iPad Mini 2021 vs. iPad 9th gen, reviewed: Which to buy

Speaker 1: It's late September, school's already in session. And now apple has two new iPads, the iPad ninth generation and the iPad mini, which do you get if any of them let's break it down. Speaker 1: So I've been using the iPad and iPad mini for the week or so roughly, and I've had a chance to get used to them. I've also used all the previous iPads from the past few years and known how those [00:00:30] have performed. It turns out that you don't need to spend a lot of money for an iPad, even though apple will put you all the way up into the a thousand dollars plus range for iPad pros, they all generally run the same iPad OS and handle multitasking and all those things in a similar way. But it's about the extras and the other features and how versatile they are. Speaker 1: So let's look at the iPad mini first, the iPad mini's been out for a couple of years, and this finally got all of the [00:01:00] upgrades that the iPad air got last year. It looks like an iPad pro it's got a larger screen with less bezel. It's got a new processor, the a 15, which is the same one that's in the new iPhones. It also has new cameras. It has center stage, which is a digital zooming feature that was on the iPad pro earlier this year for video chat. It also has us B, C there's a lot of stuff here. It also supports second generation pencil finally, so you can snap it on the side [00:01:30] ally. Fantastic. Right. So, and also it's got 5g. I didn't even mention that. There's a reason why I didn't mention that. And I'll get into that in a sec. Sounds like a great package, except for the fact that this is small. Like really so mall for me, Speaker 1: The new iPad mini is the same size roughly as the one that came out a couple of years ago, but the design is completely different. It's an E 0.3 inch display now, but this size is a tweener [00:02:00] size. It's kind of like a Kindle or a soft cover, but it's not like a full size iPad in the sense that, um, I found that looking at things and reading things and multitasking was a little harder, but it's clearly bigger than an iPhone. So what are you gonna do with this mean, if you think of an iPad as a year reader, as a gaming device, as a thing to watch movies casually a really cute size, the problem is that apple has priced this really high for kids. It starts [00:02:30] at $500 for the 64 gigabyte version. And then if you're gonna get the one with, for 2 56, that's gonna cost you $650. Speaker 1: Add on a case $60, add an apple pencil, two $130. You're looking at spending like $840 for an iPad package, which is a lot of money. So you better be sure you really, really want an iPad mini for those people, which is a niche crowd. This is a really perfect upgrade to [00:03:00] the one that came out two years ago, which felt like it had a new chip, but not much else. This finally has a complete feature set, kind of the feature set that I'd won in the entry level iPad. But of course, that would bump up the price that's called the iPad air, but the iPad air that came out last year, doesn't have all the things that this mini has. For instance, that one doesn't have the 5g, which is not millimeter wave it's sub six, which means that speeds are not that fast compared to what 5g could [00:03:30] be. Speaker 1: And it also doesn't have the center stage for digital zooming, which is a useful feature and has an eight 14 versus this year's a 15. So the iPad mini for a hundred dollars less seems like a really good buy, but it's small. And apple does not support any keyboard cases for this. There's no smart keyboard magic keyboard that attaches to this. So you could pair a Bluetooth keyboard. But, uh, you know, I really like the idea of typing on an iPad using a track pad or mouse that's [00:04:00] really hard to do on this mini it's. It's clearly not aimed for that. So that takes off a lot of the flexibility. Speaker 1: Still. I found that it was growing on me, the more I used it. And I found as I went outside and I started carrying it around with me, I found the size really attractive. I mean, it's clearly like a secondary iPad, which is already a secondary device for some people. So you could be like tertiary coronary device, but I think the iPad mini, [00:04:30] um, is really nice for what it is 5g. Well, look again, in my area using a Verizon SIM, I found that I got speeds anywhere two 70 to one 30, not very fast, basically like LTE speeds. But I think when you add cellular to an iPad, you really have to want it because it costs you, um, an extra a hundred dollars plus $150 to add the 5g cellular option plus [00:05:00] the data plan. So that's a lot of money. Somebody else should be paying you to do that, like a business or something, because I would rather tether with my phone, the larger display on the iPad mini doesn't mean that it's gonna be larger for everything. Speaker 1: It's a little bit longer in aspect ratio, which means that movies look larger compared to the iPad mini of the previous generation, but games and other things like PDFs can sometimes look pillar, boxed and end up looking effectively the [00:05:30] same size or even a tiny bit smaller apps are going to get auto updated in a