Apple iPad mini 4: Unboxing & Review By DetroitBORG

What's up guys Mike here the Detroit work, and today we're taking a look at the brand new iPad Mini 4, which is the first complete redesign of the iPad Mini sit sit launched, but really the iPad Mini 4 is kind of playing catch-up to last year's iPad Air 2. So we get an all-new design which is now much thinner. The display is now laminated to the glass, and it's a much better-looking display. We also get new cameras on both the front and back once again touch ID is returning, and we get some improved specs, which are not quite identical to the iPad Air 2, which we'll talk about now. The iPad Mini starts off at 399 and is available in gold, silver and Space Gray. We have three capacities to pick from 16 64 and 128 gigs.

You can also add cellular connectivity for 129 dollars above that, and you can sign up for contract free service using the Apple SIM included, so checking out the box on the front will find the iPad Mini in profile, highlighting it's very thin, 6.1 millimeter edge along the back, no more fine print. Here we know exactly what we're getting inside the box this time. So in my case, I have a fully loaded, iPad Mini 4 in gold, 120 gigs with cellular first up, let's go ahead and remove the plastic, so we can get into the box lifting the lid. The first thing we'll see here is our iPad Mini 4, which looks very familiar soon. As we pick it up, we can see it's covered in this sort of frosted plastic, which we can peel off really easily, and there we go first thing: I noticed right away, is just how thin and light the iPad Mini 4 is.

It is the lightest tablet. Apple offers now, which is kind of nice, feels really great in the hand right away, and I really like this gold color. It also feels really rigid with this nice aluminum construction. So let's set that aside for just a minute, so we can take a look at the contents. First thing we have here is our lyric packet, so if we pop it open, the first thing we'll see here is a sim ejection tool.

If you get the cellular model below that, we'll find some paperwork, including a Quick Start Guide also find our safety and warranty information below that and a set of white Apple stickers. We also have our essential accessories, including a 10 watt, travel charger. So this is a very familiar Apple accessory. We have our folding prongs, which pop off, which allows you to either add an extension, cable or swap out for different wall adapters if you're traveling. Of course, we have our neatly packaged USB to lightning cable, so getting back to the iPad Mini 4.

Let's go ahead and boot it up for the first time, so we can set it now. Part of the setup process involves setting up the fingerprint scanner which you can skip. If you want, you can do this later or add different fingers later so once that's all set up we're good to go, and we can take a close look around so first up we have our new and approved 7.9 inch Retina display. So we have a resolution of 2048 by 1536 good for 326 PPI now in terms of specs, that's identical to the previous generation, but we have a much better display this time again. This is LCD IPS grain off access, viewing angles, but this has a much better color gamut from last year.

It's very similar to the iPad Air 2, so colors are much more vivid. The display is brighter with deeper contrast. It's a really good-looking display, and this definitely makes the iPad Mini 3s display, look, dark and dingy. There's also a few other tricks going on here. The display is now laminate to the glass again like the iPad Air 2, so there's less gap between the displaying glass.

We also have a new anti-reflective coating on the glass again like the iPad Air 2. Now it's not completely glare free here, but it does help quite a bit. So if you compare it to the iPad Mini 3 from last year, you can see it does a pretty good job sort of filtering light, so it doesn't completely wash out what you're, looking at now down below returning once again is our fingerprint sensor, which was the only addition to the iPad Mini 3 from last year. So once again we have the sapphire lens, covering the fingerprint sensor, surrounded by a metal ring color match to the body of the iPad Mini, which acts as a capacitive trigger for the future toward the top. We have our new and improved FaceTime HD camera with a wider aperture and the bigger sensor, which lets a lot more line in it definitely improves, but it's still 720p video is essentially the same camera that was added to Apple devices last year.

