[Partial]

Originally Posted by ezkcdude I saw the Mini at the Apple Store. It looks nice, but I'm not the target user. I read way too many "full size" PDF's that simply would be shrunk too small on that form factor.

Give it a shot for a week. You won't go back, would be my guess. This thing is incredible and I rarely get happy-go-lucky over a device.

[torifile]

I have no shortage of go-to devices in my house* and I consistently choose my iPad mini. I only wish I didn't have to recharge it because I use it so much, it's rarely away from me long enough. I charge it overnight but that's a hassle because I don't want to have to fumble around in the dark for my cable to plug it in.

* (It's really quite ridiculous, but that's the subject of a different thread and maybe many years of therapy...)

[psmith2.0]

The Lightning connector has made that one little thing easier/quicker. Before, I'd use the light from my iPhone to try and see which side of the 30-pin connector had the little front-facing "insert this way" symbol on it. Now I just plug it in any way - iPhone 5 and my iPad - and it doesn't matter. And my iPhone charges so fast using the wall charger from the iPad. That's what I have plugged in beside my bed. It's amazing...

[turtle]

I finally held one today at Best Buy. It is really nice (Mini) for the size. I don't mind the lack of Retina display on it either. Mrs T. wants one so I'm very tempted to get her one. Just not sure yet. She want a black 64 GB one... (She does have an iPhone 5)

Is it worth it, really?

I personally want a 64GB iPad with Retina display to replace my 1st gen 16GB version. Tired of my games crashing on this old thing!

[psmith2.0]

On my iPad 4 right now. The more I use it, the more I love it. It's my "everything" machine, to my surprise.

[Wrao]

The more I use my mini, the more I like it but also the more I recognize things I wish it did better. The maddening thing is that one of the functions I really wanted an iPad for was to load up all my sheet music, put it on my music stand and use it for practicing. The iPad mini can do this just fine but the size is ever so slightly too small to be comfortable for reading music. Some things it works better than others, but if it is some jazz chart that has actual notated piano voicings in clusters it's not really practical. So for that reason alone, I am still considering getting a full sized iPad, perhaps a cheap old one, to dedicate solely to that task(wouldn't be opposed to an android tablet for this if the price was right, to be fair), and that is a little annoying because I truly wanted the iPad Mini to accomplish everything I hoped it could.

Beyond that, iBooks really isn't great. It's slow, takes a while to launch and load my library and then longer still to load the book I'm reading, navigating the book store is clumsy and has frozen up on me more than a few times, and the entire format seems more limited than kindle. Most annoyingly, and trying into my earlier point about sheet music, but I purchased a Bill Evans songbook today expecting the pages to be full of sheet music that I could easily pinch and zoom and navigate around, but all of the notation bits are handled by a picture planted in the middle of the page, which if you ask me is an extremely inelegant and dated method of handling such a thing, to make that worse, although you can click on that picture and have it take up the entirety of the screen and then pinch and zoom all day long, if you want to get to the next page you have to leave that picture, flip the page, and then select the next picture manually again. This is just all very clumsy, especially compared to the Kindle (app) 's handling of .PDFs where everything is smooth and malleable and flexible.

Any entrepreneurial minds could likely make out well for themselves if they created an elegant and content rich music notation app/bookstore, niche though it might be, there just doesnt' seem to be a 'good' way of doing this on the iPad and every method takes more finagling than should be necessary.

[Partial]

The killer "app" for me on the mini is the ability to thumb type comfortably. For example, I'm doing this right now while watching the football game laying on the couch. I could not do this with the full size iPad. This device is literally perfect in every way imaginable. I could see using this on a daily basis for email, web browsing, etc. I NEVER used my full size iPad unless my MBP battery died. I literally could not be happier!

[Yontsey]

Did you have trouble typing on the full sized iPad with split keyboard? I'm typing on it right now and have no issues.