lot of instances to this new aspect ratio like on previous iPads. But it's something to keep in mind because that 8.3 inch may not be as dramatic as you think it is. That being said, it's really nice for films. And it seems pretty good for things like going on safari and, and scrolling through Twitter. Multitasking is possible on the mini. And when you do that, it's kind of like splitting it into [00:06:00] two phone pans, um, which is nicer than what you can do on an iPhone, but just don't expect too much, but this brings up something else. Speaker 1: Isn't this kind of like the prototype for some sort of folding device that apple might make in the future. If you look at it compared to something like the micro or soft surface duo, it's pretty much the same size phone manufacturers are now exploring folding devices that are getting to that effective eight inch type of range without having to have a larger tablet. That could be where [00:06:30] apple goes in the future. We don't know, but this is the closest thing to that tablet and Apple's lineup at the moment. I wouldn't call it a own because it's not really, um, it's not as durable and it's not, uh, got all the phone app features, but if you connect it with cellular or tether, it, it's kind of an interesting proposition. It's kind of a game console to me. It's kind of any reader. It's a little bit of a Kindle. It's a little bit of all of those things and that's the way I felt about it before. Um, you probably [00:07:00] know who you are if you want to get an iPad mini, but it's too expensive for kids right Speaker 1: Now. The iPad ninth gen is kind of defaulting as the must. Haveve iPad for most people. The price is easily the most affordable iPad that apple has starting at $330. Apple also updated the base storage to 64 gigabytes. And the bump up one, which is 4 79 has 256 gigs. That's better than the 32 and 1 28 [00:07:30] from last year. If you've recently got an iPad, you don't need to upgrade. Uh, iPads are good for years generally, but there are some key up grades on the ninth gen versus last year's eighth gen one is the a 13 processor, which is pretty fast. Um, it's good enough is what I would say. Um, and a nice boost for most tasks over what you would've gotten last year with the a 12. The other thing, this has a center stage. This is a digital, like I said, a [00:08:00] digital zoom feature for video chats. It's on by default and they have to turn it off inside the control center by swiping down, which I found kind of hard to figure out at first, but when it's on it, zooms in on FaceTimes and zooms and other things and keeps track of where you are as you move around. Speaker 2: Well, who is this? Hello? Hey, Hey, what's Speaker 1: Up buddy? Hey, what's up? Hey, does [00:08:30] it seem annoying when I'm doing this? Does it seem off putting Speaker 3: No, it seems very natural. That's the, what's insane about it is this Dr. Herky. It's very, uh, the transitions are very Speaker 1: Subtle. I like having this feature. The cameras are also better. So for video chats, it's good. Although your point of view, uh, when you look at people is still gonna be a little off center because that camera is still on the side edge. When you put it in landscape mode, I'd love for the camera to be on top. That's how most people stand [00:09:00] up their iPads. But what I love about this ninth gen iPad is just like, before it works with keyboard cases, it's got pencil support, although it's first gen pencils. So you have to jam in to the lightning port. And that means that you could use it as a keyboard type of laptop thing. You could use it for sketching and it has that versatility. It doesn't support second gen pencil, and it doesn't have USBC, which is annoying. It still has lightning, [00:09:30] but maybe that's a trade off for the affordability. Speaker 1: One thing it does have a headphone that's, right? This is the last iPad on earth that has a real headphone Jack, which I find really useful with my family. The iPad is not a tremendously exciting device. It looks pretty throwback and it still has that circular home button in the front and a lot of screen bezzle, but that 10.2 inch screen's perfectly good for multitasking and for films, even if it's not the most spectacularly [00:10:00] exciting and beautiful iPad that apple makes is a very functional one. And with the rest of the lineup, looking really expensive and very specialized, it makes me go back to that entry level, iPad and say, unless you have a real reason to get that other stuff, I feel like you're much better off getting one of those entry level ones, which works perfectly fine, but I understand the temptation anyway, hope that helps. We're already too deep in the school year for this to be back to school. But that's what Apple's iPad lineup looks like [00:10:30] right now beyond the lookout for sales throughout the holiday season, of course, which could drop prices on things and change the equation. Maybe that iPad airdrops in price, or maybe one of last year's models like a previous iPad pro or something like that goes on sale too. Hope you found this useful. If you have any questions or comments, please leave them below I'm Scott Stein. Thanks for watching.