-What's up Prizefight fans?
I'm Brian Tong and the two 7-inch tablet kings are finally ready to duke it out.
It's a Prizefight punchout between the iPad Mini with Retina Display and the new Nexus 7. Our judges for this fight: our Senior Editor Eric 'The Tank Man' Franklin, Associate Editor Xiomara 'Knock Out' Blanco, and you know who, you can't go wrong Tong.
We'll take all of three judges' blind scores and average them out to the tenth of a point.
The final Prizefight score will be an average of all rounds doing the same system.
Let's get ready to rumble.
Round one is design.
The iPad Mini Retina finally brings the upgrade people have been waiting for with its 7.9-inch Retina Display at 326 pixels per inch.
Its design is still superior with an all metal body weighing in at 331 grams with clean edges and a 4 x 3 screen ratio, but it's lower
color gamut is noticeable when matched up side-by-side.
Now, the new Nexus 7 brings a slightly thicker but lighter design at 290 grams with its plastic body and rubber backing, but we all miss the leathery feel from the first gen.
It's 7-inch 323 pixels per inch screen is just as sharp as the naked eye, but it brings a fuller color gamut that's more vibrant with its 16 x 9 ratio that's also brighter.
Design is in the eye of the beholder, but the Retina Mini's bigger screen and slicker design gets the edge with a 4.3
to 4. Next round is controls and user interface.
The iPad Mini Retina brings iOS 7 and it will always be the easiest pick-up-and-play interface.
The home button has multiple functions to access current apps and a few basic settings or you can hold it for Siri.
Get me tickets to Frozen.
-Here's Frozen playing today, I can get tickets for you.
-You'll also have a notifications pulled down from the top and control center from the bottom
up, but its lack of customization is limiting.
The new Nexus 7 brings the latest pure KitKat 4.4 experience with multiple users and restrictive profiles for family members.
Android's customization for widgets and putting folders in the doc isn't going away.
Notification started in Android before anyone else, swiping from the bottom up, get your Google Now, and swiping it from the top right and down, get's you quick access to your key settings.
Now it may not be as user-friendly, but customization is
key here, and the Nexus 7 takes this round 4.3 to 4. So, after averaging 2 rounds, we're tied.
Next round is speakers.
Both tablets pack Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and 4G LTE options, but you won't find any memory expansion slots here.
The Retina comes in 16, 32, 64, and 128 gig flavors with the newest A7 dual-core processor that's on par with the full size iPad Air.
Now Siri has a prettier interface,
but Google Now is still better and Apple's Maps have improved a lot.
You can view the content that's on your iPad Mini to a TV set connected with an Apple TV if you live in the Apple ecosystem, and it's still that ecosystem that's Apple's strongest feature with its App store that really has the most tablet dedicated apps.
Now the new Nexus 7 comes with 16 or 32 gigs of storage and a quad-core Snapdragon S4 Pro processor that delivers, but we're talking about the most feature pack 7-inch tablet
here.
Google Now's voice search and commands are unmatched in speed and accuracy compared to Siri, Google Maps is still more reliable than Apples.
You'll have just your typing by tracing over letters to make words.
Android Beam brings NFC capabilities, and you can now stream some of your content wirelessly to a television set with the Chromecast.
It also brings surround sound speakers that the iPad is still lacking, and the new Nexus 7 even supports wireless charging.
The Nexus 7 shines here with
a perfect 5, and the iPad Mini gets a 4. Next round is web browsing and multimedia.
Google's new Nexus 7 brings the best mobile browsing with Chrome.
It has an incognito mode for private browsing and syncs your bookmarks across devices.
The iPad Mini brings Safari, which is just sold with a snappy pinch and zoom, cloud synching of bookmarks on other i devices in its own private browsing mode.
But Chrome works on both platforms and it's our browser of choice.
Now video quality looks
great on these two tablets, but the new Nexus 7 has the edge with its brighter screen and fuller color gamut, that's noticeable.
And its 16 x 9 resolution makes the iPad Mini's 4 x 3 res look like a lot of wasted space at times.
But if you're talking web browsing, then the iPad Mini gets the edge.
Now, the multimedia gap between the iTunes store and Google Play store is really close, but Apple still brings more exclusive content overall.
Both tablets have front facing cameras and 5-megapixel rear cameras that shoot
1080p video, but how many of you actually use them for this in public?
Well, actually, a lot of you.
Now, this round could go either way and we're calling it a tie at 4.3 points-a-piece.
So, after averaging four rounds, the new Nexus has a slight lead.
Round five is performance.
Both of these tablets feel fast and snappy overall, but we'd give the iPad Mini Retina the real world edge with pinching and zooming and apps, and overall, it's just a hair faster.
Now, benchmarks still mean everything,
but the Geekbench 3 benchmarks show a significant advantage with the iPad Mini Retina in single-core and multi-core processor performance over the new Nexus 7. The 3DMark Ice Storm Unlimited Graphics Performance benchmark also shows the same.
Really, the iPad Mini Retina's performance is on par with full size tablets.
Now, let's get to battery life and in CNET's video playback drain test, the new Nexus 7 gave us an impressive 11-1/2 hours of video playback, but the iPad Mini Retina boasts an
industry best 14 plus hours of Apple juice for a 7-inch tablet.
The iPad Mini Retina gets a perfect 5 and the Nexus 7 gets a 4. The final round that decides it all is value.
The new Nexus 7 16-gig Wi-Fi model starts at 229, the iPad Mini Retina 16-gig Wi-Fi model starts at 399.
Now the 32-gig Wi-Fi new Nexus is only at 269, the iPad Mini 32-gig Wi-Fi is 499, and that's
230 bucks more.
Now, if you wanna get to 32-gig 4G LTE versions for both, the new Nexus 7 is 349 and the iPad Mini is 629 for a $280 difference.
That's just brutal.
There's nothing to dispute here, the new Nexus 7 takes this round with a 4.7 and the iPad Mini gets a 3.7.
So, let's average out all 6 rounds and in a battle that was neck-to-neck until the end, it's the final round,
value, that decides it and the new Nexus 7 takes this battle 4.4 to 4.2 and is your Prizefight winner.
At the end of the day, you're looking at the iPad Mini Retina with full size tablet performance and a full size price versus the customizable feature pack new Nexus 7 at a reasonable price.
And the choice always comes down to you.
I'm Brian Tong.
Thanks for watching.
We'll catch you guys next time for another Prizefight.
Hey, hey, hey, hey.
