Apple iPad mini 2 – Arguably The best Value In Apple’s 56-Model iPad Lineup
Apple’s $299.00 iPad mini 2 is the “best value iOS product on the market today, letting you into the Apple app world without breaking the bank.” notes PC Mag’s Sascha Segan, who suggests that the mini 2 is also the logical successor to the now”somewhat marooned” iPod touch, and “the best inexpensive on-ramp to the world of iOS apps.”
Photo Courtesy Apple
The mini 2 is of course no more or less than the late 2013 iPad mini with Retina Display with a couple of storage memory option reductions (happily, 32 GB is still available for just $50 extra) and a 25 percent price cut. So much so that PC Mag’s editors were able to just dust off Sagan’s November 14, 2013 review of the iPad mini With Retina Display, update the name and price, and rerun it otherwise nearly verbatim.
The mini 2 is simply a rip-roaring great deal from Apple for anyone looking for a relatively inexpensive compact tablet. Yes, there are a gaggle of cheaper Android 7-8-inch tablets available, but none of them support the unmatched iOS App Store selection of software.
Sagan doesn’t rank the mini 2 as the PC Mag Editors’ Choice, which goes the Samsung Galaxy Tab S 8.4, but says if you want all of that Apple app goodness, the mini 2 is a terrific balance of price and power. I also much prefer the iPad’s 4:3 aspect ratio display to the 16:9 panels used by most of the competition. I’m not interested in watching full-length movies or even TV shows on a regular basis on iPad sized screens (9.7-inch or 7.9-inch), and 4:3 is superior for almost everything else.
Photo Courtesy Apple
Personally, I was sorely tempted to go with a mini 2 as an upgrade to my old iPad 2, but in the end went with the iPad Air 2. However, the mini 2 would have given me big boost in usable performance for a little more than half the cash outlay. And it is without any doubt a superior value compared with the iPad mini 3, which offers the exact same amount of computing power with its 1.3GHz Apple A7 processor, M7 motion coprocessor, and same 7.9-inch, 2,048 x 1,536-Retina touchscreen, only giving you Touch ID and a gold enclosure cover option for its one third higher price — arguably the worst value in Apple’s tablet fleet.
Unless you really, really love the gold color (my new iPad Air 2 is gold, but I don’t love it 100 bucks worth more) and Touch ID (which isn’t fully enabled for Apple Pay on the iPad), the mini 2 is the no-brainer value choice in an entry-level iPad.
You can read the full PC Mag review here:
http://bit.ly/1zAePN9