We also have an ambient light sensor somewhere in the bezel, but it is hidden this time along the back. Furthermore, we have this nice aluminum unibody design with this anodized gold finish, which looks really sharp here so toward the center. Furthermore, we have our polished, Apple logo, which is a separate component. It's not just polished into the metal now toward the top, because I have the cellular version. I have this little white plastic trim piece which allows the LTE radio and GPS antennas to work through the metal body, not in this upper left corner you'll find a lot going on here, including our new and improved eyesight 8 megapixels, rear-facing camera, which is flanked by a set of dual microphones.

We also have our sleep/wake power button toward the top, and we have our new volume up and down keys along the side which pick up that similar recession that solved with the iPad Air 2, which is also polished, which looks kind of nice now, if equipped along the lower right edge, you'll find your SIM tray. So again, this is a NATO SIM which you can eject and included. Here is an apple SIM, which means I can sign up for whatever cellular service I want toward. The bottom will find our lightning connector with this color match frame surrounding it. We also have a set of stereo speakers picking up the design of the iPad Air 2, also in the upper right, we'll find our headphone jack with a color matched insert now.

The iPad Mini 4 is powered by an a8 processor clocked at 1.5 gigahertz. So that is not the 8x in the iPad Air 2. The difference is that's a TRI core processor. The a8 is a dual-core processor, but we still get 2 gigs of ram in both, so that's a significant upgrade from the last generation. So how does this relate to the other iPad? So we take a look at the iPad Air 2.

You can see there's a pretty significant performance gap both on the single core score and the multi-core score, especially the multi-core score. Again. We're going from three cores to two cores now compared to the previous iPad minis we're seeing an incremental increase in terms of performance here for the iPad Mini, for both the iPad Mini 3 and iPad Mini 2 were basically the same devices in terms of specs, but obviously a huge leap from the original iPad Mini. So that means the iPad Mini 4 picks up a lot of the multitasking features that were only available on the iPad Air 2. So that means the iPad Mini 4 can support side by side apps instead of just slide over.

This also means we get picture in pictures so for apps that supported like Apple's video app. That means we can pop out a video watch it as a thumbnail resize it if we want and tuck it to the side. If we want to move it out of the way that means we can have two apps open while watching video. At the same time it all works really smoothly. Now, comparing the Mini 3 to the menu 4, we can actually see that the Mini 4, even though it's thinner, is a bit taller than the Mini 3.

So we go from 200 millimeters to 203 point 2 millimeters. So just three point two millimeters, but it is noticeable side-by-side now, in terms of width, are basically identical, but technically the iPad Mini 4 is 1/10 of a millimeter wider than the Mini 3. Now, in terms of thinness, we go from 7.5 millimeters to 6.1 millimeters, and perhaps the biggest change here is weight. We go from 340 on grams to 304 grams, which makes it a really lightweight tablet. We're also seeing a pretty big upgrade in terms of camera, so we go from 5 megapixels to 8 megapixels with an F 2.4 aperture again. This also features all the focusing and can record in 1080p video with slow-motion and just like the iPad Air 2, the iPad Mini 4 eliminates the physical switch that was available on the previous iPad minis.

That is now a software feature which you can quickly. Access from the control center they've also relocated the microphones from the top edge to just around the camera module. The idea here is that you are less likely to muffle them if they're in that position toward the bottom, we have a new speaker design, which is very similar to other Apple devices like the iPhones, the iPad Air, 2, etc. So it's just a single roll of perforations instead of the double row from the previous generations. Now, if you look toward the top, you can see that that trim piece for the cellular radio is actually a bit wider on the new fourth-generation.

We can also see the headphone jack and roughly the same location, just modify it for the thinness of the tablet. We also have the SIM tray in roughly the same location along the right side. If equipped now in terms of overall performance, the iPad Mini 4 definitely feels really quick, but maybe not as quick as the iPad Air 2, but definitely a little quicker than the iPad Mini 3. And if you compare them side by side, you can see navigating and launching apps it's a little quicker on the iPad Mini 4 versus the iPad Mini 3, but again not a huge departure. Now in terms of touch ID.

