
this is actually the first ipad mini
with a camera bump that now houses that
new 12 megapixel camera on the back the
only real quirk though is the volume
buttons which are now also at the top
seemed questionable at first but then
you realize this new ipad mini has
second generation apple pencil support
and that slaps right onto the side
magnetically and the pencil is literally
the size of the entire side of the
tablet so there's no room for volume
buttons over there where they usually
are so they put them on the top and i
got used to that pretty fast anyway
mostly because i find myself using it at
landscape all the time all that being
said it's the smaller form factor to
give you an 8.3 inch display that you
can hold in one hand that you can fit in
smaller bags put in smaller places and
take with you more easily these bezels
look kind of big at first but then as
soon as you start using it you quickly
realize this is about as small as bezels
on a tablet can be to give yourself
something to hold with your fingers
before you start touching the screen so
this is the same size bezels as ipad air
and ipad pro just with a smaller screen
and that screen
is
fine
it's fine it's an okay screen it's 8.3
inches like i said which is bigger than
the last generation which i think was
7.9 and it's also bigger than the galaxy
z fold 3 unfolded but it's a much better
aspect ratio it's uh closer to
widescreen but it's not an amazing
quality display so it's an lcd again
still 60 hertz same pixel density as
last year same not that great 500 nits
max brightness as the last generation i
mean it's nice that it has full p3 color
support and has true tone but generally
speaking this is uh still a pretty basic
display it's fine indoors for sure for
reading watching videos all that stuff
no problem i just wouldn't expect to be
able to use this comfortably outside in
the sun
this one's got cellular antenna lines as
you can see so it is a cellular model
that now supports 5g but just so you
know no millimeter wave 5g on the ipad
mini which honestly is not a big deal
it's useless for most people in most
places but if you were trying to use it
on one of those hot spots
many won't support it but honestly
that's probably kind of a good thing
considering the battery life probably
the worst thing about the ipad mini as
tested is the mini battery
granted i was testing it pretty hard
using it full brightness all the time
about as much as my phone and on
cellular on the go but i felt like i
needed to charge it at the end of every
full day so i could get seven eight
hours of screen on time out of it which
is good it's a tablet and it has great
standby time but that's something to
keep in mind it might not last like a
week like my ipad pro sometimes does
with light use my use of the ipad mini
though is very
generalist like you know i'm scrolling
through social media lots of emails i'm
watching videos things like that
but that's the thing about the ipad mini
is i feel like so many people who are
intending to get one already have some
specific thing in mind that they want to
do with it like i bet there's someone
out there who's going to get one of
these ipad minis and they're going to
make it the home kit smart hub light
switch that they're going to put in the
wall in their house then of course you
want the smallest ipad possible to do
that you know there's probably a student
who's about to go back to school right
now who's going to get this and an apple
pencil and they're going to use this
just for note-taking all day they're on
this thing with the apple pencil
sketching taking notes writing things
down all the time and you already know
actually i do already know that there's
going to be hobbyist pilots out there
that are going to get these ipad minis
because apparently they're very popular
as the small ipad you'd use to plot out
your flight map and it's the one that
fits comfortably in the cockpit of a
smaller airplane this is the tablet they
want to use so for me this ipad is also
fine as a super fast 500
tiny tablet and it happens to have
decent features across the board to make
it versatile the stereo speakers on
either side for listening to music or
watching videos like i do are really
good uh the new 12 megapixel camera on
the back it's plenty good for a tablet
it's basically the equivalent of what's
in the ipad air
and the new ultra wide front-facing
camera with center stage works exactly
as well as it does in the ipad air which
is to say
a little bit shaky but perfectly fine
for video calls and face time or zoom
and then of course that apple pencil 2.0
support which is top of the line in this
price range ties right into ios 15 and
the swipe up from the corner for quick
notes and all the benefits of having a
dedicated stylus that's so good matter
of fact it's literally running
essentially the exact same software
experience
as all the other ipads out there same
exact software as the 800 ipad pros the
multitasking the slide over windows the
app library over to the side of the home
screen it's all here and of course many
people are already very familiar with it
and it's all running on apple's absolute
latest chip the a15 with the five core
gpu which is actually better than what's
in the ipad air right now so not only
will this ipad be running very smooth
pretty much locked right at 60hz out the
box but also virtually guarantees you
many years of software support and ios
updates being the latest chip
the one thing that's kind of annoying in
this software here seems to be all this
padding around the home screen icons so
the whole ui is like a little more
compressed than i remember inside of
even those bezels it just made the ipad
mini feel
really mini sometimes with all that
small text in the widgets especially
when that weather widget is literally
bigger on the iphone than it is on the
ipad mini's home screen but as soon as
you jump into an app though then of
course you take advantage of the bigger
screen i'm just not sure what that
padding is about so i don't personally
have a use case that really fits this
ipad mini so that's why i won't be
getting one but i think those who are
thinking about getting it already know
you probably already have a thing that
you're imagining getting it for
something that you want it to do
and so for that i would encourage you to
think about whether or not the new 9th
gen baseline ipad might actually be
better for that because it's 170 bucks
cheaper and has a bigger screen
but of course it's a different type of
tablet and if you're after the mini then
yeah it's pretty good oh but it does
actually it starts at 64 gigs so maybe
you can consider that a weakness of this
um if you want to upgrade there is only
one other spec it's the 256 gig which is
150 bucks more so at that point you're
playing in a different price range but
the baseline 64 gigs 4.99 if that's all
the storage you need this one's a go but
yeah you know it would speak to me just
selfishly and maybe a little off topic i
was imagining like an ipad
mini pro
or maybe it would be an ipad pro mini
but you know what i mean like a tablet
this size with a nice 120 hertz display
and of course you get face id and then
you get the pro camera system on the
back and probably a bigger battery but
then you're probably looking at like two
three hundred dollars extra so that's
probably why that doesn't exist but yeah
at this price what are you
cross-shopping it with like a galaxy tab
that's out there
you could be looking at a surface go
or maybe you're looking at like the new
uh kindle that just came out with
wireless charging something like that
all these have different specific use
cases in mind this being the most
versatile of the bunch
definitely worth a look it's the ipad
mini so yeah know your use case
that's the advice i got for you today
that's been it
thanks for watching
catch you guys in the next one
peace
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