[Wrao]

I agree that thumb typing is a great aspect of the mini, I find that I type worse on it than I do on the iPhone though for some reason. Part of it is because I am more prone to not looking at the keyboard oddly enough, but also the wider spacing does seem to cause me to 'miss' a little bit more, versus the iPhone spacing. The annoying part is that I'm not really getting much better at it, and autocorrect is starting to pick up on a few of the more common mistakes I make and default to them in bizarre ways. Not a big fan of the split keyboard, but it is a nice feature, I especially like how you can activate it by pinching the spacebar apart and then move it anywhere on the screen. I actually kind of prefer thumb typing in landscape mode.

[kieran]

I only opened my MBP once this weekend...and that was to add movies to my mini.

I've been using the mini for almost everything, including taking notes during a work session all day yesterday. This thing is well worth the money.

[bassplayinMacFiend]

I sooooo like the mini, but I get vertigo when using Safari in portrait orientation. I know it sounds stupid, but I spent a good 15 minutes with it in Best Buy. Everything else was fine to my eyes, but Safari portrait for some reason makes me feel like I'm gonna vom.

I don't understand it, never had the problem with the iPhone 1 or 3GS or iPad 1/2 even.

[Partial]

Originally Posted by Yontsey Did you have trouble typing on the full sized iPad with split keyboard? I'm typing on it right now and have no issues.

No, I didn't, but I wasn't a big fan of it either. Truth be told, I never really gave it a fair shot I'm sure.

I'm not hardcore into apps or anything, this is purely a casual, fun usage device for when I'm sitting around. The portrait orientation makes Twitter, Facebook and general web surfing a breeze. I'm a big fan.

What orientation do you guys primarily use?

[Mugge]

Both equally much. Mostly portrait for browsing or reading and landscape for watching videos, typing or viewing wide/detailed websites.

[psmith2.0]

Originally Posted by kieran I only opened my MBP once this weekend...and that was to add movies to my mini. I've been using the mini for almost everything, including taking notes during a work session all day yesterday. This thing is well worth the money.

This Friday marks one month with iPad. In this time between November 14 until now, I've used my iMac twice. And once was during initial setup, to put my photos and music on the thing. When I'm at home, I use my iPad for everything it seems.

[Yontsey]

Originally Posted by Partial What orientation do you guys primarily use?

Landscape 100%. I keep it locked in this mode and can't remember the last time I've used portrait mode.

[kieran]

Portrait is great for typing and browsing.

I go back and forth on how I hold it randomly. Not really any rhyme or reason really

[Brave Ulysses]

On an iPad 3 I use portrait pretty much exclusively. I never understood the appeal of landscape on the iPad... at least the full size one. It seems all internet content is formatted in portrait, the size of the device is awkward in landscape, your hands cover the speaker in landscape, and the power button is more prone to being pressed in landscape, and thumb typing in landscape is nearly impossible.

But that's the big iPad.... I have no experience with the iPad mini but if a lot of you are saying that landscape is more comfortable for you on it, I wonder if your experience would be the opposite on the larger iPad. Even then I'm a bit surprised because using the mini in landscape means you need two hands, so there goes that benefit. I suspect that if you do prefer using the mini in landscape for browsing or reading it may mean that the mini is actually too small.

[Wrao]

I use the Mini in portrait mode most of the time, but when I hunker down with some content I often prefer landscape mode pretty much regardless of what the content is, also tend to prefer landscape mode for typing.

[Brave Ulysses]

Originally Posted by Wrao I use the Mini in portrait mode most of the time, but when I hunker down with some content I often prefer landscape mode pretty much regardless of what the content is, also tend to prefer landscape mode for typing.

Those of you have used both for more than a few minutes.... do you think that an inbetween size would be the best of both worlds?

[Wyatt]

Originally Posted by Brave Ulysses Those of you have used both for more than a few minutes.... do you think that an inbetween size would be the best of both worlds?

You mean something like an 8.5 or 9" screen? I'm not sure I'd be able to tell much of a difference between that and the 10". I owned a first-gen iPad, and now I have a mini. There's a significant difference in how (and how much!) I use the mini, but I think I'd probably treat anything larger more like I did the 10".