This does not feature the new second-generation touch ID on the iPhone 6s. So speed is about the same here. There really is no consistent difference now, as always, because the iPad Mini is such a compact tablet with very narrow bezels. There is some degree of palm rejection or thumb rejection in this case along the edge of the tablet. So when you're gripping the tablet, you may overlap the display.

Well, you have to worry about it because the software is aware of that, and it doesn't read that as an intentional press of the display and won't get in the way. Now, with the new and improved camera. We do pick up a new feature here which wasn't available on the previous generation, which is burst mode, so I have to do to take a burst mode. This tap it and hold the shutter release and takes a series of images, and you can go back later and select the image you want to save. So in terms of camera calling once again, we have an 8 megapixel iSight camera on the back, a jump from the 5 megapixel from last year, again an F 2.4 M. But if you combine that with the new 8 image processors built into the chip, we get perfect results here.

So images come out really clear and crisp with good exposure and color reproduction. Although color tends to be a little washed out here, that's also the case on the iPad Air 2. We also have pretty impressive low-light performance here, especially for a tablet. So images come out relatively clear and smooth the camera is able to find focus fairly quickly and accurately, and we don't see a lot of that artifacts or interference that happens when over processing low-light images. Video also looks great here, so Apple has perfect software stabilization.

There's no optical image stabilization here, but we do get excellent results in terms of handheld video. The only problem with this camera is that we do not have continuous, autofocusing, so you will have to tap the screen to just focus if you change your shot. But again, video comes up clear and crisp with good detail: color reproduction and exposure, so overall a great camera system very much like the one on the iPad Air 2. What's up guys Mike here, the Detroit Borg testing out the FaceTime HD camera on the iPad Mini 4, which is a camera we saw introduced last year on the iPad Air 2 and the iPhones, but pylons making into the iPad Mini, definitely makes a big improvement here. Lets a lot more lighting, but still records at 720p, HD video in terms of FaceTime HD cameras.

It's pretty good now in terms of gaming performance, although we don't have the potential that the iPad Air 2 has in terms of graphics performance, you do get pretty good results here for most games and really this is an excellent experience. A nice doubt most people will find need for the processing power in the iPad Air 2. Yet for most games they play they've, also improved the speakers of the iPad Mini 4. It's not a huge improvement here, but audio does sound a little deeper, richer and louder than the previous generation. Now it's not quite as loud as the iPad Air 2, but it's very similar in quality.

So let's go ahead and take a listen. What's up guys Mike here, the Detroit Board, with a really quick look checking out the new lighting docs for the iPhone 6s and 6s plus. So, if you remember from May of this year, I did a review of the white plastic iPhone lightning dock, which was a universal dock that basically worked with any iPhone that has a lightning connector else. It works right on touches, or even the iPod NATO now in terms of battery performance. Of course, this varies depending on what you're doing, but with my Geek bench testing I was able to get a little over four hours at maximum brightness, which is about what I expected.

This is very similar to the previous generation, but of course you can do a lot better if you manage screen brightness. So in conclusion, I really like the iPad Mini 4 I, like its thin lightweight design that finally picks up the new display from the iPad Air 2, which makes a huge difference. It makes the iPad Mini from the previous generations look dingy and dark. By comparison again, we have touch ID. We have improved cameras, good performance, that's able to keep up with iOS 9, along with all those multitasking features which we really like to have on the iPad, and you just can't beat the portability of the iPad Mini compared to the other iPad options.

It's by far the lightest. It's much more compact, which I think makes this iPad a lot more comfortable, handle over extended periods of time, especially for typing, because you can really type comfortably in portrait or landscape orientation and with all these upgrades, it's a little harder to decide between the iPad Air 2 and the iPad Mini 4, because there isn't this huge gulf in terms of their capabilities and quality. Alrighty, guys hope you enjoyed this video. If you did, please give it a thumbs up to. Let me know, thanks for watching, and I'll, see you again in the next video.

Source : DetroitBORG