[murbot]

I am having one hell of a time deciding between these things. I spent half an hour this morning using them and still haven't made up my mind.

I'd use an iPad4 and think ok yeah, this one is it, awesome screen, faster, better camera, larger screen...

Then I'd go pick up a Mini and think jesus this thing is so light, and the screen is just fine, it's so easy to hold and a great size, camera isn't as good but it's an iPad so it's basically an "in a pinch" camera, it's not like I'm going to take pictures with an iPad all day, what a sweet unit, love the design, this is going to work.

Then I'd go back to the iPad4 and flick through some photos, and change my mind again. Ugh.

I almost want to buy one of each and return the one I love the least after a couple of days, but I'm not sure I want to be "that guy". This is a friggin hard decision!!

[torifile]

murb, you'll never be "that guy" with me around.

[psmith2.0]

All I can say is this...if you get a 64GB iPad 4, it can pretty much become your sole computer if you're a casual, low-key user (surfing, games, email, reading, music, photos, etc.). That's the neat thing I'm experiencing this past 3-4 weeks.

I actually thinking "maybe I shouldn't see/hold an iPad mini, because then I'll be tempted".

Originally Posted by torifile murb, you'll never be "that guy" with me around.

This is true. Tori's got it bad. Cool thing is, he doesn't have far to go if he needs to some help with it.

[murbot]

Originally Posted by pscates2.0 All I can say is this...if you get a 64GB iPad 4, it can pretty much become your sole computer if you're a casual, low-key user (surfing, games, email, reading, music, photos, etc.). That's the neat thing I'm experiencing this past 3-4 weeks.

Yeah, that's actually what I'm thinking. My MacBook is being handed down to my daughter at Christmas, and almost all of my use the past year is internet, email, watching movies and TV shows, and handling family photos. I could do this stuff with an iPad easily. Actually I'll probably end up doing more on the iPad that I do with the MacBook, once I unleash myself on the App Store.

I still have my iMac at home if I need it, but I imagine 99% of the time I'll be on the iPad.

I actually thinking "maybe I shouldn't see/hold an iPad mini, because then I'll be tempted".

Probably not a bad idea!

[murbot]

Originally Posted by torifile murb, you'll never be "that guy" with me around.

Originally Posted by pscates2.0 This is true. Tori's got it bad. Cool thing is, he doesn't have far to go if he needs to some help with it.

Good to know. I won't feel so bad doing this, knowing I'm not alone.

Hey Tory, do you ever feel any guilt about this and go sit on the couch to have a talk with yourself?

[torifile]

Originally Posted by murbot Good to know. I won't feel so bad doing this, knowing I'm not alone. Hey Tory, do you ever feel any guilt about this and go sit on the couch to have a talk with yourself?

Guilt? About returning things I'm not satisfied with? No way. I don't ever buy something to "rent" it, though. I just sometimes need extended periods of time to decide if I want something.

[murbot]

ARGH.

I need to quit reading stuff.

The iPad Mini is the best tablet

(found via kottke)

The iPad mini is the best tablet to get and lets be honest, it's way better than the full sized iPad for nearly everyone. I'd even go so far as to say that the full sized iPad is plain obscene after using the mini.

Well, shit. This really helps. I clicked this link about a half hour after making my decision (so I thought).

[thegeriatric]

I have an original iPad (Heavy) I played with iPad mini in store for over half an hour, so light, screen size is fine, build quality fantastic, everything about it shouts buy me.....................I will soon.............resistance is futile.............

murbot. I'll bet this helps you to decide (not)............

[psmith2.0]

Just as I (and many others) figured...

http://iphone.appleinsider.com/artic...na _ipad.html

[Wrao]

I mean, around Black Friday I went to Best Buy as well as pinged various Apple Stores and the Mini was completely sold out across the board while pretty much every model of iPad 4 was available(I think wifi 16gb was out of stock at BB). I doubt the iPad 4 has really been sold out much at all anywhere.